Ask

An ask (also called an offer) is an order to sell an asset at a specific price, sitting on the sell side of an exchange's order book. The lowest ask is the best ask: the cheapest price at which anyone is currently willing to sell. When you buy with a market order, you buy from the asks.

For example, if the best ask on BTC/USDT is $60,100 for 0.8 BTC, a market buyer purchasing 0.5 BTC pays $60,100 per coin. A buyer wanting 2 BTC would consume that ask entirely and continue filling at higher ask prices, paying a progressively worse average price.

The best ask is always at least slightly above the best bid; the difference is the spread. Newcomers sometimes assume there is one single "price" for a coin, but in practice the quoted price is usually the last trade or the midpoint between bid and ask, while what you actually pay when buying instantly is the ask side of the book.