Maker

A maker is a trader whose order adds liquidity to the order book instead of executing immediately — typically a limit order placed away from the current price that rests until someone else trades against it. The name comes from "making" a market: makers post the prices at which others can trade.

For example, if BTC trades at $60,500 and you place a limit buy at $60,000, your order sits on the book. When a seller later hits your bid, you are the maker in that trade and the seller is the taker. Most exchanges charge makers lower fees than takers, and some pay makers rebates, because resting orders make the market deeper and cheaper for everyone.

Being a maker is not the same as being a professional market maker; any user whose limit order rests before filling gets maker treatment on that fill. One subtlety: a limit order priced aggressively enough to execute immediately (say a limit buy above the best ask) fills as a taker order, so "limit order" and "maker order" are not synonyms — what matters is whether the order rested on the book before matching.