I'm a noob to crypto trading. The price of PYRO on Uniswap is reflecting much, much lower than the price shown on Coinbase. If I make a small trade on Uniswap, should I expect the Uniswap price to update? I successfully swapped a very small amount of PYRO for ETH, but the price hadn't been updated at all when I immediately previewed a 2nd, similar swap (it was still reflecting much, much lower than the price shown on Coinbase). I was told that the price on uniswap is updated by trade operations, so I expected to see it update in Uniswap.
1 Answer
Yes, each trade changes the Uniswap pool balance (you input token A and take out token B), and therefore also the price.
Depending on the pool size (liquidity), small trades may not change the price by any noticeable amount. You can play around with the trade size in Uniswap web interface and it will tell you the price impact, in percentages.
answered Apr 16, 2021 at 10:42
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Thanks @Lauri Peltonen. The price didn't change to match the Coinbase price though. This is confusing me. Shouldn't there effectively be a central exchange rate that's referenced by all exchanges? A naive question I'm sure, but anything you can do to point me in the direction of how this works is greatly appreciated! Apr 16, 2021 at 12:36
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1There is no central authority for prices. If you find it cheaper somewhere, you can buy there and sell in Uniswap for profit. Repeat until the prices change to be too close to each other so there is no longer profit. Apr 16, 2021 at 14:53