The spot holder's real cost

Four tracks assembled all-in costs. Crypto's spot version - the track's default holder - has a short, clean list, and the cleanness is part of why spot is where the track lives.

The spot lines

• The spread, both legs: at the chosen venue, pair and hour - lesson 2, and its floor is reached by trading deep and liquid.
• The fees, both legs: maker or taker per the execution choice - lesson 1, minimised by patience where the rule allows it.
• Transfer costs, if the strategy moves coins: lesson 3, occasional for a single-venue holder, a real line for anyone rebalancing custody or arbitraging venues.
• No funding: spot ownership holds the coin, not a derivative - there is no funding meter, no roll, no daily settlement; the cost of holding spot, after the doorway, is zero.

The worked spot trade

A £20,000 spot round trip on a deep venue: £40 of spread plus £40 of taker fees is £80, then nothing to hold - the equity track's cash-ownership structure, in crypto. Choose maker execution and the fees shrink or rebate; hold in self-custody and the only ongoing cost is the security effort, not a charge. Spot crypto is, in pure cost terms, one of the cheapest positions to hold on the platform - a fact the leverage layer's marketing obscures and this module restores.

Why the clean structure matters to the track

Because it is the honest recommendation the scope implies: the spot holder pays visible, controllable, one-off costs and no meter - while the leveraged trader pays funding that silently annualises into double digits. The track defaults to spot not only for access reasons - though those are real and stated - but because spot's cost structure is the one a retail trader can actually understand and control. Module 4 turns to the risk of holding this cheap, clean, wildly volatile asset - where the cost was never the danger.