Every order priced: why Burokku never sends a raw market order

When you press Buy at market on an exchange, you're asking for whatever the order book will give you, right now. On a deep market that's close to the price on your screen. On a thin one, or in a fast minute, it can be far off, and you find out once it has filled.

Burokku doesn't send that order. Every order it places for you carries a price, including the ones you mark as market. Here's what that means, what's checked first, and the one place we let an order fill at market on purpose.

What a market order really asks for

A market buy takes the cheapest offers on the book first, then the next ones up, until it's done. If the book is deep, that walk is short. If it's thin, a modest order can climb several levels, and the average you pay ends up well above the price you saw. That gap is slippage.

There's a worse case. A key that can trade but can't withdraw still has a way to lose money: whoever holds it can buy a thin market where they're the seller, at a price they choose. Nothing leaves the account, and the money is gone anyway. That's why the price on every order matters more to us than speed.

What Burokku sends instead

When you choose Market on an exchange trade, Burokku sends a limit order with a price cap, immediate-or-cancel:

• The cap is the live price plus your band for a buy, or minus it for a sell. The band starts at 2%, and you can set it between 0.5% and 5% under Limits.
• Immediate-or-cancel means the order fills now at the cap or better, and whatever can't fill is cancelled.
• When the exchange has its own price limits, the tighter of the two wins.

Before you confirm, the trade sheet shows what the order pays at most, or sells for at least. If the price runs past the cap, you're told plainly: not filled, nothing bought. A partial fill says how much, at what average, and that the rest was cancelled.

A limit order you set yourself has to sit inside the band too: a buy far above the live price is a market order in disguise, at a worse price, so Burokku refuses it.

What's checked first

Each order is checked when you preview it, and again at the live price just before it's sent, against the trading key's limits:

• Markets. Only coins on the key's list, quoted in a stablecoin, so a leaked key can't be pointed at an obscure, thin market. A new key starts with ten large coins, BTC and ETH among them, paid in USDT or USDC.
• Size. At most $500 an order and $2,000 a day to begin with, across what you've traded through Burokku on that key in the last 24 hours. Raising a limit asks for your second step; lowering one never does.
• The exchange's own rules. Amounts are rounded down to its step, never up, and an order below its minimum is refused before it's sent.
• Larger orders. Over $1,000, an order asks for your second step: a passkey or an authenticator code.

Perpetuals follow the same pattern. Opening a position is a priced order within the band, with leverage no higher than the market allows. Closing is reduce-only and immediate-or-cancel at the band's edge; it doesn't count against your limits, since it only lowers your risk, but the band still applies.

On Hyperliquid, Aster and Lighter, orders are priced the same way, with a 2% band, and checked in your browser, where the trading key lives; an open over $1,000 asks for your second step there too. Trading lists where you can trade.

Stop-loss and take-profit fill at market

This one is deliberate. A stop-loss exists for the moment a price falls fast. With a cap, the price could jump straight past it, and the stop would fail exactly when you needed it.

So a stop-loss or take-profit in Burokku is the venue's own close order. The venue holds it, so it works while Burokku is closed, and when the price reaches your trigger (the mark price, on most venues) it closes the whole position at market, or the share you chose. It's safe at market because it can only close, never open or add to a position.

Before it's set, Burokku checks it's on the right side: a long's stop below the live price and its target above (a short's the other way round), at least 0.2% away so it doesn't fire the moment it's placed. If you're shorting to protect coins you hold, hedging with perps covers sizing the short and its margin.

Swaps work by tolerance

A swap from your own wallet has no order book to price against: it's quoted from pools and fills when your transaction lands. The protection is the maximum slippage you set, with the least you'll receive written into the transaction. If the price moves further before it lands, the swap reverts and you pay only the network fee.

• Max slippage starts at 0.5%, with 0.1% and 1% one tap away, and anything from 0.01% to 50% if you type it.
• Above 2%, Burokku warns you that high slippage invites sandwich attacks.
• The review shows the minimum you'll receive, and flags slippage above 1% and losing more than 1% to price impact and fees (more strongly above 3%).

Why we built it this way

An order that fills fast at a price you'd never have accepted is worse than one that doesn't fill. A capped order that misses costs you a retry; one that fills far from the price can cost much more. We'd rather tell you "not filled" than surprise you. How security works covers the rest of what stands between a trading key and your money.