Slippage
The difference between the expected and actually executed price of a transaction, resulting from a price change or low market liquidity.
Slippage is the difference between the price at which you planned to buy or sell a cryptocurrency and the price at which the transaction was actually executed. It occurs when the price changes between placing and executing the order, or when the order is so large that it "eats through" the available liquidity at successive, increasingly unfavorable price levels.
This phenomenon is especially noticeable on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) when trading less liquid tokens, where the user typically sets a maximum acceptable slippage level themselves as protection against an especially unfavorable execution.
Related terms
Liquidity
The ease with which an asset can be bought or sold without significantly affecting its price.
DEX vs. CEX (decentralized vs. centralized exchange)
A DEX is an exchange running on smart contracts with no intermediary; a CEX is a traditional exchange run by a company, such as Binance or Kraken.