Price Discovery
The market process by which buyers and sellers continuously settle on an asset's fair price.
Price discovery is what an open market does every second: thousands of bids and asks colliding until they meet. When an asset trades above its all-time high, it's in pure price discovery, with no past resistance to lean on, so moves can be wild.
Deep, liquid markets discover price efficiently. Thin or manipulated ones don't, which is why a quote on a low-volume token means little.
Related terms
A live, ranked list of all outstanding buy and sell orders for an asset on an exchange.
All-Time High (ATH)The highest price an asset has ever reached, a closely watched marker of a market's peak.
LiquidityHow easily an asset can be bought or sold near its current price without moving that price much.
Trading VolumeThe total value of an asset bought and sold over a period, usually measured across 24 hours.