Good Till Cancelled (GTC)
In simple terms
A Good Till Cancelled order is like putting up a 'wanted' poster for a crypto asset at a specific price—it stays posted on the exchange until either someone sells you the asset at that price, or you decide to take it down yourself.
Definition
An order that remains active until it's filled or manually cancelled.
In depth
A GTC order is a standing instruction on an exchange's order book that persists across multiple trading sessions until either the order is fully filled by matching with counterparty liquidity, manually cancelled by the user, or removed due to exchange-specific expiration policies. Unlike day orders that automatically expire at session close, GTC orders remain active indefinitely, allowing traders to maintain open positions without requiring repeated order placement. The order remains in the matching engine's queue, competing with other orders based on price-time priority, until execution conditions are met or explicit cancellation occurs.
How does Good Till Cancelled (GTC) work?
GTC is a time-in-force instruction telling the exchange to keep an order active until it fills or you cancel it, rather than expiring at the end of a session or a fixed window. The order rests in the book at your price and is checked against every incoming order that could match it. Crypto venues trade continuously, so a GTC order can sit for days or weeks. Most exchanges apply their own maximum lifetime — often somewhere between one and twelve months — after which unfilled GTC orders are purged automatically.
An example
Illustrative figures only. Someone places a GTC buy limit for 5 units at $20 while the market trades near $28. Nothing happens for three weeks. Price then declines and trades at $20, and the order fills, spending $100 plus fees. Had price never reached $20 within the exchange's maximum order lifetime, the order would have been cancelled unfilled and no purchase would have occurred.
Figures are illustrative only.
What beginners get wrong
- Funds backing a resting GTC order are typically held aside, so the balance appears available in the app but cannot be spent elsewhere.
- Old GTC orders are easy to forget and can execute long after the reasoning behind them stopped applying.
- GTC does not mean permanent — exchanges set their own expiry limits, and terms differ from venue to venue.
- Stacking many GTC orders can lock up more capital than intended once each one's reserved amount is added together.
Related terms
Part of
What do the different crypto order types do? — the subject page for order types, with all 9 of its definitions in one place.
Educational only — not financial advice.