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What do "buyer is maker" and "buyer is not maker" mean? If a trade happens where the "buyer is maker", does that mean that the trade happened as buyer bought a share?

I am asking this because at Binance, there is a tag isBuyerMaker describing a particular trade.

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Others have made great explanations of the general theory behind maker/taker logic. However to answer the original question.

If isBuyerMaker is true for the trade, it means that the order of whoever was on the buy side, was sitting as a bid in the orderbook for some time (so that it was making the market) and then someone came in and matched it immediately (market taker). So, that specific trade will now qualify as SELL and in UI highlight as redish. On the opposite isBuyerMaker=false trade will qualify as BUY and highlight greenish.

Other exchanges label trades directly as buy or sell, don't know why Binance chose to approach it from such an awkward angle.

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    Now that's what we needed to hear. Thanks.
    – MrBrody
    Jul 4, 2021 at 21:01
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    Thanks for the direct answer
    – Joe Phillips
    Aug 24, 2021 at 16:18
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    Probably because every trade is both a buy and a sell. Calling a trade a "buy" or a "sell" can imply a central counterparty and make it less obvious that maker/taker logic is involved.
    – David Schwartz
    Jan 21, 2022 at 17:57
  • Great answer, @jayarjo ! Thanks ! Since any trade is both a sell and a purchase, maybe the idea is that this field defines who took the initiative: if it was a buyer that issued an order, that a seller filled, or if it was a seller that issued an order that a buyer filled.
    – Hilton Fernandes
    May 8 at 20:27
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For a trade to happen, there must be a buyer and a seller. The buyer could have placed an offer to buy, which the seller took. Or the seller could have placed an offer to sell, which the buyer took. These are the only two possibilities.

If the buyer placed the offer which the seller later took, the buyer is the maker (he made liquidity available) and the seller is the taker (they took the buyer's offer). If the seller placed the offer which the buyer later took, the seller is the maker (he made liquidity available) and the buyer is the taker (they took the seller's offer).

This matters for at least two reasons:

1) Typically the maker pays a lower fee than the taker.

2) This makes a difference in understanding what the price is telling you. For example, imagine if there's a market with people willing to sell apples for $1 and willing to buy apples for $0.90 -- if the price never changes, you will see transactions for $1 and transactions for $0.90, which might make you think the price is changing. But all the $1 trades will have the "buyer is not maker" flag and all the $0.90 trades will have the "buyer is maker" flag, allowing you to understand that the change in trade prices doesn't reflect any actual change in the market.

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    How are there transactions if the bid is $0.90 and the ask is $1?
    – Acccumulation
    Oct 22, 2022 at 4:29
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    @Acccumulation If market makers have placed the bid at $0.90 and the ask at $1, anyone can come along and buy for $1 or sell for $0.90 if they wish to.
    – David Schwartz
    Oct 22, 2022 at 22:47
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There are many exchanges (not only for cryptos) that use a "Maker-Taker" model. In this model:

  • A taker is the party whose order tends to be filled on demand (i.e. does not has to wait). This part also tends to pay higher fees.
  • A maker is the party whose order tends to stay in the market for some time, waiting for a counterpart (a taker) to complete the transaction. Since they are the market makers, they tend to pay lower cases.

The particular tag that you are seeing basically implies that there is a lot of demand for buying, so if you want to start that trade you'll probably will have to wait until your order is completed.

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