Many beginners get confused when looking at an exchange’s market data, especially by the letters K, M, B, E, and T—particularly when viewing order book figures or trading volume, they simply can’t figure out how much money it actually is. Today, I’ll help you sort out what these counting units mean.

Basic conversions are actually very simple. K stands for thousands, so 1K means 1000. Going up, 1M is 1,000,000. This 1m unit is the most commonly used on exchanges; whether you’re looking at the price of a trading pair or trading volume, you’ll often see it. Going even further, 1E represents 100,000,000, 1B is 1,000,000,000, and the largest, 1T, is 1,000,000,000,000 (i.e., one trillion).

Here’s a practical example to make it clear. If you see a certain coin’s trading volume listed as 5M, that means 5,000,000. If you see a whale transfer written as 2B, that means 2,000,000,000. Especially when looking at market cap rankings or large transfers, these units appear frequently. If you master the conversion of the 1m unit, you can quickly understand market data.

In fact, this system is universal in the financial industry—exchanges just adopt this standard. Next time you look at the order book, you’ll be able to tell at a glance the scale of the numbers, without having to think for a long time.