Maker:
When you place an order at a specified price and quantity, you will not immediately trade with other orders in the depth list, but wait for other users to actively trade with your order. Therefore, the key to Maker (pending order) is "waiting for the deal". Regardless of whether it is a buy order or a sell order, any order placed passively waiting for the transaction is a pending order.
Generally, if there is no matching order for the time being, then the order will remain on the exchange's order book to provide a quotation for the entire market. Maker provides liquidity for exchanges by increasing the number of orders, increasing the depth of trading, and is known as a liquidity provider.
Taker:
When you place an order at a specified price and quantity, it will be executed immediately with other orders in the depth list. The key to taking orders lies in "active trading" and in faster closing.
Generally, Taker takes the liquidity of the exchange away and reduces the depth of trading by actively trading with orders on the depth list, and is called the extractor of liquidity.
How to distinguish Maker from Taker?
To thoroughly understand and distinguish between Maker and Taker, it is also necessary to understand the concepts of limit trading and market trading. Price limit trading refers to setting the transaction price by yourself, once the market price reaches the set target price, the transaction will be executed; while market price trading refers to real-time trading, which will match transactions based on existing orders in the market.
Generally, orders in the market trading state are Taker, because they are matched and executed immediately based on the existing orders in the market; while the orders in the limit trading state may be Taker or Maker. If the current limit order cannot be immediately traded with the existing order when it is being matched, the order will enter the depth list and wait for other users to trade, and will provide depth to the exchange, which is called Maker. Conversely, if the current limit order can be executed immediately with the existing order when the current limit order is matched, the order will take away the depth of the exchange, which is the Taker.