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Crypto Glossary
961 crypto, Web3, and DeFi terms: plain-English definitions from the Block Insider editorial desks.
A
- AI Coins
- AR Token (Arweave)
- ASIC
- ASIC-Resistant
- Abstraction Scalability
- Account Abstraction
- Accounting Token
- Accrue
- Accumulation Phase
- Adam Back
- Adaptive State Sharding
- Adoption Curve
- Aeternity Blockchain
- Air Gap
- Airdrop
- Airnode
- Algorithmic Market Operations (AMOs)
- Algorithmic Stablecoin
- All-Time High (ATH)
- All-Time-High (ATH)
- All-Time-Low (ATL)
- Alphanumeric
- Altcoin
- Altcoin Trader
- Anarcho-capitalism
- Annual Percentage Rate (APR)
- Annual Percentage Yield (APY)
- Anti Money Laundering (AML)
- Anti-Malware
- Anti-Money Laundering (AML)
- Anti-dump/Anti-Dumping Policy
- Antivirus
- Antpool
- Apeing
- Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC)
- Arbitrage
- Arbitrageur
- Arm Virtual Machine (Qtum)
- Aroon Indicator
- Ascending Channel
- Ashdraked
- Asset-Backed Tokens
- Atomic Swap
- AtomicDEX
- Attack surface
- Attestation Ledger
- Authority Masternode (VeChain)
- Automated Market Maker (AMM)
- Autonomous Economic Agent (AEA)
- aNFT (Autonomous NFT)
B
- B-Tokens
- BEP-2
- BEP-2 (Binance Chain Tokenization Standard)
- BEP-20
- BEP-721
- BEP-95
- BNB
- BRC-20
- BUIDL
- Backorder
- Bagholder
- Bags
- Bait and Switch Scam
- Bakers
- Baking
- Beacon Chain
- Bear
- Bear Call Spread
- Bearwhale
- Bid Price
- Bid-Ask Spread
- Binance Chain Explorer
- Binance Community Vote
- Binance Ecosystem Fund (BEF)
- Binance Labs
- Binance Launchpad
- Binancian
- BitLicense
- BitPay
- Bitcoin
- Bitcoin ATM (BTM)
- Bitcoin Core
- Bitcoin DApps
- Bitcoin Dominance
- Bitcoin Dominance (BTCD)
- Bitcoin ETF
- Bitcoin Halving
- Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP)
- Bitcoin Maximalists
- Bitcoin Misery Index (BMI)
- Bitcoin NFTs
- Bitcoin Pizza
- Bitcoin Virtual Machine (BitVM)
- Bitcoiner
- Bitcointalk
- Black Swan Event
- Blake-256
- Block Explorer
- Block Header
- Block Height
- Block Lattice (Nano)
- Block Producer
- Block Reward
- Block Size
- Block Time
- Blockchain
- Blockchain 1.0
- Blockchain 2.0
- Blockchain 3.0
- Blockchain Charity Foundation
- Blockchain Explorer
- Blockchain Mutual Credit
- Blockchain Transmission Protocol (BTP)
- Blockchain Tribalism
- Blockchain Trilemma
- Blockchain-As-a-Service (BaaS)
- Blockchain-Enabled Smart Locks
- Blockweave
- Bloom Filter
- Blue-Chip Token
- Bluesky Crypto Protocol
- Bollinger Band
- Bonding Curve
- Breakout
- Brian Armstrong
- Bridges
- Bug Bounty
- Bug Exploit
- Bull
- Bull Run
- Bull Trap
- Burn/Burned
- Buy The (F*******) Dip (BTD/BTFD)
- Buy Wall
- Byron Phase
- Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT)
- Byzantine Generals’ Problem
- Byzantium Fork
C
- COMP Token
- CPU Miner
- Call Options
- Candidate Block
- Candlestick
- Candlesticks
- Capitulation
- Casascius Coin
- Cascading Liquidations
- CashToken
- Casper (Ethereum)
- CeDeFi
- Censorship
- Censorship Resistance
- Censorship-resistance
- Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)
- Central Ledger
- Centralized
- Centralized Exchange
- Centralized Exchange (CEX)
- Centre (Consortium)
- Chain Reorganization
- Chain Split
- Change Address
- Changpeng Zhao (CZ)
- Chunk (NEAR)
- Cipher
- Ciphertext
- Circulating Supply
- Cloud Mining
- Coin
- Coin Mixer
- Coin-Margined Trading
- Coinbase
- Coinbase Transaction
- Cold Storage
- Cold Wallet
- Collaborative Venture Building (CVB)
- Collateral
- Collateral Cap
- Collateral Factor
- Collateral Margin
- Collateral Tokens
- Collateralization
- Collateralized Debt Position (CDP)
- Collateralized Mortgage Obligation (CMO)
- Collateralized Stablecoin
- Colocation
- Commingling
- Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)
- Composability (DeFi)
- Composable DeFi
- Composable Token
- Concentrated Liquidity
- Confirmation
- Confirmation Time
- Confirmations
- ConsenSys
- Consensus
- Consensus Algorithm
- Consensus Layer
- Consensus Mechanism
- Consortium Blockchain
- Contract Account
- Coordinator
- Core Wallet
- Correction
- Craig Wright
- Cross Margin
- Cross-Border Trading
- Cross-Chain
- Cross-Chain Bridges
- Cross-Chain Communication
- Cross-chain Contract Calls
- Crowdloan
- Crypto Debit Card
- Crypto ETFs
- Crypto Fear and Greed Index
- Crypto Invoicing
- Crypto Loan
- Crypto Protocol
- Crypto Winter
- CryptoPunks
- Cryptoasset
- Cryptocurrency
- Cryptocurrency Money Laundering
- Cryptocurrency Pairs
- Cryptographic Hash Function
- Cryptography
- Cryptojacking
- Cryptology
- Curve AMO
- Custodian
- Custody
- Cypherpunk
D
- DAO Summoning
- DRC-20
- DYCO (Dynamic Coin Offering)
- DYOR
- Daedalus Wallet
- Danksharding
- Dark Web
- Darknodes
- DeFi Aggregator
- DeFi Degens
- Dead Coin
- Death Cross
- Decentralization Maximalism
- Decentralization Ratio
- Decentralized
- Decentralized API (dAPI)
- Decentralized Application (DApp)
- Decentralized Applications (DApps)
- Decentralized Autonomous Cooperative (DAC)
- Decentralized Autonomous Initial Coin Offerings (DAICO)
- Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)
- Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO)
- Decentralized Currency
- Decentralized Database
- Decentralized Exchange (DEX)
- Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
- Decentralized Governance
- Decentralized Identifier (DID)
- Decentralized Indexes
- Decentralized Marketplace
- Decentralized Network
- Decentralized Order Book
- Decentralized Payment Network
- Decentralized Social Media
- Decentralized Stablecoin
- Decryption
- Deep Web
- Delayed Proof of Work (dPoW)
- Delegated Proof-of-Stake (dPOS)
- Delisting
- Demurrage
- Depeg
- Design Flaw Attack
- Deterministic Wallet
- Dex Aggregator
- Dharma Protocol
- Diamond Hands
- Difficulty
- Difficulty Bomb
- Digital Art
- Digital Asset
- Digital Asset Custodian
- Digital Asset Ecosystem
- Digital Barter Economy
- Digital Commodity
- Digital Currency
- Digital Dollar
- Digital Identity
- Digital Signature
- Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA)
- Dildo
- Dip
- Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG)
- Distributed Consensus
- Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack
- Distributed Ledger
- Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)
- Distributed Network
- Diversified Proof of Stake
- Do Your Own Research (DYOR)
- Dominance
- Dorian Nakamoto
- DotSama
- Double Spend Attack
- Double Spending
- Drawdown
- Drivechain
- Dual Governance
- Dual-Token Economy/Model (Two-Token Economy)
- Dump
- Dumping
- Dust Transactions
- Dusting Attack
- dPoSec (Distributed Proof of Security)
E
- EIP-1559
- ELI5
- ERC 7512
- ERC-1155
- ERC-20
- ERC-721
- ERC-777
- ERC-827
- ERC-884
- ERC-948
- ETF
- ETH/BTC
- Eclipse Attack
- Edge Nodes
- Effective Proof-of-Stake
- Electrum Wallet
- Elliott Waves
- Email Spoofing
- Emission
- Encryption
- Enterprise Blockchain
- Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA)
- Epoch
- Erasure Coding
- Escrow
- Ethash
- Ether
- Ethereum Classic
- Ethereum Difficulty
- Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)
- Ethereum Request For Comment (ERC)
- Ethereum Transaction
- Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)
- Exit Scam
F
- FATF Travel Rule
- FOMO
- FUD
- FUDster
- Fakeout
- Falling Wedge
- Fan Token
- Fan Tokens
- Faucet
- Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO)
- Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD)
- Fee Tiers
- Fiat
- Fiat On-Ramp
- Fiat-Pegged Cryptocurrency
- Fibonacci Retracement Level
- Finality
- Financial Action Task Force (FATF)
- Flappening
- Flash Loan
- Flash Loan Attack
- Flash Loans
- Flashbots
- Flatcoin
- Flippening
- Flipping
- Forced Liquidation
- Fork
- Fork (Blockchain)
- Fork (Software)
- Fork Choice Rule
- Formal Verification
- Fractional Stablecoins
- Fraud Proof
- Fren
- Front Running
- Full Node
- Fully Diluted Value (FDV)
- Fully Homomorphic Encryption
- Funding Payments
- Fungibility
- Fungible
- Fusion Rollups
- Futures
- Futures Contract
G
H
- HODL
- Hackathon
- Haha Money Printer Go Brrrrr
- Hal Finney
- Halving
- Hard Cap
- Hard Fork (Blockchain)
- Hard Fork Combinator
- Hard Peg
- Hardware Security Module
- Hardware Wallet
- Hash
- Hash Function
- Hash Power / Hash Rate
- Hash Rate
- Hashed Timelock Contract (HTLC)
- Hashgraph Consensus Mechanism
- Hedge Contract
- Hedge Fund
- Hidden Cap
- Hierarchical Deterministic Wallet (HD Wallet)
- Higher High
- Higher Low
- Honeypot
- Hostage Byte Attack
- Hot Storage
- Hot Wallet
- Howey Test
- Human-Readable Names
- Huobi BTC (HBTC)
- Hybrid PoW/PoS
- Hydra (Cardano)
- Hyperledger (Hyperledger Foundation)
I
- IOU
- Iceberg Order
- Immutability
- Immutable
- Impermanent Loss
- In-the-Money / Out-of-the-Money
- Index
- Infinite Approval
- Infinite Mint Attack
- Inflation
- Initial Bounty Offering (IBO)
- Initial Coin Offering (ICO)
- Initial Dex Offering (IDO)
- Initial Exchange Offering
- Initial Exchange Offering (IEO)
- Initial Farm Offering (IFO)
- Initial Game Offering (IGO)
- Initial NFT Offering (INO)
- Initial Stake Pool Offering (ISPO)
- Initial Token Offering (ITO)
- Input-Output Hong Kong (IOHK)
- Instamine
- Instant Settlement Network Layer
- Insurance Fund
- Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC)
- InterPlanetary File System (IPFS)
- Intercontinental Exchange (ICE)
- Internal Transaction
- Internet Layer
- Interoperability
- Investment Vehicles (Crypto-tied)
- Isolated Margin
- Issuance
J
K
L
- LINK (Chainlink)
- LMD GHOST
- Lachesis
- Lambo
- Laser Eyes
- Layer 0
- Layer 2
- Layer-1 Blockchain
- Leased Proof of Stake (LPoS)
- Ledger
- Leverage
- Leveraged Tokens
- Light Node
- Lightning Network
- Liquid Market
- Liquid Proof of Stake (LPoS)
- Liquid Staking
- Liquid Staking (Fantom)
- Liquid Staking Derivatives
- Liquidation
- Liquidity
- Liquidity Crisis
- Liquidity Mining
- Liquidity Pool
- Liquidity Provider
- Liquidity Provider Tokens (LP Tokens)
- Liquidity Ratios
- Liveness
- Loan-to-value (LTV)
- Long
- Longing (Long Position)
- Lovelace
- Lower High
- Lower Low
- libp2p
M
- Mainchain
- Mainnet
- Mainnet Swap
- Maker
- Maker Protocol (MakerDAO)
- Malware
- Margin Call
- Margin Trading
- Market Balances
- Market Capitalization
- Market Capitalization/Market Cap/MCAP
- Market Maker, Market Taker
- Market Making as a Service (MMaaS)
- Market Momentum
- Market Order
- Market Signal
- Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA)
- Marlowe
- Masternode
- Masternodes
- Matching Engine
- Max Supply
- Maximal Extractable Value (MEV)
- Maximum Supply
- Medium of Exchange
- Megahashes Per Second
- Meme Economy
- Memecoin
- Mempool
- Mercenary Capital
- Merged Mining
- MetaMask
- Metatransaction
- Metaverse
- Metaverse-as-a-Service (MaaS)
- Metcalfe’s Law
- MicroBitcoin (uBTC)
- Micropayment
- Microtransaction
- MilliBitcoin
- Mineable
- Miners
- Minimum Collateralization Ratio (MCR)
- Mining
- Mining Algorithm
- Mining Contract
- Mining Difficulty
- Mining Farm
- Mining Pool
- Mining Reward
- Mining Rewards
- Mining Rig
- Mining as a Service (MaaS)
- Minnow
- Minting
- Mnemonic Phrase
- Mnemonics
- Mobile Wallet
- Moloch DAO
- Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)
- Money Laundering
- Money Transfer License
- Money Transmitter
- Moon
- Motoko Programming Language (DFINITY)
- Move (Programming Language)
- Move-to-Earn
- Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD)
- Multi-Chain
- Multi-Coin Wallet
- Multi-Party Computation
- Multi-Party Computation as-a-Service
- Multi-Signature (Multi-Sig)
- Multisignature
- Mutual Credit Line
- My Story (VeChain)
N
O
- OCO Order
- OHM Fork
- ORC-20 Tokens
- Off-Chain
- Off-Chain Governance
- Off-Chain Transaction
- Off-Ledger Currency
- Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)
- Offline Signing Orchestrator (OSO)
- On-Balance Volume (OBV)
- On-Chain
- On-Chain Governance
- On-Ledger Currency
- Onchain Fiat
- Open Interest
- Open Source
- Open/Close
- OpenSea
- Opera Mainnet (Fantom)
- Optimistic Oracle
- Optimistic Rollup
- Option
- Options Market
- Oracle
- Oracle Manipulation
- Order Book
- Ordinals
- Orphan Block
- Ouroboros Praos
- Over-Collateralization
- Over-the-Counter (OTC) Trading
- Overbought
- Oversold
P
- P2P Bridge
- P2P DEX
- P2P Trading
- PancakeSwap
- Paper Wallet
- Parachain
- Participation Node
- Paul Le Roux
- Payee
- Peer-to-Peer (P2P)
- Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Lending
- Peg
- Pegged Currency
- Permissioned Ledger
- Permissionless Blockchain
- Perpetual Contracts
- Phishing
- Phone Phishing
- Physical Bitcoins
- Plasma
- Play-to-Earn (Play2Earn)
- Player Payout
- Politeia (Decred)
- Polkadot Crowdloan
- Ponzi Scheme
- Portfolio
- Portfolio Tracking
- Position Size
- Post-Mine
- Pre-IDO
- Pre-Mine
- Pre-Sale
- Price Impact
- Private Blockchain
- Private Key/Secret Key
- Private Sale
- Programmability
- Programmable Privacy
- Proof Market
- Proof of Attendance Protocol (POAP)
- Proof of Reserves (PoR)
- Proof of Stake (PoS)
- Proof of Stake Authority (PoSA)
- Proof of Work (PoW)
- Proof-of-Authority (PoA)
- Proof-of-Burn (PoB)
- Proof-of-Developer (PoD)
- Proof-of-Donation
- Proof-of-History (PoH)
- Proof-of-Immutability (PoIM)
- Proof-of-Replication
- Proof-of-Spacetime
- Proof-of-Time (PoT)
- Proof-of-Validation
- Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS)
- Proto-Danksharding
- Protocol
- Protocol Layer
- Pseudonymous
- Pseudorandom
- Public Address
- Public Blockchain
- Public Key
- Public Sale
- Public-Key Cryptography
- Pump-and-dump
- Pure Proof of Stake (PPoS)
- Put Option
- Pyramid Scheme
Q
R
- REKT
- Race attack
- Rage-quit
- Raiden Network
- Ransomware
- Real World Assets (RWAs)
- Rebalancing
- Rebase
- Recovery Seed
- Regenerative Economy
- Regenerative Finance (ReFi)
- Regens
- Regional/Local/Community Currencies
- Regulated
- Relative Strength Index (RSI)
- Relay Chain
- Relay Nodes
- Repair Miners
- Replay Attack
- Replicated Ledger
- Replicated Security (RS)
- Revenue Participation Tokens
- Reverse ICO
- Ring CT (Confidential Transactions)
- Ring Miners
- Ring Signature
- Roger Ver
- Rough Consensus
- Rug Pull
- Ryuk Ransomware
S
- SHO (Strong Holder Offering)
- SIM-Swap
- SPL
- Sandwich Trading
- Satoshi (SATS)
- Satoshi Nakamoto
- Scaling Problem
- Scaling Solution
- Scamcoin
- Scholarship/Scholar
- Scrypt
- Second-Layer Solutions
- Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU)
- Secure Element
- Secure Multi-Party Computation (sMPC)
- Secure Proof of Stake (SPoS)
- Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
- Security Audit
- Security Token
- Security Token Offering
- Seed Phrase
- Segregated Witness (SegWit)
- Selfish Mining
- Sell Wall
- Settlement
- Settlement Layer
- Shanghai Upgrade
- Shard Chain
- Sharding
- Sharpe Ratio
- Shelley Phase
- Shiba Inu Token (SHIB)
- Shielded Address
- Shielded Transaction
- Shilling
- Shitcoin
- Short
- Short Squeeze
- Side Channel Attack
- Sidechain
- Sidechains
- Silk Road
- Simple Agreement for Future Token (SAFT)
- Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP)
- Simplified Payment Verification (SPV)
- Slashing
- Slippage
- Slot (Cardano)
- Smart Contract
- Smart Contract Audit
- Smart Token
- Smart Treasury (Balancer)
- Social Engineering
- Social Recovery Wallet
- Social Trading
- SocialFi
- Soft Cap
- Soft Fork (Blockchain)
- Soft Peg
- Software Wallet
- Solana Virtual Machine (SVM)
- Solidity
- Spear Phishing
- Spoon (Blockchain)
- Spot Trading
- Spyware
- Stablecoin
- Stacking Sats
- Staking
- Staking Pool
- Stale Block
- State Channel
- Stochastic Oscillator
- Storage (Decentralized)
- Storage Miners
- Storage Node
- Store of Value
- Stroop
- Subgraph Manifest
- Substrate
- Succinct Proofs of Random Access (SPoRA)
- Supercomputer
- Supercycle
- Support Level
- Surge (Ethereum)
- Swarm
- Sybil Attack
- Symbol
- Symmetric Key Cryptography
- Synthetic Asset
T
- T-Address (Zcash)
- TRC-10 (TRON)
- TRC-20 Token
- Taint
- Take Profit
- Taker
- Tamper-Proof Ledger
- Tangle
- Tank
- Taproot
- Tardigrade (Storj)
- Technical Indicators
- Tendermint
- Terahashes Per Second
- Testnet
- The DAO
- This Is Gentlemen
- Ticker
- Ticker Symbol
- Time-Weighted Automated Market Maker (TWAMM)
- Time-weighted Average Price (TWAP)
- Timelock/Locktime
- Timestamp
- Tipset
- Token
- Token Economy
- Token Generation Event (TGE)
- Token Issuance
- Token Lockup
- Token Migration
- Token Sale
- Token Standard
- Token Standards
- Token Swap
- TokenSets (Set Protocol)
- Tokenization
- Tokenized Carbon Credits
- Tokenized Securities
- Tokenized Stocks
- Tokenomics
- Toll Bridge
- Tor
- Total Exchange Volume
- Total Supply
- Total Value Locked (TVL)
- TradFi
- Trade Volume
- Trading Tournament
- Trading Volume
- Transaction (TX)
- Transaction Fee
- Transaction ID (TXID)
- Transactions Per Second (TPS)
- Trojan
- TrueUSD (TUSD)
- Trustless
- Tumbler
- Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
- Typosquatting