Crypto glossary
Plain-English definitions of 66 terms you will meet in crypto news, from airdrops to whales. Tap a letter to jump, and follow “Read the guide” for a full explainer.
A
- Address poisoning
- A scam where an attacker sends a tiny transaction from an address that looks like one you use, hoping you copy the wrong address from your history next time. Read the guide →
- Airdrop
- Free tokens sent to wallet addresses, usually to reward early users of a project or to spread ownership of a new token. Read the guide →
- All-time high (ATH)
- The highest price an asset has ever traded at. Read the guide →
- Altcoin
- Any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin. Read the guide →
- Altcoin season
- A period when most large altcoins outperform Bitcoin. Our Altcoin Season Index measures it over 30 days. Read the guide →
- AML
- Anti-money-laundering rules that require exchanges to monitor transactions and report suspicious activity. Read the guide →
B
- Bitcoin (BTC)
- The first cryptocurrency, launched in 2009, with a fixed maximum supply of 21 million coins secured by proof of work. Read the guide →
- Bitcoin dominance
- Bitcoin's share of the total crypto market capitalization, expressed as a percentage. Read the guide →
- Block
- A batch of transactions added to a blockchain at one time, linked to the block before it. Read the guide →
- Blockchain
- A shared ledger of transactions recorded in linked blocks and copied across many computers, so no single party controls it. Read the guide →
- Bridge
- A protocol that moves tokens or data between two blockchains. Bridges hold large amounts of funds and are a frequent target for hackers. Read the guide →
C
- CEX
- Centralized exchange: a company that holds users' funds and matches buy and sell orders, such as Coinbase or Binance. Read the guide →
- Cold wallet
- A wallet whose private keys are kept offline, usually on a hardware device. Read the guide →
- Consensus
- The method a blockchain network uses to agree on which transactions are valid and in what order. Read the guide →
- Crypto ETF
- An exchange-traded fund listed on a stock exchange that gives investors exposure to a cryptocurrency without holding it directly. Read the guide →
D
- DAO
- Decentralized autonomous organization: a group that makes decisions through votes recorded on a blockchain, often weighted by token holdings. Read the guide →
- DCA
- Dollar-cost averaging: buying a fixed amount at regular intervals instead of investing all at once. Read the guide →
- DeFi
- Decentralized finance: lending, trading and other financial services run by smart contracts instead of banks. Read the guide →
- DEX
- Decentralized exchange: trading directly from your own wallet through smart contracts, without a company holding your funds. Read the guide →
- Difficulty
- A setting that makes Bitcoin mining harder or easier so that blocks keep arriving roughly every 10 minutes. Read the guide →
E
- Ethereum (ETH)
- A programmable blockchain that runs smart contracts; ether is its native token and pays for transactions. Read the guide →
F
- Fear & Greed Index
- A daily score from 0 (extreme fear) to 100 (extreme greed) that summarizes crypto market sentiment. Read the guide →
- Fork
- A change to a blockchain's rules. A hard fork that not everyone adopts can split one chain into two. Read the guide →
- Fully diluted valuation (FDV)
- A token's price multiplied by its maximum supply, including tokens not yet released. Read the guide →
- Funding rate
- Periodic payments between long and short traders on perpetual futures that keep the contract price close to the spot price. Read the guide →
G
- Gas
- The fee paid to process a transaction or run a smart contract on Ethereum and similar networks. Read the guide →
H
- Halving
- The event, roughly every four years, that cuts the Bitcoin block reward in half. Read the guide →
- Hashrate
- The total computing power used to mine and secure a proof-of-work network. Read the guide →
- Hot wallet
- A wallet connected to the internet, such as a mobile app or browser extension. Convenient, but more exposed to attacks. Read the guide →
I
- Impermanent loss
- The shortfall a liquidity provider can suffer compared with simply holding the tokens, caused by prices moving apart. Read the guide →
K
- KYC
- Know your customer: identity checks that regulated exchanges must carry out before letting users trade or withdraw. Read the guide →
L
- Layer 1
- A base blockchain that settles its own transactions, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum or Solana. Read the guide →
- Layer 2
- A network built on top of a layer 1 that processes transactions more cheaply and posts the results back to it. Read the guide →
- Limit order
- An order to buy or sell only at a set price or better. Read the guide →
- Liquid staking
- Staking through a protocol that gives you a tradable token representing your staked coins. Read the guide →
- Liquidation
- The forced closing of a leveraged position when losses use up the trader's margin. Read the guide →
- Liquidity pool
- Tokens locked in a smart contract that traders swap against on a decentralized exchange. Read the guide →
M
- Maker and taker fees
- Exchange fees: makers add orders to the order book, takers fill existing orders and usually pay more. Read the guide →
- Market cap
- Price multiplied by circulating supply. Read the guide →
- Market order
- An order to buy or sell immediately at the best available price. Read the guide →
- Memecoin
- A token driven mainly by internet culture and community rather than a product, and usually very volatile. Read the guide →
- Mining
- Using computing power to add blocks to a proof-of-work blockchain in exchange for newly created coins and fees. Read the guide →
N
- NFT
- Non-fungible token: a unique token that records ownership of a digital item. Read the guide →
O
- On-chain analysis
- Studying public blockchain data, such as exchange flows and holder behaviour, to understand market activity. Read the guide →
- Oracle
- A service that brings outside data, such as prices, onto a blockchain for smart contracts to use. Read the guide →
P
- Perpetual futures
- Futures contracts with no expiry date, kept in line with the spot price by funding rates. Read the guide →
- Phishing
- Tricking people into revealing keys or signing malicious transactions through fake websites, messages or apps. Read the guide →
- Private key
- The secret that controls a wallet. Anyone who has it can move the funds. Read the guide →
- Proof of reserves
- An exchange's published evidence that it holds enough assets to cover customer balances. Read the guide →
- Proof of stake
- A consensus method in which validators lock up coins as collateral to secure the network. Read the guide →
- Proof of work
- A consensus method in which miners spend computing power to secure the network. Read the guide →
R
- Rollup
- A type of layer 2 that bundles many transactions and posts them to a layer 1 as a single batch. Read the guide →
- Rug pull
- A scam in which a project's creators abandon it and take investors' money, often by draining liquidity. Read the guide →
S
- Seed phrase
- A list of 12 or 24 words that can restore a wallet. Never share it or store it online. Read the guide →
- Slippage
- The difference between the price you expect and the price you actually get when a trade executes. Read the guide →
- Smart contract
- Code on a blockchain that runs automatically when its conditions are met. Read the guide →
- Solana (SOL)
- A high-throughput layer 1 blockchain known for low fees; SOL pays for transactions and staking. Read the guide →
- Stablecoin
- A token designed to hold a steady value, usually one US dollar. Read the guide →
- Staking
- Locking coins to help run a proof-of-stake network in exchange for rewards. Read the guide →
T
- Token approval
- Permission you give a smart contract to spend tokens from your wallet. Unused approvals can be revoked. Read the guide →
- Tokenization
- Representing real-world assets, such as bonds or funds, as tokens on a blockchain. Read the guide →
- Travel rule
- A rule that requires crypto service providers to share sender and recipient information when they transfer funds. Read the guide →
- TVL
- Total value locked: the value of assets deposited in DeFi protocols. Read the guide →
W
- Wallet
- Software or hardware that stores the keys to your crypto and lets you send and receive it. Read the guide →
- Whale
- A holder with a very large amount of a cryptocurrency, whose trades can move the market. Read the guide →
X
- XRP
- The native token of the XRP Ledger, a payments-focused blockchain. Read the guide →