Web3 Glossary
51% Attack
If more than half the computer power or mining hash rate on a network is run by a single person or a single group of people, then a 51% attack is in operation. This means that this entity has full control of the network and can negatively affect a cryptocurrency by taking over mining operations, stopping or changing transactions, and double-spending coins.
ABI
ABI is an acronym for Application Binary Interface, and it is an interface between two binary program modules at the level of machine code, not source code.
AML (Anti-money Laundering)
A set of international laws enacted to diminish the potential for criminal organizations or individuals to launder money. These rules and laws are applied to cryptocurrencies with varying effects in different jurisdictions.
ATH - All Time High
The highest price an asset has ever had.
ATL - All Time Low
The lowest price an asset has ever had.
Absolute Advantage
An economics concept in which one party has a direct advantage in efficiency in producing/providing a specific good or service over another party.
Account
An object containing an address, balance, nonce, and optional storage and code. An account can be a contract account or an externally owned account (EOA).
Active Management
An investing strategy employed by fund managers aiming to outperform an index or market in order to generate profits.
Ad Hoc
A phrase of Latin origin that is used in modern English to mean 'for this purpose' or 'specifically for this.'
Address / Public Key
Used to send and receive transactions on a blockchain network. An address is an alphanumeric character string, which can also be represented as a scannable QR code. In Ethereum, the address begins with 0x. For example: 0x06A85356DCb5b307096726FB86A78c59D38e08ee
Air-gapping
A method for securing computers in which the device does not connect to the internet or any other open networks.
Airdrop Scam
An Airdrop Scam occurs when scammers send fake tokens in mass to users in hopes they will visit a website that is set up to steal user funds.
Airdrop
A marketing technique in which crypto projects send their native tokens directly to the wallets of their users in an effort to increase awareness and adoption.
Algorithm
A sequence of unambiguous instructions used for the purpose of solving a problem.
All Or None Order (Aon)
An order which once placed, must either be filled in its entirety or not at all. This prevents any partial filling of orders.
Allocation
An allotment of tokens or equity, that may be earned, purchased, or set aside for a certain investor, team, group, organization, or other related entity.
Alpha
Valuable or insider information, usually regarding the value of digital assets like cryptocurrencies and NFTs; a measure of the return on an investment over and above the return offered by the market or other benchmark.
Altcoin
Initially used to refer to any cryptocurrency that wasn't Bitcoin, altcoin may now refer to any new cryptocurrency with a relatively small market cap.
Alts
Short for altcoins.
Angel Investor
Wealthy investors that seek out opportunities to provide funding for entrepreneurs or start-up companies.
Anti Money Laundering (Aml)
A framework consisting of legal and regulatory procedures to minimize and curb the flow of funds that are generated from illegal or dubious activities.
Ape
Someone who invests heavily into a cryptocurrency or stock, or the act of doing so. This is sometimes a reaction to hype and FOMO, or done without much knowledge of the asset. It should be noted, though, that this is generally a self-assigned term and does not carry a negative connotation. Is it a Planet of the Apes reference? Maybe a reference to the sheer physical strength of apes? The origins are a bit blurry, but one thing is certain — apes together strong.
Api
API is an acronym for Application Programming Interface which is an interface between computers or programs that allows information to pass between them.
Arbitrage
Buying and selling of assets over different markets in order to take advantage of differing prices on the same asset.
Archival Nodes
An archival node is a full node in the blockchain that keeps a complete history of transactions and address state changes since the genesis block.
Asic (Application Specific Integrated Circuit)
ASICs are silicon chips designed to do a specific task. In ASIC use for mining cryptocurrencies, the ASIC will perform a calculation to find values that provide a desired solution when placed into a hashing algorithm.
Asic-resistant
An ASIC-resistant cryptocurrency has its protocol and mining algorithm configured in such a way that using ASIC machines to mine the coin is either impossible or brings no significant benefit when compared to traditional GPU mining.
Ask Price
The lowest price a seller is willing to accept on their sell order when trading an asset on an exchange.
Assert
In Solidity, assert(false) compiles to 0xfe, an invalid opcode, which uses up all remaining gas and reverts all changes. When an assert() statement fails, something very wrong and unexpected is happening, and you will need to fix your code. You should use assert() to avoid conditions that should never, ever occur.
Asset Management
A system or method that helps individuals or companies manage assets. Either on behalf of their clients or their own.
Asynchronous
Events in electronic systems that do not happen at the same time or speed, or happen independent of the main program flow.
Atomic Swap
Smart contract technology that enables the exchange of one cryptocurrency for another without using centralized intermediaries, such as exchanges.
Attack Surface
Points in a software environment where an attacker can attempt to enter or extract data from the system.
Attestation
Under the Proof of Stake mechanism (on the Beacon Chain), every validator other than the one proposing a new block will provide an attestation, or vote, in favor of a block with which it agrees, hereby forming consensus and confirming the block and the transactions it contains. See also 'Proof of Stake'.
Auction
A live event where assets or services are negotiated through a bidding process, which is often led by an auctioneer.
Bags
The portfolio of coins and tokens one is holding. Often related to a poorly performing bag of assets that investors insist to hold.
Base Fee
The base fee is an algorithmically determined fee that users on the Ethereum blockchain must pay to complete a transaction. The base fee is designed to help smooth transaction fees and prevent sudden spikes by targeting 50% full blocks. Depending on how full the new block is, the Base Fee is automatically increased (the block is more than 50% full) or decreased (the block is less than 50% full).
Beacon Chain
The Beacon Chain (always capitalized) is one element in the infrastructure being built to scale Ethereum, and is the foundation for a transition from a Proof of Work (PoW) consensus mechanism to Proof of Stake (PoS). For more information, see this guide.
Bear Market
A prolonged period of decline in a financial market.
Bearish
Similar to a bear market, this refers to holding a pessimistic view of a market or asset's value. If you are bearish on a certain cryptocurrency, you believe its value will decrease over time. Those who are bearish may be referred to as
Benchmark
A measurement standard which can be used to gauge the performance of a particular asset or investment portfolio.
Beta (Coefficient)
A tool used to measure the volatility of an asset in comparison to the volatility of a specific portfolio or market index.
Beta (Release)
An early version of a program for users to test and for a team to get feedback. Beta stage comes after the Alpha stage.
Bid Price
In the context of financial markets, it is the value buyers offer for an asset, such as a commodity, security, or cryptocurrency.
Bid-ask Spread
The difference in price between the lowest asking price and highest bid price on the order book for an asset
Big-endian
A positional number representation where the most significant digit is first. The opposite of little-endian, where the least significant digit is first.
Bitcoin (Btc)
The first cryptocurrency based on a Proof of Work (PoW) blockchain. Bitcoin was created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakomoto — a pseudonym for an individual whose real identity is unknown — and the concept of cryptocurrency was outlined in a white paper titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” Use “Bitcoin” for the blockchain/network; “bitcoin” for the cryptocurrency. The plural of bitcoin is just bitcoin; the abbreviation is BTC, with a space: I have 250 BTC.
Bitcoin Core
Leading implementation of the software that enables users to interact with the Bitcoin network. Initially released by Satoshi.
Bitcoin Dominance
The ratio of Bitcoin's market capitalization versus the sum of the market capitalizations of all cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin Pizza
The first known transaction where Bitcoin was exchanged for a physical good. Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC for two pizzas.
Black Swan Event
An event that is often entirely unexpected and deviates from the expected result causing widespread ramifications.
Block Explorer
A tool for browsing information on a blockchain, such as transactions, wallet addresses, market caps, and hash rates.
Block Header
A section in a block containing metadata and a summary of the block's transactions. This is the information hashed when mining.
Block Height
The number of blocks connected together in the blockchain. For example, Height 0 would be the very first block, which is also called the Genesis Block.
Block Reward
The reward given to a miner after it has successfully hashed a transaction block. Block rewards can be a mixture of coins and transaction fees. The composition depends on the policy used by the cryptocurrency in question, and whether all of the coins have already been successfully mined. The current block reward for the Bitcoin network is 12.5 bitcoins per block.
Block Time
When we talk about 'block time', we're referring to how long it takes for a block of transactions (see 'block') to be confirmed by the network, either by miners under PoW or by validators under PoS. See also 'Proof of Work', 'Proof of Stake'.
Block
A batch of transactions written to the blockchain. Every block contains information about the previous block, thus, chaining them together.
Blockchain
A blockchain is a distributed database that is shared among the nodes of a computer network. Blockchains store a continuously growing historical ledger of information (e.g. accounts and transactions) into blocks without the need for a central authority. Blockchains are the core technology on which cryptocurrency protocols like Bitcoin and Ethereum are built.
Bloom Filter
A data structure that can be used to inform the user whether a particular item is part of a set
Bnb
Launched by Binance after an initial coin offering that ended on July 3rd, 2017. Used for receiving exchange trading fee discounts among other utilities.
Bollinger Bands
A technical analysis indicator that measures market volatility. It's made of two sidelong bands and a simple moving average.
Bounty / Bug Bounty
A reward offered for exposing vulnerabilities and issues in computer code.
Brain Wallet
A blockchain account generated from a seed phrase or password or passphrase of your choosing. Humans are not capable of generating enough entropy, or randomness, and therefore the wallets derived from these phrases are insecure; brain wallets can be brute forced by super fast computers. For this reason, brain wallet are insecure and should not be used. See also 'Seed phrase / Secret Recovery Phrase'.
Break-even Point (Bep)
The point where the total costs of an operation is equivalent to its current value or revenue.
Breakeven Multiple
The multiple of the current price by which an asset needs to appreciate in order to reach its previous all-time high.
Breakout
When the price of an asset moves outside of a defined range or pattern, typically by breaking out of a support or resistance area.
Bridge
A protocol allowing separate blockchains to interact with one another, enabling the transfer of data, tokens, and other information between systems.
Buidl
Ostensibly coined (see what we did there) by Gitcoin's Kevin Owocki. It reflects the Ethereum-focused mindset of not just investing in a cryptocurrency as a store of value, but rather investing in it as an ecosystem and a platform for public goods and software; it complements, in this sense, the now-infamous HODL.
Bull Market
A period where market prices are rising.
Bullish
Similar to a bull market, this refers to holding an optimistic view that a market or asset will rise in price. If you are bullish on Bitcoin, you believe that its value will continue to rise over time.
Burn
The process of removing tokens from a cryptocurrency's circulating supply, usually done by sending them to an inaccessible wallet address. Other digital assets, such as NFTs, can also be burned via the same process.
Buy Wall
A single huge buy order or the composition of multiple large buy orders at the same price in the order book of a particular market.
Bytecode
An abstract instruction set designed for efficient execution by a software interpreter or a virtual machine. Unlike human-readable source code, bytecode is expressed in numeric format.
Byzantium Fork
A “hard fork” in the Ethereum network that occurred in October of 2017. For detailled information, see here; see also “hard fork”.
Cancel Transactions
A cancel transaction is a type of replacement transaction where a user submits an identical transaction with a higher gas limit so it is mined before the previous transaction. Once the new replacement transaction is confirmed, the original transaction will get dropped.
Candidate Block
A temporary block created by a mining node (miner) to add to the blockchain to receive the block rewards.
Candlestick
A graph representation of price action that displays the open, close, high, and low points within a certain period.
Capitulation
A period of strong selling activity, where investors give up their positions and sell their holdings as quickly as possible.
Cefi - Centralized Finance
Centralized businesses that participate in crypto.
Censorship-resistance
The property of a cryptocurrency network that prevents any entity from altering transactions on it.
Central Bank
A financial institution that acts as a monetary authority and manages a states currency, interest rates, and money supply.
Central Processing Unit (Cpu)
The part of a computer responsible for interpreting instructions of computer programs and executing operations.
Centralized
A hierarchical structure in which authority and control are concentrated within a small group of decision makers.
Cex - Centralized Exchange
A cryptocurrency exchange managed by a centralized business or entity.
Cipher
A method for encrypting and decrypting messages. These can be divided into symmetric or asymmetric, according to their key model.
Circulating Supply
The best approximate number of cryptocurrency coins or tokens that are publicly available and circulating in the market.
Client (Ethereum)
An Ethereum client is software that accesses the Ethereum blockchain via a local computer and helps to process transactions. A client usually includes a cryptocurrency software wallet. See an up-to-date list of clients here.
Cloud
In computer science, a shared pool of resources, which are made available to multiple users through the Internet.
Coin
A cryptocurrency built on its own native blockchain, intended to be used as a store of value and medium of exchange within that ecosystem.
Cold Wallet / Cold Storage
An offline wallet that is never connected to the internet. These wallets protect cryptocurrencies from getting hacked online. Cold wallets can be hardware devices or simply sheets of paper containing a user's private keys.
Collateral
Any asset accepted as security for a loan, such as a physical asset like real estate, or a digital asset like an NFT.
Colocation
A dedicated space in a data center belonging to stock exchanges which is shared with other entities such as high-frequency traders.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (Cftc)
US-based agency responsible for regulating the derivatives markets, which includes options, swaps, and futures contracts.
Compiling
Converting code written in a high-level programming language (e.g., Solidity) into a lower-level language (e.g., EVM bytecode).
Confirmation Time
The time elapsed when a transaction is submitted to the network and the time it is recorded into a confirmed block.
Confirmation
A confirmation happens when the network has verified the blockchain transaction. Under a Proof of Work (PoW) consensus mechanism, this happens through a process known as mining; under Proof of Stake (PoS), the process is known as validation. Once a transaction is successfully confirmed it theoretically cannot be reversed or double spent. The more confirmations a transaction has, the harder it becomes to perform a double spend attack.
Confirmed Transaction
A confirmed transaction is a transaction that has been included in a block and permanently added to the blockchain.
Confluence
When multiple investment methods, technical indicators, or trading signals are combined to form a more reliable strategy.
Consensus Mechanism
A process through which nodes on a blockchain come into agreement on a transaction or state of the network.
Consensus Rules
The block validation rules that full nodes follow to stay in consensus with other nodes. Not to be confused with consensus.
Consensus
The state of agreement amongst the nodes on a blockchain. Reaching consensus is necessary for new transactions to be verified and new blocks to be added to the blockchain.
Consensys
Short for Consensus Systems, ConsenSys is the software engineering leader of the blockchain space. But you're here, so you already knew that.
Constantinople Fork
One of the “hard forks” made to the Ethereum network, in February 2019. For more detailed information, see here; see also “hard fork”.
Consumer Price Index (Cpi)
A Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure used to track the effects of inflation over a period of time.
Contract Account
An account containing code that executes whenever it receives a transaction from another account (EOA or contract).
Contract Creation Transaction
A special transaction, with the 'zero address' as the recipient, that is used to register a contract and record it on the Ethereum blockchain (see 'zero address').
Contract Exploit
A Contract Exploit occurs when an individual exceeds access to a contract or cryptocurrency wallet, often leading to large losses.
Credentials
Personal information. Examples include username, password, email address, qualifications and many more.
Crypto Bounties
Bounties paid for in cryptocurrency. See also “bug bounties”.
Crypto
Even though this prefix is originally Greek, our current usage comes from cryptography. Technologies that are referred to with the blanket term of “crypto” tech are underlain by cryptographic tools and processes (such as public/private key pairs) that enable them, and enable them to be secure. Of course, “cryptocurrency” often gets shortened to simply “crypto”, so this emerging field is full of instances where something “crypto” is being added to or shortened.
Crypto-compliance
A blanket term used to refer to ensuring crypto projects conform with applicable regulations and laws.
Cryptoassets
A useful blanket term that covers on-chain assets: cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and other, still emerging, products.
Cryptocurrency
A digital asset designed to be used as a medium of exchange. Cryptocurrencies are borderless, secure, and maintained by blockchains as opposed to centralized banks or governments.
Cryptoeconomics
The economic analysis of decentralized finance; notably, the MIT Cryptoeconomics Lab.
Cryptography
A method for secure communication using code. Symmetric-key cryptography is used by various blockchain networks for transfer of cryptocurrencies. Blockchain addresses generated for wallets are paired with private keys that allow transfer of cryptocurrency. Paired public and private keys allow funds to be unlocked.
Ct
Short for Crypto Twitter
Custody
Refers to the holding of assets on behalf of a client. Can also refer to the ownership of one's funds or assets.
Daemon
A process operating in the background waiting for a specific event or condition in order to be activated.
Dao
A Digital Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO, pronounced like the Chinese concept) is a powerful and very flexible organizational structure built on a blockchain.Alternatively, the first known example of a DAO is referred to as The DAO. The DAO served as a form of investor-directed venture capital fund, which sought to provide enterprises with new decentralized business models. Ethereum-based, The DAO's code was open source. The organization set the record for the most crowdfunded project in 2016. Those funds were partially stolen by hackers. The hack caused an Ethereum hard-fork which lead to the creation of Ethereum Classic.
Dapp
Decentralized APPlication. At a minimum, it is a smart contract and a web user interface. More broadly, a DApp is a web application that is built on top of open, decentralized, peer-to-peer infrastructure services. In addition, many DApps include decentralized storage and/or a message protocol and platform.
Data
In the context of the internet, data refers to a user's personal information, such as name, age, location, interests, browsing history, device usage, purchasing habits, etc. Web3 aims to protect this personal data and give ownership of it back to the user.
Dd - Due Diligence
The process of conducting your own research on a cryptocurrency, stock, or other asset before investing. Doing your own DD is essential, as opposed to making an investment based on what someone else says or does.
Dead Cat Bounce
A brief recovery in the price of a declining asset that is shortly followed by a continuation of the downtrend.
Decentralization
The transfer of authority and responsibility from a centralized organization, government, or party to a distributed network.
Decentralized
A system that operates without the control of a central figure or authority, and replaces it with a distributed peer-to-peer network.
Decryption
The act of reverting an encryption process so that unreadable data (ciphertext) can be converted into readable data (plaintext).
Deed
Non-fungible token (NFT) standard introduced by the ERC721 proposal. Unlike ERC20 tokens, deeds prove ownership and are not interchangeable, though they are not recognized as legal documents in any jurisdiction—at least not currently (see also 'NFT').
Deep Web
The part of the web that is somehow hidden, i.e., not indexed by Google and other traditional web search engines.
Defi
DeFi is an abbreviation of Decentralized Finance, or an open financial system that doesn't rely on centralized authorities or intermediaries like banks to conduct financial activities permissionlessly like trading, borrowing, lending, and investing.
Degen
Initially short for “degenerate gambler.” While this still refers to individuals involved with risky bets, degen may also refer more broadly to anyone involved in crypto and financial spaces. Like with “ape,” this is generally a self-assigned term and does not carry a negative connotation. Degens are a proud people who enjoy ridiculous call options on GME, buying the dip before paying their rent, and occasionally aping into shitcoins.
Delisting
The removal of an asset from an exchange either as a request from the project team or as a decision made by the exchange.
Deposit
Digital property put into a contract involving a different party such that if certain conditions are not satisfied that property is automatically forfeited to the identified counterparty.
Derive / Derivation
To derive something is to obtain it from an original source. In the context of crypto-technology, we often discuss “deriving” wallets and accounts from seed phrases / Secret Recovery Phrases.
Design Flaw Attack
An attack in which a malicious user purposely creates a smart-contract, decentralized market, or other software with knowledge of certain flaws in order to trick individuals interacting within the permissionless environment.
Devcon
This is shorthand for the Ethereum Developers' Conference.
Dex
DEX is an abbreviation for Decentralized Exchange. This type of crypto exchange enables users to transact in a direct peer-to-peer manner without any intermediary.
Diamond Hands
A term implying that you are extremely bullish on a certain asset, and have no plans to sell regardless of market volatility, FUD, or extreme drops in price. Someone who holds onto a cryptocurrency or stock as it drops 40% in a day is said to have diamond hands.
Difficulty Bomb
The process of increasing the difficulty of a proof-of-work blockchain in order to motivate the transition to another consensus algorithm (such as proof-of-stake in the case of Ethereum).
Difficulty
The level of computing power needed to verify transactions and mine blocks on a proof-of-work blockchain.
Digital Asset
A digital commodity that is scarce, electronically transferable, and intangible with a market value.
Digital Identity
An online or networked identity adopted by an individual, organization, or electronic device.
Digital Signature
A short string of data a user produces for a document using a private key such that anyone with the corresponding public key, the signature, and the document can verify that (1) the document was 'signed' by the owner of that particular private key, and (2) the document was not changed after it was signed.
Distributed Denial Of Service (Ddos) Attack
A type of cyber-attack in which the perpetrator continuously overwhelms the system with requests in order to prevent service of legitimate requests.
Distributed Ledger
A type of database which spreads across multiple sites, countries, or institutions. Records are stored sequentially in a continuous ledger. Distributed ledger data can be either “permissioned” or “unpermissioned” to control who can view it.
Divergence
When the market price of an asset and a technical indicator (e.g. RSI, Volume, MACD) are heading in opposite directions.
Diversification
The allocation of funds across different types of assets and jurisdictions in order to reduce the overall risks.
Dollar Cost Averaging (Dca)
Investing fixed dollar amounts over regular periods of time regardless of the price of the asset.
Double Spend
An event during which someone on the Bitcoin network tries to send a specific bitcoin transaction to two different recipients at once. However, as each bitcoin transaction is confirmed, double spending becomes almost impossible. The more confirmations that a particular transaction has, the decreased likelihood of double spending successfully.
Double Spending
When a given amount of coins are spent more than once. Usually as a result of a race attack or a 51% attack.
Dropped Transaction
A dropped transaction is a transaction that was not mined and confirmed on the blockchain, and subsequently has been dropped from the transaction queue in the mempool. Common causes of dropped transactions include a low nonce value, high nonce value, and insufficient gas.
Dyor - Do Your Own Research
A valuable piece of advice. similar to DD, this phrase is used to remind people to conduct their own investigation into an asset before investing in it.
Ecdsa
Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm. A cryptographic algorithm used by Ethereum to ensure that funds can only be spent by their owners.
Eclipse Attack
When the majority of peers on the network are malicious and monopolize the network in order to prevent specific nodes from receiving information from honest nodes.
Efficient Market Hypothesis (Emh)
An economic theory stating financial markets reflect all available information on the price of assets at any time.
Eip (Ethereum Improvement Proposal)
EIPs describe standards for the Ethereum platform, including core protocol specifications, client APIs, and contract standards. They are, precisely, proposals for modifications to the network and the way it functions; For more information, see https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs (see also 'ERC')
Eip-1559
Also known as Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559, EIP-1559 was part of Ethereum's London hard fork and it was deployed across the Ethereum network on August 5th, 2021. EIP-1559 introduced a Base Fee which is paid by users and is eventually burned (i.e. removed from circulation), and it replaced the current gas limit with two values: a “long-term average target” (equal to the current gas limit), and a “hard per-block cap” (twice the current gas limit).
Encrypted Vs Unencrypted Keys
As discussed elsewhere, public and private crypographic key pairs are one of the technologies that underpins cryptocurrencies and “crypto” tech in general. In MetaMask, an unencrypted private key is 64 characters long, and it is used to unlock or restore wallets. An encrypted key is also 64 letters long and is a regular private key that has gone through the process of encryption.For example, if the world 'Apple' was your private key, then it was encrypted three letters down the alphabet, your new shortened encrypted key would be 'Dssoh'. Since you know the way to encrypt this key, you could derive the original private key from it by reversing the method of encryption. Usually encrypted private keys are kept within the extension or device they are encrypted by, and they remain out of sight from the user. This is meant to add another layer of security to keep a user's wallet information safe.
Encryption
There are many types of encryption, but for our purposes, it is a process that combines the text to be encrypted (plaintext) with a shorter string of data referred to as “a key” in order to produce an output (ciphertext). This output can be “decrypted” back into the original plaintext by someone else who has the key.
Ens
The Ethereum Name Service is a protocol to assign human-readable and easy-to-remember addresses to Ethereum addresses and assets, homologous to the traditional internet's DNS.
Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (Eea)
A group of Ethereum core developers, startups, and large companies working together to commercialize and use Ethereum for different business applications. Website here.
Entropy
In the context of cryptography, lack of predictability or level of randomness. When generating secret information, such as private keys, algorithms usually rely on a source of high entropy to ensure the output is unpredictable.
Eoa Transaction
An EOA transaction is a transaction between one or more externally owned accounts (EOA, or an individual user in the Ethereum network). EOA transactions do not include transactions between smart contracts (internal transactions).
Eoa
Externally Owned Account. An account created by or for human users of the Ethereum network.
Epoch
An epoch, in general, is a measure of time, or of blockchain progression, on a given blockchain. For the Ethereum Beacon Chain, an epoch consists of 32 slots, each lasting 12 seconds, for a total of 6.4 minutes per epoch. There is additional functionality built upon the epoch measure in the Beacon Chain to help ensure security and proper operation of the Chain.
Erc
Ethereum Request for Comment, or ERC, is a bit of a misnomer, as it is used to refer to suggestions for modifications that have already made it through the Ethereum Improvement Protocol (EIP) process and have been made standard on Ethereum. An ERC is, essentially, a set of standards for a given operation or topic on the Ethereum network. The authoritative list can be found here.
Erc-1155
An Ethereum token standard which allows for fungible, non-fungible, and semi-fungible tokens to be managed by a single smart contract simultaneously. These are commonly used in gaming and collectible trading to reduce the number of necessary transactions.
Erc-20
The Ethereum token standard, providing a standardized smart contract structure for fungible tokens.
Erc-721
An Ethereum token standard that allows for the formation of unique tokens, otherwise known as NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. Unlike the ERC-20 standard, ERC-721 tokens have specific properties that allow each to be uniquely identified and valued independently of one another.
Ethash
A proof-of-work algorithm for Ethereum 1.0. For more information, see https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Ethash.
Ether (Denominations)
There are a number of denominations of the currency we know as 'ether' or ETH; for the definitive explanation, see the original Ethereum Homestead documentation here.
Ether (Eth)
Ether is the native currency of the Ethereum blockchain network. Ether—also referred to as ETH (pronounced with a long “e”, like “teeth” without the “t”)—functions as a fuel of the Ethereum ecosystem by acting as a medium of incentive and form of payment for network participants to execute essential operations. The cryptocurrency of Ethereum has a lowercase e. The plural of ether is just ether; its abbreviation is ETH, with a space: I have 10 ETH.
Ether
The native cryptocurrency used by the Ethereum ecosystem, which covers gas costs when executing smart contracts. Its symbol is Ξ, the Greek uppercase Xi character.
Ethereum 2.0
Ethereum 2.0 is a deprecated term that was used to describe the consensus layer of Ethereum as part of it's migration from a Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism to Proof-of-Stake consensus. Additionally, Eth1 is now referred to as the 'execution layer.'
Ethereum Virtual Machine (Evm)
The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is a software application that blockchain developers use to deploy decentralized applications (Dapp) on the Ethereum blockchain. The EVM interacts with Ethereum's accounts, smart contracts, and distributed ledger.
Ethereum
A public blockchain network and decentralized software platform upon which developers build and run applications. As it is a proper noun, it should always be capitalized.
Event
Allows the use of EVM logging facilities. DApps can listen for events and use them to trigger JavaScript callbacks in the user interface.
Evm (Ethereum Virtual Machine)
The EVM is a virtual machine that operates on the Ethereum network. It is Turing complete and allows anyone, anywhere to execute arbitrary EVM bytecode. All Ethereum nodes run on the EVM. It is home for smart contracts based on the Ethereum blockchain.
Evm Assembly Language
A human-readable form of EVM bytecode.
Exchange
A place to trade cryptocurrency. Centralized exchanges, operated by companies like Coinbase and Gemini, function as intermediaries, while decentralized exchanges do not have a central authority.
Failed Transaction
A failed transaction is a transaction on the Ethereum blockchain that does not succeed, cannot be reversed, canceled, or refunded.
Fake Coin Listing
A Fake Coin Listing involves a token that claims to be associated with a real project or product but has no real affiliation.
Fakeout
A situation where a trader enters a position betting on a price movement that quickly reverses or ultimately doesn't happen.
Fallback Function
A default function called in the absence of data or a declared function name.
Falling Knife
Refers to the action of purchasing an asset while it is rapidly declining in price under the expectation that it will bounce.
Faucet
A service that dispenses funds in the form of free test ether that can be used on a testnet.
Fear, Uncertainty And Doubt (Fud)
A marketing strategy used to spread fear and insecurity among customers, traders, or investors.
Few
Short for “Few understand”. A rallying cry that crypto folks are still early in this space and will make a lot of money when mass adoption comes.
Fiat Currency
Government-issued currency. For example, US Dollars (USD), Euros (EUR), Yuan (CNY), and Yen (JPY).
Fiat
A currency established as legal tender, often backed and regulated by a government, such as the US Dollar.
Fill Or Kill Order (Fok)
A buy or sell order which must be executed immediately in its entirety or else it will be cancelled.
Final, Finality
A transaction is considered “final” once it can no longer be changed. In a sense, this happens once there are sufficient confirmations of the transaction, but for all intents and purposes, a transaction is final once the block that contains it is mined or validated. Keep in mind that this reflects a fundamental rule of blockchains: unlike traditional financial systems where charges can be “reversed”, there is no “undoing” a transaction on the blockchain. Once finality is reached, the transaction is immutable.
Finney
A denomination of ether. 1015 finney = 1 ether.
First-mover Advantage (Fma)
The competitive advantage of the first project to bring a service or product into a new and unexplored market or industry.
Fiscal Policy
Describes how authorities adjusts the tax rates of a country, influencing how public funds should be collected and used.
Flappening
The name to describe the moment when Litecoin (LTC) surpassed Bitcoin Cash (BCH) in terms of market capitalization
Flippening
A reference to the possible event of Ethereum becoming more valuable than Bitcoin, in terms of market cap. DISCLAIMER: Please do not mention the flippening to Bitcoin maxis. They will not think it is funny, and they will proceed to explain why Ethereum is a shitcoin.
Fomo - Fear Of Missing Out
A feeling of anxiety, stemming from missing out on an opportunity. In investing, this usually coincides with investors buying an asset after it has already seen a considerable increase in price, hoping to get in and out before a pullback occurs. This is known as “FOMOing in” or “aping in.”
Forced Liquidation
When a trader's leveraged position is forcibly closed as a result of it not fulfilling the necessary margin requirements.
Forex (Fx)
Forex stands for Foreign Exchange Markets. It's a global market for the trading of fiat currencies.
Forge
One of the most commonly used Ethereum development frameworks.
Fork
A change to a blockchain's protocol. When these changes are minor, this results in a soft fork. When the changes are more fundamental, this may result in a hard fork, leading to the formation of a separate chain with different rules.
Formal Verification
Using mathematically rigorous proofs to ensure certain properties of cryptographic algorithms and blockchain mechanisms
Fractionalize
The process of locking an NFT into a smart contract, and then dividing it into smaller parts which are issued as fungible tokens. This lowers the price of ownership and allows artwork and other digital assets to be owned by a community.
Frontier
The initial test development stage of Ethereum, which lasted from July 2015 to March 2016.
Fud - Fear, Uncertainty, And Doubt
News around an asset that seems negative, but turns out to be false or blown out of proportion.
Full Nodes
A full node is any computer or server that downloads the entire Ethereum blockchain, address states, and validates new blocks. Miners are a common example of servers that run full nodes on the Ethereum network.
Fundamental Analysis (Fa)
Evaluating an asset based on its underlying characteristics and traits as an effort towards arriving at an intrinsic value of the asset.
Fungibility
The property of an asset whose individual units are indistinguishable from each other in terms of value and functionality.
Fungible
Interchangeable; exchangeable with something else of the same kind.
Futures Contract
A standardized version of forward contracts that are used as a legal agreement to buy or sell an asset in the future at an agreed upon price and date.
Ganache
A personal Ethereum blockchain that you can use to run tests, execute commands, and inspect state while controlling how the chain operates.
Gas Fees
Gas fees are the fees users must pay in Ethereum's native currency, Ether (ETH), to complete a transaction. Gas fees are used to compensate miners for providing the computational work required to process and validate transactions.
Gas Limit
The gas limit is the maximum amount of gas miners are authorized to consume to complete a transaction.
Gas Price
The gas price is the amount of Ether (ETH) a user is willing to pay for every unit of gas required to complete a transaction (denominated in Gwei).
Gas
Gas is a unit of measurement that represents the computational effort required to complete a transaction. How much a user spends to complete a transaction is determined by the total amount of gas multiplied by the gas price. This fee is dependent upon the transaction's complexity as well as the current demand on the network.
Gavin Wood
A British programmer who is the cofounder and former CTO of Ethereum. In August 2014 he proposed Solidity, a contract-oriented programming language for writing smart contracts.
General Public License
License allowing users to copy and modify software, but requires the works to be distributed under the same license.
Genesis Block
The first block in a blockchain, used to initialize a particular network and its cryptocurrency.
Geth
Go Ethereum. One of the most prominent implementations of the Ethereum protocol, written in Go.
Github
A site/system/folder/repository where a team can share, collaborate, and save their open source or propietary code.
Gm
Simply meaning “good morning,” gm is a common greeting used in crypto circles
Gmi
Short for “gonna make it.” This term is frequently thrown around on Twitter to voice support for a project or person.
Golden Cross
A bullish chart pattern where a shorter-term moving average crosses above a longer-term moving average.
Gossip Protocol
A particular method of asynchronous peer-to-peer communication between computer nodes of a distributed system.
Gwei
A minuscule and common denomination of ETH, and the unit in which gas prices are often specified. See 'ether (denominations)' entry for more information.
Görli
Görli is a cross-client, community-based, proof-of-authority (PoA) Ethereum testnet where Web3 developers can test smart contracts in a sandbox.
Hacker
A Hacker in the cryptoverse is someone that steals funds from users or protocols.
Haha Money Printer Go Brrrrr
Haha Money Printer Go Brrrrr is meme created in response to the Federal Reserve's 2020 plan to print money.
Halving
Many cryptocurrencies have a finite supply, which makes them a scarce digital commodity. For example, the total amount of Bitcoin that will ever be issued is 21 million. The number of bitcoins generated per block is decreased 50% every four years. This is called “halving.” The final halving will take place in the year 2140.
Hard Cap
The maximum amount of funds a project intends to raise during their Initial Coin Offering (ICO) or alternative fundraising event.
Hard Fork
A permanent divergence in the blockchain; also known as a hard-forking change. One commonly occurs when nonupgraded nodes can't validate blocks created by upgraded nodes that follow newer consensus rules. Not to be confused with a fork, soft fork, software fork, or Git fork.
Hardware Wallet
A physical device that can be connected to the web and interact with online exchanges, but can also be used as cold storage (not connected to the internet).
Hash Rate
Also referred to as hash power, this is the rate at which a computer can generate guesses to a cryptographic puzzle. Hash rate can also refer to the overall power being used by the entire network on a proof of work blockchain.
Hash
A fixed-length fingerprint of variable-size input, produced by a hash function.
Hashed Timelock Contract (Htlc)
Refers to a special feature that is used to create smart contracts that are able to modify payment channels.
Hashing
The process of taking an input of any size and producing a corresponding fingerprint of a fixed-length. Hashing allows a set of data to be secured, stored, and recalled using a unique identifier code. This is the backbone of blockchain technology, allowing data and transactions to be verified and stored in a secure manner.
Hd Wallet Seed
A value used to generate the master private key and master chain code for an HD wallet. The wallet seed can be represented by mnemonic words, making it easier for humans to copy, back up, and restore private keys.
Hexadecimal
Hexadecimal is a base 16, rather than base 10, counting system. Used all over Ethereum for a variety of things, a hexadecimal string is comprised of the numbers 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 and letters A B C D E F.
Hfsp- Have Fun Staying Poor
A phrase commonly aimed at individuals who do not own any cryptocurrencies, or don't believe in the value of a certain asset.
High-frequency Trading (Hft)
A type of algorithmic trading that involves the execution of a large number of orders in fractions of a second.
Hodl
An expression meaning “hold” and frequently taken to be an acronym for Hold On for Dear Life. This term actually began its life as a typo on an old forum, Bitcointalk.org, where user GameKyuuby explained that he was “HODLING” his bitcoin as the price dropped. The misspelling quickly caught on and is still used today.
Holding The Bag
This is the unfortunate position you find yourself in when an asset you own quickly drops in value but you do not sell. You are thus left holding a bag of worthless coins or stocks. Those who end up in this position are referred to, unsurprisingly, as
Homestead
The second development stage of Ethereum, launched in March 2016 at block #1,150,000.
Honeypot
A mechanism used in computer security used to detect or counteract unauthorized access of information systems.
Hot Wallet / Hot Storage
A wallet that is directly connected to the internet at all times, for example one that is held on a centralized exchange. Hot wallets are considered to have lower security than cold storage systems or hardware wallets.
Hyperledger
Hyperledger is an ecosystem of open-system tools, libraries, and products designed to enable and support enterprise-grade blockchain technology. In general, the products focus on creating solutions for permissioned blockchains-that is, non-public blockchains, with alternative consensus mechanisms other than Proof of Work (PoW) or Proof of Stake (PoS).That said, there are use cases where such institutions would want to integrate with public blockchains, and for that reason Hyperledger Besu and Hyperledger Burrow are actively developed projects, the former being a Java-based Ethereum client, the latter being a smart contract platform which supports EVM bytecode.
Icap
Inter-exchange Client Address Protocol. An Ethereum address encoding that is partly compatible with the International Bank Account Number (IBAN) encoding, offering a versatile, checksummed, and interoperable encoding for Ethereum addresses. ICAP addresses use a new IBAN pseudo-country code: XE, standing for 'eXtended Ethereum,' as used in nonjurisdictional currencies (e.g., XBT, XRP, XCP).
Ice Age
A hard fork of Ethereum at block #200,000 to introduce an exponential difficulty increase (aka Difficulty Bomb), motivating a transition to proof of stake.
Iceberg Order
A conditional order to buy or sell a large amount of assets in smaller predetermined quantities in order to conceal the total order quantity.
Ico
An Initial Coin Offering (also called ICO) occurs when a new cryptocurrency sells advance tokens in exchange for upfront capital. These have been a vehicle for fraud and scams, and as such are subject to ever-evolving regulation and legislation.
Ide
Integrated Development Environment. A user interface that typically combines a code editor, compiler, runtime, and debugger.
Identicon / Addressidenticon / Addressicon
The colorful blob of colors that corresponds to your address. It is an easy way to see if your address is correct. More specifically, you can choose between jazzicons (created by the MetaMask team!) or blockies.
Ieo- Initial Exchange Offering
Similar to an initial coin offering, or ICO, an initial exchange offering is a method of selling tokens to raise capital, but with increased regulation. Unlike an ICO, which sells new tokens directly to the public, an IEO is managed by an existing cryptocurrency exchange. By working with a known and trusted exchange, IEOs seek to make the ICO process more secure.
Immutability
The inability to be altered or changed. This is a key element of blockchain networks: once written onto a blockchain ledger, data cannot be altered. This immutability provides the basis for commerce and trade to take place on blockchain networks.
Immutable Deployed Code Problem
Once a contract's (or library's) code is deployed, it becomes immutable. Standard software development practices rely on being able to fix possible bugs and add new features, so this represents a challenge for smart contract development.
Index
A financial instrument used to track the price value of a given asset or basket of assets
Infura
Part of ConsenSys, Infura offers backend access to the Ethereum network over established HTTP and WebSockets technology. This enables developers of dapps and websites seeking to interact with the Ethereum blockchain to do so, and at scale.
Initial Public Offering (Ipo)
Refers to the moment a private company starts offering its shares to the public for the first time.
Integrated Circuit (Ic)
A small chip, typically made of silicon, that holds a set of electronic parts such as transistors, resistors or capacitors.
Internal Transaction
An internal transaction is a transaction between one smart contract and another smart contract. Internal transactions do not include EOA transactions which are transactions initiated or between one or more externally owned addresses (i.e. a user's wallet).
Interoperability
A concept of allowing blockchains to be compatible with each other and build upon each other's features and use-cases.
Interplanetary File System (Ipfs)
A decentralized file storage and referencing system for the Ethereum blockchain. IFPS is an open source protocol that enables storing and sharing hypermedia (text, audio, visual) in a distributed manner without relying on a single point of failure. This distributed file system enables applications to run faster, safer and more transparently.
Ipfs
InterPlanetary File System. A protocol, network, and open source project designed to create a content-addressable, peer-to-peer method of storing and sharing hypermedia in a distributed filesystem.
Isolated Margin
The margin balance allocated to a position. Traders can manage risk by restricting the amount allocated to each position.
Issuance
Generation of a new cryptocurrency which occurs in a variety of different ways, depending on parameters specified by the creators.
Jager
The smallest denomination of BNB. Derived from the Telegram handle of the Binance Community Manager at the time.
Kdf
Key Derivation Function. Also known as a 'password stretching algorithm,' it is used by keystore formats to protect against brute-force, dictionary, and rainbow table attacks on passphrase encryption, by repeatedly hashing the passphrase.
Keccak-256
Cryptographic hash function used in Ethereum. Keccak-256 was standardized as SHA-3.
Keystore File
A JSON-encoded file that contains a single (randomly generated) private key, encrypted by a passphrase for extra security.
Know Your Customer (Kyc)
A process in which a business must verify the identity and background information (address, financials, etc) of their customers. For example, current regulations and laws require banks and other financial institutions to keep and report customers' personal information and transactions.
Kovan
Kovan is a Proof-of-Authority, publicly accessible Ethereum testnet.
L1- Layer 1
This is the blockchain platform itself, also referred to as the base layer, mainchain, or mainnet.
L2- Layer 2
Protocols, also referred to as solutions, built on top of a layer 1 blockchain and commonly used to improve scalability, privacy, and add cross-chain communication. Unlike sidechains, which use their own consensus mechanisms, layer 2 solutions are secured by their underlying mainchain.
Lambo
Short for Lamborghini. The ability to purchase Lambo is a goalpost for success, used in a myriad of phrases in the crypto and degen spaces. For instance
Latency
The time between submitting a transaction to a network and the first confirmation of acceptance by the network.
Law Of Demand
The law of demand relates to the willingness of consumers to buy a specific amount of goods or services for a particular price.
Leveldb
An open source on-disk key-value store, implemented as a lightweight, single-purpose library, with bindings to many platforms.
Library
A special type of contract that has no payable functions, no fallback function, and no data storage. Therefore, it cannot receive or hold ether, or store data. A library serves as previously deployed code that other contracts can call for read-only computation.
Light Client
A client that downloads only a small part of the blockchain, allowing users of low-power or low-storage hardware like smartphones and laptops to maintain almost the same guarantee of security by sometimes selectively downloading small parts of the state.
Light Nodes
A light node is a computer that connects to full nodes as a gateway to the blockchain. Light nodes do not validate blocks and do not maintain the entire blockchain and address state.
Lightning Network
A second layer operating on top of a blockchain, enabling increased transaction speed among participating nodes. This is one proposed scaling solution.
Lightweight Client
An Ethereum client that does not store a local copy of the blockchain, or validate blocks and transactions. It offers the functions of a wallet and can create and broadcast transactions.
Linux
A popular open-source operating system, created in 1991 by Linus Torvalds. It is used in a wide range of devices around the world.
Liquid Democracy (Delegative Democracy)
A government system where votes can be delegated or proxied to other individuals such as friends, politicians, or subject matter experts. For example, in a liquid democracy, Bernadette could give Ahmad her vote and Ahmad would then vote for both himself and Bernadette. A liquid democracy has been explored as a governance mechanism for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations where every participant is able to vote or delegate their vote to another individual.
Liquidity Pool
A collection of user-provided funds locked into a smart contract to facilitate trading on a DeFi platform. On decentralized exchanges and lending protocols liquidity must be provided by the users, as there is no central bank or figure to do so.
Liquidity
Liquidity is a measure of how easily an asset can be bought, sold, or traded in a given market or on an exchange. Decentralized exchanges like Uniswap have multiple liquidity pools where asset holders can deposit their assets where traders can buy and sell them in a decentralized way in exchange for rewards.
Mainnet Swap
When a coin migrates from a third party platform such as Ethereum or other token to a native on-chain token on their mainnet.
Mainnet
Short for main network, this is a main layer 1 blockchain, as opposed to a testnet or layer 2 solution.
Maker
You become a “maker” when you place an order and it does not trade immediately, so your order stays in the order book and waits for someone else to fill/match with it later.
Malware Scam
Malware is malicious code intended to provide disruption or unauthorized access to computer systems.
Margin Trading
Trading using borrowed funds - note: this is a high risk strategy and should only be done by experienced investors.
Market Cap
The total value of an asset based on its current market price. A cryptocurrency's market cap is found by multiplying the price of a single coin by its circulating supply.
Market Capitalization
The total trading value of a given coin - calculated by the product of the supply of the coin by the current price.
Market Momentum
The ability of a certain market to maintain a continuous increase or decrease in price within a particular timeframe.
Market Order
When a taker picks the best available bid or ask for a cryptocurrency, taking the price and quantity available on the order book.
Master Node
A blockchain node that verifies and relays transactions, stores the blockchain's complete history, and may participate in voting, governance of the blockchain, and other special operations. Master nodes generally operate on a collateral based system, similar to a Proof-of-Stake protocol.
Masternode
Nodes on a network that often require a minimum amount of a given coin staked in order to access staking rewards.
Max Fee Per Gas
The Max Fee is the absolute maximum amount a user is willing to pay per unit of gas (gwei) to get a transaction included in a block.
Max Priority Fee
An 'optional' additional fee that is paid directly to miners, the Max Priority Fee incentivizes miners to include your transaction in a block. By monitoring mempool data, users can accurately set their max priority fee to increase the chances that their transaction is confirmed as fast as possible.
Maximum Supply
Refers to the maximum number of coins or tokens that will be ever created for a given cryptocurrency.
Mempool
Also known as the 'transaction pool' the 'transaction queue', or 'pre-chain,' the mempool is a set of in-memory data structures propagated across Ethereum nodes that store pending transactions before they are mined.
Merged Mining
The act of mining two or more cryptocurrencies at the same time, without sacrificing overall mining performance
Merkle Patricia Trie
Often referred to simply as a “Merkle trie” (pronounced “tree”), a Merkle Patricia trie is a data structure in which a single hash code function (a type of cryptographic code) splits into smaller branches. In a similar way to a family tree, where a parent branch splits into child branches, which are then extrapolated into grandchild branches, a Merkle Patricia trie keeps a record of the filiation and history of each element. This type of data structure enables for faster verification on a blockchain network.
Merkle Tree
A way of organizing and structuring large amounts of data to make it more straightforward to process. A hash-based data structure.
Mesh
ConsenSys Mesh is a network of loosely coupled, tightly aligned teams, products, and investments advancing the Ethereum ecosystem and the arrival of Web 3.0.
Message Call
The act of passing a message from one account to another. If the destination account is associated with EVM code, then the VM will be started with the state of that object and the message acted upon.
Message
An internal transaction that is never serialized and only sent within the EVM.
Metadata
Data that includes information about other data, such as information about features of a specific transaction.
Metamask
MetaMask, either in its mobile app form on iOS and Android, or in its browser extension form, is a tool to access and interact with blockchains and the decentralized web. Its functions include that of a wallet, a dapp permissions manager, and token swap platform.
Metropolis
The third development stage of Ethereum, launched in October 2017.
Mev
MEV (Miner Extractable Value or Maximal Extractable Value), is the profit a miner can make by including, excluding, or re-ordering transactions in a block. Searchers use MEV tools like Flashbots to extract value from the transaction queue by identifying opportunities and submitting a package of transactions to miners to be executed.
Miner
A network node that finds valid proof of work for new blocks, by repeated hashing.
Mining Farm
A collection of many miners, often in a warehouse or large data center devoted to mining cryptocurrencies
Mining
In a Proof of Work system, this is the process of verifying transactions, organizing them into blocks, and then adding blocks to the blockchain. Participants who perform this process are called
Minting
The process of validating information, such as domain ownership, and registering that onto the blockchain.
Mist
The first Ethereum-enabled browser, built by the Ethereum Foundation. It contains a browser-based wallet that was the first implementation of the ERC20 token standard (Fabian Vogelsteller, author of ERC20, was also the main developer of Mist). Mist was also the first wallet to introduce the camelCase checksum (EIP-55; see [EIP55]). Mist runs a full node and offers a full DApp browser with support for Swarm-based storage and ENS addresses.
Mnemonic Phrase
See 'seed phrase / secret recovery phrase'.
Monetary Policy
Refers to the policies that authorities create and adopt to control the money supply and interest rates of a country.
Moon / To The Moon!
This phrase implies that the value of an asset will go so high that it will reach the literal moon. This is used by shills, bulls, and during a bull market, essentially everyone. Another form of this is “wen moon?” This is used to express one's impatience with an asset which is not increasing in value as quickly as they had hoped.
Moonboy
A term for social media “financial experts” and YouTubers who are overly optimistic and constantly explaining how a given asset is “about to go to the moon!”
Multi Signature (Multisig)
A crypto-asset wallet that requires multiple keys to access. Typically, a specified number of individuals are required to approve or “sign” a transaction before they are able to access the wallet. This is different from most wallets which only require one signature to approve a transaction.
Multisignature
Wallet which requires another party to authorize a transaction before it is broadcasted to the network.
Network
Referring to the Ethereum network, a peer-to-peer network that propagates transactions and blocks to every Ethereum node (network participant).
Nft Scam
A Non-Fungible Token (NFT) Scam occurs when investors pay a mint price but never receive the item developed by a particular project.
Nft
When discussing Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), “fungibility” refers to an object's ability to be exchanged for another. For example, an individual dollar is considered fungible as we can trade dollars with one another. Artwork is usually deemed non-fungible as paintings, sculptures, or masterpieces are likely to be unequal in quality or value. A non-fungible token is a type of token that is a unique digital asset and has no equal token. This is in contrast to cryptocurrencies like ether that are fungible in nature.
Ngmi
Short for “not gonna make it.” This is used to imply that a certain project or asset has a low chance of becoming valuable. This can also be directed at an individual, usually someone who had made a poor trade or investment.
Nocoiner
A term used to describe someone who does not hold any cryptocurrencies, or who is generally unfamiliar with crypto.
Node (Full Node)
Any computer connected to the blockchain network is referred to as a node. A full node is a computer that can fully validate transactions and download the entire data of a specific blockchain. In contrast, a “lightweight” or “light” node does not download all pieces of a blockchain's data and uses a different validation process.
Node
Any device connected to a blockchain network. Different nodes have varying levels of responsibility, and may help validate transactions, store the blockchain's history, relay data, and perform other functions. Because blockchains are distributed peer-to-peer networks, nodes come together to create the network's infrastructure.
Non-fungible Token (Nft)
A non-fungible token (NFT) is a digital asset based on Ethereum's ERC-721 token standard that can be used to represent ownership of a variety of digital assets including art, photography, music, and more.
Non-fungible
Unique; not interchangeable.
Nonce
Nonce is a number associated with Ethereum transactions that increases by one with every transaction, and a value that can only be used once.
Off-chain
Off-chain means any transaction or data that exists outside the blockchain. Because committing every transaction on-chain can be expensive and inefficient, third-party tools like oracles that handle pricing data, or layer 2 solutions that execute a higher throughput of transactions, handle a bulk of the processing work off-chain, and will submit information on-chain at less frequent intervals.
Offshore Account
An account that is registered in a jurisdiction that is different to the jurisdiction of the holder's citizenship.
Ommer Block
Under the Proof of Work (PoW) consensus mechanism, miners received rewards for being the first to mine a new block. However, at times a block would be mined just after, and in competition with, the last block; this block, known as an ommer and previously as an uncle, could get rolled into subsequent blocks and the miner of the original ommer would get a partial block reward. All of this functionality is deprecated as of the Beacon Chain.
Ommer
A child block of an ancestor that is not itself an ancestor. When a miner finds a valid block, another miner may have published a competing block which is added to the tip of the blockchain. Unlike with Bitcoin, orphaned blocks in Ethereum can be included by newer blocks as ommers and receive a partial block reward. The term 'ommer' is the preferred gender-neutral term for the sibling of a parent node, but this is also sometimes referred to as an 'uncle.'
On-chain
On-chain is an umbrella term that includes any transaction or data that is available on the blockchain and visible to all nodes on the blockchain network such as mempool data, historical transactions, and account information.
One Cancels The Other Order (Oco)
A pair of orders that are created concurrently, but it is only possible for one of them to execute.
Open-source Software (Oss)
Software released under a license that gives anyone the ability and right to use, update, and distribute it freely.
Optimistic Rollup
A rollup that assumes the validity and good faith of transactions, and only runs a fraud proof in the case of fraud being alleged. See also 'rollup'.
Oracle
Typically, an oracle is any entity or person that is relied on to report the outcome of an event. In a blockchain network an oracle (human or machine) helps communicate data to a smart contract which can then be used to verify an event or specific outcome.
Order Book
An electronic list of outstanding buy and sell orders for a specific asset on an exchange or marketplace.
Orphan Block
A block whose parent block is unknown, formed in older versions of Bitcoin Core, where ancestry data wasn't required.
P2p (Peer-to-peer)
P2P refers to interactions that happen between two parties, usually two separate individuals. A P2P network can be any number of individuals. In regards to a blockchain network, individuals are able to transact or interact with each other without relying on an intermediary or single point of failure.
Paper Hands
A term used to describe someone who sold a cryptocurrency or stock as its price was falling, usually for a loss. Someone with paper hands is said to be weak and unable to stomach market volatility.
Paper Wallet
A piece of paper on which a cryptocurrency address and its corresponding private key are physically printed out.
Parity
One of the most prominent interoperable implementations of the Ethereum client software.
Passive Management
An investing strategy that doesn't rely on active market exposure but rather tracks an existing economic index.
Peer-to-peer (P2p)
When two or more computers are connected and share workload or resources without relying on a centralized server.
Pegged Currency
A currency where the price is designed to remain the same as a designated asset. For example: 1 USDT is pegged to 1 USD. Also referred to as a stablecoin.
Pending Pool
The pending pool is a group of transactions in the mempool that are ready to be processed.
Pending Transaction
Pending is a transaction status used to describe in-flight, pre-consensus transactions that are in the mempool and have not yet been confirmed on the blockchain.
Permissioned Ledger
A blockchain network in which access to ledger or network requires permission from an individual or group of individuals, as opposed to a public blockchain. Permissioned ledgers may have one or many owners. Consensus on a permissioned ledger is conducted by the trusted actors, such as government departments, banks, or other known entities. Permissioned blockchains or ledgers contain highly-verifiable data sets because the consensus process creates a digital signature, which can be seen by all parties. A permissioned ledger is much easier to maintain and considerably faster than a public blockchain. For example, Quorum or Hyperledger Besu are permissioned ledgers that can be more easily set up for large enterprises. In contrast, the public Ethereum blockchain is a permissionless ledger which anyone can access.
Phishing
Phishing is a tactic used by criminals to trick individuals into providing personal information that typically is associated with login information.
Pigbutchering
The pigbutchering (a.k.a. “sha zhu pan”) scam is a cryptocurrency romance investment scheme that targets victims all over the globe.
Plasma
Plasma is a term that is used to refer to one of the scaling solutions being deployed to create Layer 2 of the Ethereum network. A Plasma network functions similarly to an Optimistic rollup, inasmuch as it relies on Layer 1 Ethereum mainnet to maintain the record of transactions, and as the source for arbitration or fraud resolution. However, a Plasma network differs in other important technical ways from rollups, and is currently limited to simple operations, such as swaps and token transfers.
Poa, Pos, Pow
Acronyms standing for Proof of X consensus mechanisms: Assignment, Stake, Work. The “o” is lowercase since you wouldn't capitalize “of” when writing out the phrase. See also 'consensus', 'Proof of Authority', 'Proof of Stake', 'Proof of Work'.
Polkadot Crowdloan
Polkadot Crowdloan refers to the process of staking Polkadot (DOT) tokens to support specific projects in the Polkadot Slot Auction. In return, participants can receive rewards from the projects.
Ponzi Scheme
A Ponzi Scheme in the cryptoverse involves an individual or company promising returns on products that are not sustainable. Early investors typically see success due to funds taken from later investors.
Potentially Promising
First used by Elon Musk to refer to planned upgrades to Dogecoin. Referring to something as being potentially promising quickly caught on, being used both sarcastically and in a serious manner, albeit tongue-in-cheek.
Pre-chain
Pre-chain is another way to describe transactions that are currently in progress. Pre-chain transactions are also known as pre-consensus transactions, and are transactions that are currently in the mempool.
Pre-consensus
Pre-consensus is another way to describe transactions that are currently in flight and not yet confirmed on the blockchain. Pre-consensus transactions are also known as pending transactions and pre-chain transactions.
Price Action
The price movements of a financial asset over time. Plotted on a chart, it can be used by traders to identify trade setups.
Prisoner's Dilemma
An example that shows why two individuals might not cooperate, even if it may appear to be in their best interest.
Private Blockchain
A blockchain or distributed ledger that has a closed network where participants are controlled by a single entity. A private blockchain requires a verification process for new participants. A private blockchain may also limit which individuals are able to participate in consensus of the blockchain network. See also 'permissioned ledger'.
Private Currency
A currency or token issued by a private individual or firm. Typically, the token or currency is limited to use within the network of that particular firm or individual. This is not to be confused with a “privacy cryptocurrency” which are cryptocurrency with specific privacy features, such as hidden user identities.
Private Key
An alphanumeric passcode required to withdraw assets from a blockchain wallet and authorize digital transactions. Because these private keys are long and difficult to memorize, wallets will generally associate them with a seed or recovery phrase that is easier to remember.
Private Sale
An early stage investment round for strategic investors with a considerable amount of investible funds.
Progressive Web Application (Pwa)
An application that is created through the use of modern web technologies and follows basic web standards.
Proof Of Attendance Protocol (Poap)
A protocol that creates digital badges or collectibles to celebrate and record the attendance of an event.
Proof Of Authority (Poa)
A consensus mechanism used in private blockchains, granting a single private key the authority to generate all of the blocks or validate transactions.
Proof Of Stake (Pos)
A consensus mechanism in which an individual or “validator” validates transactions or blocks. Validators “stake” their cryptocurrency, such as ether, on whichever transactions they choose to validate. If the individual validates a block (group of transactions) correctly then the individual receives a reward. Typically, if a validator verifies an incorrect transaction then they lose the cryptocurrency that they staked. PoS requires a negligible amount of computing power compared to Proof of Work consensus.
Proof Of Work (Pow)
A consensus mechanism in which each block is 'mined' by a group of individuals or nodes on the network. Hashing a block, which is in itself an easy computational process, under PoW requires each miner to solve for a set, difficult variable. In effect, the process of hashing each block becomes a competition. This addition of solving for a target increases the difficulty of successfully hashing each block. For each hashed block, the overall process of hashing will have taken some time and computational effort. Thus, a hashed block is considered Proof of Work, and the miner that successfully hashes the block first receives a reward, in the form of cryptocurrency. PoW is singificantly more energy-intensive than other consensus mechanisms, such as Proof of Stake.
Protocol
The foundational software layer of a program. Protocol has become a general term used to refer to both layer 1 blockchain networks and the layer 2 applications built on top of them — Bitcoin, Ethereum, Uniswap, and Lightning Network can all be considered protocols.
Pseudorandom
The property of a definite function that can produce an outcome that passes statistical tests of randomness.
Public Blockchain
A globally open network where anyone can participate in transactions, execute the consensus protocol to help determine which blocks get added to the chain, and maintain the shared ledger.
Public Key
Uses to point to your wallet address, this is an alphanumeric code that serves as the address for a blockchain wallet, similar to a bank account number. Other users can send digital assets to your wallet via your public key, but only you can access your wallet's contents by using the corresponding private key.
Pump And Dump
A scheme where a cryptocurrency or other asset is hyped up, leading many to buy into it, raising its price. Those who did the hyping then sell their holdings of the asset as the price rises for a short period of time. This then leads to a sharp selloff where anyone who did not sell suffers a loss.
Quantum Computing
Quantum computing works using particles that can be in superposition. These particles represent qubits instead of bits and can take the value of 1, 0 or both simultaneously.
Queued Pool
The queued pool is a pool of transactions in the mempool that are not yet ready to be processed because they are 'out of order.'
Race Attack
When two transactions are created with the same funds at the same time, with the intention of spending those funds twice.
Ransomware
Ransomware occurs when an attacker locks up a computer system and demands payment.
Re-entrancy Attack
An attack that consists of an attacker contract calling a victim contract function in such a way that during execution the victim calls the attacker contract again, recursively. This can result, for example, in the theft of funds by skipping parts of the victim contract that update balances or count withdrawal amounts.
Receipt
Data returned by an Ethereum client to represent the result of a particular transaction, including a hash of the transaction, its block number, the amount of gas used, and, in case of deployment of a smart contract, the address of the contract.
Rekt
As in “wrecked” used to express that one has suffered a huge loss.
Relative Strength Index (Rsi)
A technical indicator that measures market momentum & used to identify overbought and oversold conditions.
Relayer
Any party or entity which hosts an off-chain orderbook. Relayers help traders discover counter-parties and cryptographically move orders between them. 0x is an example of a popular Ethereum relayer protocol.
Replacement Transaction
Replacement transactions include 'Speed up' and 'Cancel' transactions.
Resistance
A term in Technical Analysis (TA). When a price that is increasing finds resistance. Usually compared with previous highs.
Return On Investment (Roi)
A measure used in order to assess the efficiency of an investment. The ratio between net profit and net cost.
Reward
An amount of ether included in each new block as a reward by the network to the miner who found the proof-of-work solution.
Rinkeby
Rinkeby is a Proof-of-Authority testnet for Ethereum where smart contract developers can test code before deploying it to Ethereum's mainnet.
Rlp
Recursive Length Prefix. An encoding standard designed by the Ethereum developers to encode and serialize objects (data structures) of arbitrary complexity and length.
Roadmap
A business planning technique which lays out the short and long term goals of a company within a flexible estimated timeline.
Rollup
A scaling solution that aims to improve transaction throughput and decrease fees by batching multiple transactions off-chain and then submitting them to the main chain as a single transaction.
Rollups
Rollups (pronounced “roll ups”) are one element in the set of tools and infrastructure being built as Layer 2, the scaling solutions for the Ethereum network. They consist, in general, of solutions in which the transaction data is still kept on Layer 1, the original Ethereum network, while transaction computation occurs on a side network, freeing up computational power on Layer. There are different ways of approaching this problem from a technical point of view, namely Zero Knowledge, or ZK, rollups, and Optimistic rollups. See the entries on both of these types of rollup for more, and more in-depth discussion here.
Romance Scam
A Romance scam involves a criminal assuming a fake identity in order to gain a victim's affection, which often leads to financial loss through manipulation and deception.
Ropsten
Ropsten is the primary Ethereum testnet (test network) where blockchain developers can test their smart contract code in a live setting without spending actual money.
Routing Attack
An attack on the Internet Service Provider level to affect uptime or participation in a web-enabled system, such as a blockchain.
Rpc
The Remote Procedure Call is a protocol that, while not blockchain-specific, is used to transfer data between endpoints. You may often see it referred to as JSON-RPC, which is its full name.
Rug Pull
A Rug Pull occurs when an individual or group deletes their online foot print after accepting investor funds. It is the same as an exit scam where the goal is to run off with investor funds.
Satoshi Nakamoto
A pseudonymous individual or entity who created the Bitcoin protocol, solving the digital currency issue of the “double spend.” Nakamoto first published their white paper describing the project in 2008 and the first Bitcoin software was released one year later.
Satoshis/sats
The smallest denomination of BTC, equal to 0.00000001 bitcoin. Satoshis are named after Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.
Scalability
A protocol's capacity to handle higher demand and increase transaction throughput as the network grows.
Sdk
A software development kit (SDK), also known as a devkit, is a collection of software tools and programs developers can use to quickly deploy an application in their development environment.
Searcher
Searchers are people who identify opportunities to extract value for miners, create executable packages of transactions, and submit them to miners.
Secret Key (Aka Private Key)
The secret number that allows Ethereum users to prove ownership of an account or contracts, by producing a digital signature (see “public key,” “address,” “ECDSA”).
Secure Asset Fund For Users (Safu)
Secure Asset Fund for Users is an emergency insurance fund created by Binance in 2018.
Securities And Exchange Commission (Sec)
An independent governmental agency responsible for regulating securities markets.
Security Audit
A systematic analysis to evaluate how safe a system, smart contract, or blockchain is agaisnt attacks or technical failures.
Seed (Phrase) / Secret Recovery Phrase
The seed phrase, mnemonic, or Secret Recovery Phrase is a crucial part of public blockchain technology, originally created for Bitcoin, and goes by many names. However, they all refer to a set of ordered words which correspond to determined values. These values never change, and therefore the same string of words in the same order will always produce the same number-this is the underlying functionality that allows seed phrases to back up wallets. The Secret Recovery Phrase is exactly what it sounds like: something that is secret, and should be known only to the owner of the account. If the seed phrase is given to someone else, that person has complete control over the account; they can drain it of tokens and funds, execute transactions with it, etc.
Seed Phrase Theft
A Seed Phrase Theft occurs when an individual gains control of your seed phrase and with it the ability to steal your crypto.
Segregated Witness (Segwit)
A process where the transaction signatures are separated from bitcoin transactions. Allowing more transactions to fit within one block.
Self-executing
Functioning by itself, not controlled by any other party other than itself. Self-executing smart contracts cut costs/overhead by removing the need for an arbitrator and trust toward a third party.
Selfish Mining
The strategic withholding and releasing of blocks by a miner in order to gain a competitive advantage over the network.
Sell Wall
A very large limit sell order or a cumulation of sell orders at the same price level on an order book for an asset.
Sentiment
The overall attitude of a community in regards to a cryptocurrency or within investors towards a certain financial market.
Ser
Meaning “sir,” a common intentional misspelling used in crypto circles
Serenity
The fourth and final development stage of Ethereum. Serenity does not yet have a planned release date.
Serialization
The process of converting a data structure into a sequence of bytes. Ethereum internally uses an encoding format called recursive-length prefix encoding (RLP).
Serpent
A procedural (imperative) smart contract programming language with syntax similar to Python.
Sha
Secure Hash Algorithm. A family of cryptographic hash functions published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Sha-256
SHA stands for Secure Hashing Algorithm, a set of cryptographic hashing functions designed by the NSA. Essentially, SHA-256 takes an input of data and generates a long sequence of letters and numbers, called a
Sharding
A method of separating a network's nodes out into smaller groups (shards) in an attempt to increase scalability. These shards are then able to reach consensus on behalf of the entire network, removing the need for every node to process every transaction.
Sharpe Ratio
A ratio created in 1966 that investors and economists use to assess the potential return of investment (ROI).
Shill
The act of heavily promoting a cryptocurrency, stock, or other asset in an effort to increase adoption and, in turn, raise its price. This is usually done via spamming on social media, and generally carries a negative connotation. A person who performs the act of shilling may also be referred to as a shill.
Shitcoin
A cryptocurrency with weak fundamentals and little to no use case.
Sidechain
A side chain is a blockchain that allows tokens from one blockchain to be securely used within a completely separate blockchain, but still move back to the original chain if necessary. Sidechains like xDai are popular because they offer distinct advantages to developers including cost savings and greater transaction speed by offloading transactions from the main chain in order to increase scalability or add other functionality. Sidechains are connected to their main chain, or parent chain, via a two-way link which allows data and assets to be seamlessly transferred.
Sidechains
A sidechain is what it sounds like — it is a separate blockchain that is Ethereum-compatible. While a sidechain is a sort of scaling tool, as a class they aren't part of Layer 2; they simply represent a way in which developers can build and enable cheaper transactions for the user (on the sidechain, in sidechain-native tokens or currencies) while maintaining compatibility with the Ethereum network. This often requires routing tokens through a special portal or bridge, as sending tokens from a sidechain to Ethereum mainnet or vice versa would result in token loss.
Sim Swap
A Sim Swap occurs when an individual takes control of your cell phone.
Singleton
A computer programming term that describes an object of which only a single instance can exist.
Slashing Condition
Under a Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, a slashing condition is one that causes the validator's deposit to be destroyed when they trigger it. See also 'Proof of Stake'.
Slashing
The process of burning or redistributing a validator's staked cryptocurrency as punishment for approving fraudulent charges or otherwise endangering the network.
Slippage
The price of a cryptocurrency may change between the time an order is placed and the time that order is ultimately filled. Slippage is the difference between a cryptocurrency's quoted price and the price that a trade actually executes at.
Slot
A slot, on the Ethereum Beacon Chain, is a 12-second period of time during which a new block may (or may not) be proposed. Every 32 slots composes an epoch. See also 'epoch'.
Smart Contract
Self-executing code deployed on a blockchain. Smart contracts allow transactions to be made without an intermediary figure and without the parties involved having to trust one another.
Snapshot
The ability to record the state of a blockchain ledger, storage device, or computer system at a specific point in time.
Social Engineering
Social Engineering occurs when someone attempts to gain access to accounts by impersonating a company or individual. These attacks are very common in the cryptoverse and often result in seed phrase compromises or Sim Swaps.
Soft Fork
A backwards compatible update to a blockchain. Unlike a hard fork, these changes do not require the creation of a separate chain.
Solidity Inline Assembly
EVM assembly language in a Solidity program. Solidity's support for inline assembly makes it easier to write certain operations.
Solidity
The programming language developers use to write smart contracts on the Ethereum network. Try it out on Remix. See also 'smart contract'.
Source Code
Computer code, which is responsible for defining how software will function based on a list of instructions and statements.
Speed Up Transactions
Speed Up transactions are a type of replacement transaction that attempts to overwrite a currently pending transaction with a new transaction. A Speed Up transaction could be used by traders trying to exploit an arbitrage opportunity before their competitors.
Spurious Dragon
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,675,000 to address more denial-of-service attack vectors and clear state (see also 'Tangerine Whistle'). Also, a replay attack protection mechanism.
Stablecoin
A token with its value pegged to another asset. Stablecoins are usually backed by a fiat currency, like the US dollar, but can also be pegged to physical assets like precious metals, or even other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
Staking Pool
A pool where stakeholders combine their staking power to increase their chance of successfully validating a new block.
Staking
In the Ethereum context, 'staking' of tokens or currency carries the traditional meaning of 'setting aside currency for a determined purpose'; however, 'staking' can happen in a variety of venues with different effects. For example, on decentralized exchanges (DEXes), there is no centralized authority or bank putting up the funds to allow transfers to happen between parties; rather, the parties amongst themselves have to establish liquidity pools in order to facilitate swaps. In this context, someone might 'stake' tokens into a liquidity pool, often for a promised rate of return in exchange for the use of their tokens, with the option to withdraw their tokens later.On the Beacon Chain and Ethereum 2.0, 'staking' means something a bit different: 32 ETH may be staked at a determined smart contract address in order to operate a validator on the Beacon Chain; in this way, you help ensure the good functioning and safety of the network, and are rewarded for your staking.
State Channels
State channels are part of the set of tools and platforms involved in scaling Ethereum and enabling Layer 2. While a complex topic, state channels are essentially methods through which the current 'state' of the blockchain can be exported, and based on that any given number of transactions can take place off-chain, and then be moved back onto the main Ethereum chain.
State
The set of data that a blockchain network strictly needs to keep track of, and that represents data currently relevant to applications on the chain.
Store Of Value
A commodity, asset or currency that can be saved, retrieved and exchanged at a future date, without suffering depreciation.
Stuck Transactions
A stuck transaction is when transactions cannot be mined. Many stuck Ethereum transactions are caused by nonce gaps, and until the nonce gap has been resolved, wallets cannot process new transactions.
Supercomputer
A computer or virtual machine that operates at the highest level of currently possible computing power.
Supply Chain
A network of people and businesses involved in creating and distributing a particular product or serving a particular customer.
Support
A term in Technical Analysis (TA). When a price that is decreasing finds 'support'. Usually compared with lows.
Swarm
A decentralized (P2P) storage network, used along with Web3 and Whisper to build DApps.
Szabo
A denomination of ether. 1012 szabo = 1 ether.
Taker
The 'taker' is someone who decides to place an order that is instantly matched with an existing order on the order book.
Tangerine Whistle
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,463,000 to change the gas calculation for certain I/O-intensive operations and to clear the accumulated state from a denial-of-service attack, which exploited the low gas cost of those operations.
Tank
A term adopted from the traditional financial markets and describes a strong negative financial performance of a particular asset
Testnet
An alternative blockchain developers use to test applications in a near-live environment.
Ticker
The trading 'symbol' or shortened name (typically in capital letters) that refer to a coin on a trading platform. For example: BNB
Tip
A tip is an 'optional' additional fee that is paid directly to miners by users to incentivize miners to include their transaction in the next block. Tips were added to Ethereum through an Ethereum Improvement Proposoal (EIP-1559).
Tld- Top Level Domain
The last segment of a domain name, or the part that follows immediately after the 'dot' symbol.
Token Lockup
Token lockup or vesting period refers to the time span in which tokens or coins are not allowed to be transferred or traded.
Token Sale
The issuance of tokens in exchange for another cryptocurrency. Also referred to as an Initial Coin Offering.
Token
Unlike a coin, a token is a digital asset created on an existing blockchain. Tokens can be used to represent digital and physical assets, or used to interact with dapps.
Tokenomics
A portmanteau of the words 'token' and 'economics,' tokenomics refers to all the aspects of a cryptocurrency that can impact the price such as total supply, vesting, and utility.
Total Supply
Refers to the number of coins or tokens that currently exists and are either in circulation or locked somehow.
Total Value Locked (Tvl)
Total Value Locked (TVL) is the total value of assets locked (i.e. being used) in a specific protocol. DeFi lending protocols like Compound Finance and decentralized exchanges like Uniswap use liquidity pools which lock assets in a vault, and therefore have a TVL. New transactions are verified by nodes on the network and then broadcasted to other nodes. Once enough nodes have verified the transaction, it is considered valid and added to a block.
Tps- Transactions Per Second
The number of transactions that a blockchain can handle per second, used as a benchmark to measure its computational power.
Transaction Block
A collection of transactions on a blockchain network, gathered into a set or a block that can then be hashed and added to the blockchain.
Transaction Event Stream
A transaction event stream is a real-time stream of transaction events that are happening in the mempool.
Transaction Fee
A small fee imposed on some transactions sent across a blockchain network. The transaction fee is awarded to the miner that successfully hashes the block containing the relevant transaction.
Transaction Id (Txid)
A transaction ID (TXID) is a unique string of characters that labels each transaction on the blockchain.
Transaction Settlement
When the entire block is accepted, or 'hashed,' by a miner the transaction is considered settled. As the new block propagates across the network, each node executes the transactions in the block and updates its current state. At this point, the transaction is confirmed on the blockchain.
Transaction Status
The transaction status is the current state of your transaction in the blockchain. Transaction statuses include: confirmed, failed, dropped, and stuck.
Transaction
Data committed to the Ethereum Blockchain signed by an originating account, targeting a specific address. The transaction contains metadata such as the gas limit for that transaction.
Trustless
'Trustless' is a term that gets used a lot in the decentralized web, and it deserves some explanation. Traditionally, to call something 'trustless' would sound like a negative thing. In the context of decentralized technology, it has a more technical meaning: since everyone has a copy of the ledger of all transactions ever executed, there is no need for a third-party repository of 'truth' in whom trust resides. We don't rely on some centralized server somewhere that could be hacked or changed arbitrarily; anyone can verify the transactions themselves. In a way, the rules and assurances built into the blockchain provide the basis for greater trust, because the system works the same for everyone.
Turing Complete
Any machine that can calculate on a level equal to a programmable computer is Turing Complete, or computationally universal. The EVM, despite not existing on a single physical computer, is Turing Complete.
Tvl- Total Value Locked
A measure of the assets locked into an dapp's smart contract, usually expressed in USD.
Txn Hash
Short for transaction hash, or transaction ID. This is a unique identifier used to represent a specific transaction, written as a long string of letters and numbers. By pasting a txn hash into a block explorer like Etherscan, you can find the details of the transaction it represents.
Type 0 Transactions
Type 0 transactions are legacy transaction types from before the London hard fork in August 2021 which included the deployment of EIP-1559.
Type 2 Transactions
Type 2 transactions are based on the EIP-1559 upgrades and include Base Fee, Max Priority Fee, and Max Fee Per Gas fields instead of the Gas Price field.
Ukraine Donation Scam
Attempts to appear like a legitimate business that accepts cryptocurrency donations to assist Ukrainian efforts.
Unit Of Account
One of the primary properties of money. Allowing measurement and comparison of the value of different things.
Unspent Transaction Output (Utxo)
An output created in a transaction, which must be referenced in a future transaction to spend funds.
User Interface (Ui)
The interface where interactions between humans and machines occur. It establishes how a user can interact with a machine.
Ux
UX is an abbreviation for User Experience, and is the design discipline for optimizing how users interact with and perceive an application, interface, or system.
Validator
A participant in Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus. On the Beacon Chain, validators need to stake 32 ETH, that is to submit a sort of security deposit, in order to get included in the validator set. See also 'staking'.
Validity Proof
The proof submitted along with certain types of rollups to prove that the transactions are valid. See also 'rollups'.
Validium
One of the technologies developed for Layer 2 scaling of the Ethereum network; see more here.
Vaporware
A product or project that is announced and marketed but never actually materializes.
Verification Code
Code sent to a second device to ensure the identity of someone logging in to an account. Used for Two-Factor Authentication
Vitalik Buterin
A Russian-Canadian programmer and writer primarily known as the cofounder of Ethereum and of Bitcoin Magazine.
Vladimir Club
A term used to describe someone who has acquired 1% of 1% (0.01%) of the maximum supply of a cryptocurrency.
Volatility
How quickly and how much the price of an asset changes. Calculated in terms of standard deviations in the annual return of an asset over a set period of time.
Volume
A measurement of the number of individual units of an asset that changed hands in a market during a given time.
Vyper
A high-level programming language, similar to Serpent, with Python-like syntax. Intended to get closer to a pure functional language. Created by Vitalik Buterin.
Wagmi
'We're All Gonna Make It,' a common saying in crypto and trading circles signaling camaraderie and a positive outlook.
Wallet Address
Also known as a public key, this is an alphanumeric code that serves as the address for a blockchain wallet, similar to a bank account number. Other users can send digital assets to your wallet via your public key, but only you can access your wallet's contents by using the corresponding private key.
Wallet
A designated storage location for digital assets (cryptocurrency) that has an address for sending and receiving funds. The wallet can be online, offline, or on a physical device.
Weak Hands
A term referring to traders or investors who lack the confidence to hold their assets or to follow their trading plans.
Weak Subjectivity
Relates to the need for certain nodes to rely on other nodes when determining the current state of a PoS blockchain.
Web 1.0
The initial iteration of the web, when data was primarily read-only pages connected with hyperlinks. Also known as 'read-only' web.
Web1
The first iteration of the web, commonly referred to as the “read-only web.” Web1 was characterized by static websites that displayed information. There was little to no user interaction or user-generated content.
Web2
Starting in the 90s, the “read-write web” is characterized by user-generated content and improved user interfaces. This led to the creation of blogs and social media platforms, as well as sites like Wikipedia and YouTube. Web2 placed more emphasis on user experience and interoperability between different applications and websites, giving us the vast network of connected websites and resources that we are familiar with today.
Web3
The next iteration of the web being ushered in as we speak, which leverages blockchain technology, open-source applications, and the decentralization of data and information. Web3 aims to remove control of the web from monopolistic tech companies, and return ownership of data and content to its users. Also referred to as the “read-write-trust web.”
Wei
The smallest denomination of ether, named after cypherpunk and cryptocurrency pioneer, Wei Dai. 10^18 gwei = 1 ether.
Whale
An individual or organization that holds a large amount of Bitcoins or other cryptocurrency, allowing them to impact the markets.
Whiskers
The lines extending from the colored bar in a candlestick chart that indicate the full low-high range of a trading pair within a certain time frame. Also referred to as wicks or shadows.
Whisper
A decentralized (P2P) messaging service. It is used along with Web3 and Swarm to build DApps.
Whitelist
A list of allowed or trusted individuals, computer programs, or cryptocurrency addresses in relation to a service or event.
Wick
A line found on a candlestick chart which is used to indicate where the price of an asset is fluctuating in regards to its opening and closing prices.
Wrapped Ether (Weth)
ERC-20 token representing Ether at a 1:1 ratio. It allows users to trade ETH to ERC-20 tokens on decentralized platforms.
Xdai Chain
XDai Chain (now Gnosis Chain) is a proof-of-stake (PoS) Ethereum sidechain that offers faster and cheaper transactions compared to Ethereum. The native token of xDai Chain is DAI which is pegged to the U.S. dollar and was created by MakerDAO.
Yolo - You Only Live Once
Investing too much money into a single asset; making a generally risky bet.
Zero Address
A special Ethereum address, composed entirely of zeros, that is specified as the destination address of a contract creation transaction.
Zero-knowledge Proofs
Proofs to verify that transactions are valid without revealing any information about these transactions, providing privacy to the transaction while maintaining its legitimacy.
Zk-snark
Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-interactive ARguments of Knowledge are an incredible technology, and vital to the scaling of blockchain technology and the decentralized web. They are mathematically complex and can be daunting; this explanation from the Ethereum Foundation is a good primer.
References
- https://www.blocknative.com/glossary (opens in a new tab)
- https://unstoppabledomains.com/blog/the-web3-glossary (opens in a new tab)
- https://cypherpunks-core.github.io/ethereumbook/glossary.html#quick-glossary (opens in a new tab)
- https://consensys.net/knowledge-base/a-blockchain-glossary-for-beginners/ (opens in a new tab)
- https://www.chainabuse.com/glossary (opens in a new tab)
- https://academy.binance.com/en/glossary (opens in a new tab)