Crypto Glossary

Glossary

Airdrop

A promotion that involves the distribution of digital assets to individuals. This is done by allocating the assets to particular coin holders or by having an active wallet on a particular blockchain at a particular time.

All-Time-High

The highest price that a cryptocurrency has been in its history.

All-Time-Low

The lowest price that a cryptocurrency has been in its history.

Altcoin

As Bitcoin was the first and considered the main cryptocurrency, all other coins were termed as ‘altcoins’ or ‘alternative coins’

Address

A randomly generated string of letters and numbers that designates the location of your wallet on the blockchain.

API

An acronym for Application Programming interface. A software interface that allows two applications to communicate and interact with one another.

Bear Market

This term indicates that the market is on a downward trend.

Block

A file containing records of transactions. After mining, linked blocks form the history or ledger of a blockchain. Each block is hashed and encrypted.

Blockchain

A decentralised public digitised ledger that records transaction information regarding cryptocurrency, which is organised in chronological order.

Block Explorer

This is simply a search engine allowing individuals to browse through the blockchain to search for information such as; transactions, transaction confirmations, wallet addresses, and balances.

Bull Market

This term indicates that the market is on an upward trend.

Buy Limit

A ‘Buy Limit Order’ allows an individual to place an order which will automatically trigger and buy a stock, assets or token at the specified price.

Candlestick

A graphing technique used to show changes in price, each candle provides 4 different points of information, opening price, closing price, high and low.

They are a visual representation of price action of what’s happening in a particular market displayed on various timeframes.Typically these time frames consist of the 1 hour/4 hour/ 24hour & Weekly timeframes.

Centralised

A kind of organisation or company where a small handful of individuals or businesses have control of an entire network or product.

Cold Storage

This refers to offline storage of cryptocurrencies in order to keep assets as safe as possible.

Cold Wallet

An offline wallet that requires access to a physical device. Cryptocurrencies can be sent for security.

Cryptocurrency

A digital currency that uses cryptography protocols to secure itself and record ownership.

Cryptography

A field of study which uses mathematical theories or computation to convert and encrypt data and information.

Decentralized

An organisation or a system that has no individual or groups at a central point of authority.

Decentralized Application (DApps)

Applications that run on a decentralized peer to peer network. This allows these applications to run on the internet without being controlled by a single individual or group.

Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

A blockchain-based form of finance. This is an ecosystem of decentralized financial applications that do not rely on intermediaries.

Delisting

As it relates to an exchange, the removal of an asset from the platform. When an exchange delisits a coin the investor still owns it, but it can no longer be traded on said exchange.

Decryption

The use of mathematical and computational methods to make encrypted data understandable.

Distributed Denial of Service Attack (DDoS)

A cyber attack where criminals divert large amounts of traffic toward a particular website with the goal of hiding performance and functionality.

ERC-20

A token is a standard used for creating and issuing non-fungible and exchangeable tokens on the Ethereum blockchain.

Exchange

A marketplace where individuals are able to buy and sell cryptocurrencies.

Encryption

The process of encoding information through a mathematical process called ciphering, once the information has undergone this process it is encrypted and cannot be understood unless an authorized individual has allowed it.

FIAT

A type of currency that is not backed by a solid commodity such as gold. Rather its value is derived from the government. For example, USD or the United States dollar.

Fungibility

An item or system that is completely identical to another. So much so they can be replaceable or are mutually interchangeable.

Forks

These create alternative versions of blockchains. Sometimes creating a whole new blockchain (Hard Fork). Other times altering but still existing on the same blockchain (Soft Fork).

Genesis Block

The name given to the first block of a cryptocurrency that was ever mined.

Halving

When the reward for mining a crypto asset such as bitcoin, is reduced to one half of its previous amount. This is done in order to slow the rate at which the finite supply of the coin is consumed.

Hash

A function that can be used to map data of multiple different sizes to a fixed value.

Hardware wallets

A physical cryptocurrency wallet, such as a USB, that stores the users private keys and cryptocurrency. These can also be disconnected from the internet and kept offline.

Hot Wallet

A cryptocurrency wallet that is accessible online and can be used to hold, send and receive crypto currencies from other wallets. The most popular kind of cryptocurrency wallet.

Immutable

An inability to change or be changed. Stays the same and is unchanged over time.

Interoperability

The ability of multiple blockchain networks to interact with one another and build upon each other's features.

Mining

The act of using mathematical problem solving and computing power to validate transactions on the blockchain and produce new tokens for circulation. One of the main pillars of blockchain and cryptocurrency.

Non Fungible Tokens (NFTS)

Non-Fungible Tokens are tokens that are unique and unable to be swapped or replaced. These tokens can be assigned to any asset, including; photos, videos and audio files, other forms of digital content, any physical object, or even services.

Perpetual contracts

A financial contract that has no expiration date. This allows the individual to hold or trade using this contract indefinitely.

Privacy

The ability for an individual or group to hide information or themselves from outside perception. A state of being free from public perception.

Private keys

Provided to cryptocurrency wallet holders. Generally these are used to decrypt information or transactions that have been sent to one's Public key.

Proof Of History

A sequence of computation that can provide a way to cryptographically verify the passage of time between two events.

Proof of Stake

A blockchain protocol that rewards individuals who become validators based on the amount of coins they stake.

Proof of Work

A blockchain protocol that operates by solving increasingly complex computational problems in order to validate transactions and add to the blockchain.

Pump & Dump

Pump-and-dump is a manipulative scheme that attempts to boost the price of a stock or security through fake recommendations.

Stablecoin

A class of cryptocurrencies that attempt to offer price stability and are backed by a reserve asset.

Staking / Staking pool

The process of delegating and committing some of your crypto holdings for a certain period of time to support a blockchain network and validate transactions. In turn, receiving rewards for the time period given.

Stop Limit

An order that triggers a sale depending on a price limit set by the individual.