Crypto Glossary

51% Attrack

Also known as a Majority Attack. When one or a group of miners control greater than 50% of the network's mining hashrate or computational power.

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.

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

String of text that designates the location of a particular wallet on the blockchain. Often a hashed version of a public key.

Airdrop

The distribution of digital assets to the public, either by virtue of holding a certain other token or simply by virtue of being an active wallet address on a particular blockchain

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.

All-Time High (ATH)

The highest price of a cryptocurrency in a quote currency, such as a dollar, BTC, ETH, or BNB

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

The first look at a product released by a team, consisting of the very first version of a primitive, basic software or product.

Altcoin

A cryptocurrency that is alternative to Bitcoin. Used to describe cryptocurrencies that are not Bitcoin.

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.

Application Programming Interface (API)

A collection of functions and procedures that allow users to interact/communicate with the data of an application or service, such as an exchange, to execute the features of the service programmatically.

Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC)

An Integrated Circuit customized for maximum performance in a particular use, rather than general-purpose use.

Arbitrage

Buying and selling of assets over different markets in order to take advantage of differing prices on the same asset.

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.

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.

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.

Beacon Chain

The Beacon Chain is Ethereum’s proof-of-stake (PoS) layer where consensus is reached. It controls and coordinates the network of Ethereum stakers who help validate and secure the network in exchange for staking rewards.

Bear Market

A negative trend in prices of a market. It is widely used not only in the cryptocurrency space but also in the traditional markets.

Benchmark

A measurement standard which can be used to gauge the performance of a particular asset or investment portfolio.

BEP-2

A technical standard that defines a set of rules for the issuance and management of tokens in the Binance Chain ecosystem.

BEP-20

BEP-20 is a token standard on Binance Smart Chain that extends ERC-20, the most common Ethereum token standard. You can think of it as a blueprint for tokens that defines how they can be spent, who can spend them, and other rules for their usage. Due to its similarity to Binance Chain’s BEP-2 and Ethereum’s ERC-20, it’s compatible with both.

BEP-721

A technical standard that defines a set of rules for the issuance of NFTs in the Binance Smart Chain ecosystem.

BEP-95

BEP-95 is a Binance Evolution Proposal that introduces a real-time burning mechanism to Binance Smart Chain.

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

Binance Blockchain Charity Foundation (BCF)

The world's first decentralized charity platform to advocate the concept of 'blockchain for social good'.

Binance Community Vote

When the community has the opportunity to vote for their favorite project to win a free listing on Binance.

Binance Ecosystem Fund (BEF)

An initiative by Binance to collaborate with partners who care about the blockchain/cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Binance Labs

A social impact fund and an initiative to incubate, invest, and empower blockchain and cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, projects, and communities.

Bitcoin

A cryptocurrency created by the pseudonymous developer(s) Satoshi Nakamoto. The first cryptocurrency, initially described as a 'Peer-to-Peer e-cash.

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

A computer file that stores transaction data. These can then be arranged in a linear sequence, which will form a blockchain.

Block Explorer

An online Blockchain webpage which allows users to browse information about blocks, transactions, balances, and transaction histories.

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 in the chain between itself and the first block on that blockchain (genesis block or block 0).

Block Reward

The sum of coins awarded by the blockchain protocol to cryptocurrency miners for each successfully mined and validated block.

Blockchain

A decentralized, digitized ledger that records transaction information about a cryptocurrency in a chronological order.

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

A reward posted by a group or individual to incentivize certain work, behavior (such as referrals), or development.

Break-Even Point (BEP)

The point where the total costs of an operation is equivalent to its current value or revenue.

Breakeven Multiple

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.

BUIDL

Originally derived from HODL, a term referring to keeping your heads down and focusing on building your product.

Bull Market

A positive trend in prices of a market. It is widely used not only in the cryptocurrency space but also in the traditional markets.

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.

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.

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

When the planning and decision-making mechanisms are concentrated in a particular point within a system.

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.

Cloud

In computer science, a shared pool of resources, which are made available to multiple users through the Internet.

Coin

A cryptocurrency or digital cash that is independent of any other platform, which is used as an exchange of value.

Collateral

Pledging something of value against a loan to guarantee that the person taking the loan will complete repayment.

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.

Confirmation Time

The time elapsed when a transaction is submitted to the network and the time it is recorded into a confirmed block.

Confluence

When multiple investment methods, technical indicators, or trading signals are combined to form a more reliable strategy.

Consumer Price Index (CPI)

A Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure used to track the effects of inflation over a period of time.

Credentials

Personal information. Examples include username, password, email address, qualifications and many more.

Crypto Winter

The term crypto winter refers to an extended period of declining or stagnant prices and negative sentiment in the cryptocurrency market.

Cryptocurrency

A digital currency that is secured by cryptography to work as a medium of exchange within a peer-to-peer (P2P) economic system.

Cryptography

The science of using mathematical theories and computation in order to encrypt and decrypt information.

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.

Dead Cat Bounce

A brief recovery in the price of a declining asset that is shortly followed by a continuation of the downtrend.

Decentralized Application (DApp)

Applications that run on a P2P network of computers rather than one central computer. This allows the software to run on the internet without being controlled by a single entity.

Decentralized Autonomous Cooperative (DAC)

An organization that is controlled by shareholders rather than a central authority.

Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)

A system of hard-coded rules that define which actions a decentralized organization will take.

Decentralized Exchange (DEX)

An exchange which does not require users to deposit funds to start trading and does not hold the funds for the user. Instead, users trade directly from their own wallets.

Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

The ecosystem comprised of decentralized financial applications developed on top of blockchain networks.

Decryption

The act of reverting an encryption process so that unreadable data (ciphertext) can be converted into readable data (plaintext).

Deep Web

The part of the web that is somehow hidden, i.e., not indexed by Google and other traditional web search engines.

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.

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.

Diamond Hands

Diamond hands refers to holding a financial asset and not selling it, regardless of its volatility.

Difficulty

In cryptocurrency, difficulty indicates the difficulty required to mine a block. Learn more at Binance Academy.

Difficulty Bomb

The term 'difficulty bomb' denotes the increase in mining difficulty in Ethereum, as part of its migration to Proof of Stake.

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.

Do Your Own Research (DYOR)

A valuable piece of advice. It's always wise to research a coin or token yourself instead of following what others say.

Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA)

Investing fixed dollar amounts over regular periods of time regardless of the price of the asset.

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.

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.

Encryption

Conversion of information or data into a secure code in order to prevent unauthorised access to the information or data.

Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA)

The industry’s first global standards organization to deliver an open, standards-based architecture and specification to accelerate the adoption of Enterprise Ethereum.

ERC-20

A technical standard used to issue and implement tokens on the Ethereum blockchain proposed in November 2015 by Fabian Vogelsteller.

ERC-721

An Ethereum based non-fungible token. This means that each token is unique and as a result, not interchangeable.

Exchange

A marketplace for cryptocurrencies where users can buy and sell coins.

Fakeout

A situation where a trader enters a position betting on a price movement that quickly reverses or ultimately doesn’t happen.

Falling Knife

Refers to the action of purchasing an asset while it is rapidly declining in price under the expectation that it will bounce.

Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO)

The feeling of fear and anxiety that you might be missing out on a potentially profitable opportunity.

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD)

A marketing strategy used to spread fear and insecurity among customers, traders, or investors.

Fiat

Money that a government has declared to be legal tender.

Fill Or Kill Order (FOK)

A buy or sell order which must be executed immediately in its entirety or else it will be cancelled.

Finality

The assurance or guarantee that completed (cryptocurrency) transactions cannot be altered, reversed or canceled.

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

The name to describe the moment when/if Ethereum (ETH) surpasses Bitcoin (BTC) in terms of market capitalization

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.

Formal Verification

Using mathematically rigorous proofs to ensure certain properties of cryptographic algorithms and blockchain mechanisms

Full Node

A computer that fully implements the entirety of rules of an underlying blockchain network and completely validates transactions and blocks on a blockchain.

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.

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.

Gas

The pricing mechanism employed on the Ethereum blockchain to calculate the costs of smart contracts operations and transaction fees.

Gas Limit

The maximum price a cryptocurrency user is willing to pay as a fee when sending a transaction, or performing a smart contract function.

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 ever block recorded on its respective blockchain network, also referred to as Block 0 or Block 1.

GitHub

A site/system/folder/repository where a team can share, collaborate, and save their open source or propietary code.

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 small denomination of Ether. It is widely used as a measure of gas prices. 1,000,000,000 wei = 1 Giga wei (Gwei)

Hacker

An individual that has an advanced understanding of computer systems and networks, including programmers and cybersecurity experts.

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

When the block reward of a crypto asset, such as bitcoin, drops to one-half of what it was before; this is used to create a decaying rate of issuance to arrive at an eventual finite supply of a crypto asset.

Hard Cap

The maximum amount of funds a project intends to raise during their Initial Coin Offering (ICO) or alternative fundraising event.

Hash

The output produced by a hash function after a piece of data is mapped. May also be referred to as hash value, hash code, or digest.

Hash Rate

The speed at which a computer or mining hardware is able to calculate new hashes. Usually measured in hashes per second.

Hashed TimeLock Contract (HTLC)

Refers to a special feature that is used to create smart contracts that are able to modify payment channels.

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

A typo of 'Hold' originating from bitcointalk that has also been retrofitted to be an acronym for Hold on for Dear Life - to maintain ownership of coins and not sell.

Honeypot

A mechanism used in computer security used to detect or counteract unauthorized access of information systems.

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.

Immutability

The inability to change or be changed. One of the core features behind Bitcoin and blockchain technology.

Index

A financial instrument used to track the price value of a given asset or basket of assets

Initial Coin Offering (ICO)

A fundraising method in which new projects will sell their cryptocurrency to investors.

Initial Exchange Offering (IEO)

A fundraising method designed to reduce the risk for token purchasers by introducing a trusted intermediary between the project team and the user.

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.

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)

An open-source project building a protocol for distributed content storage and access.

IOU

An acronym which stands for “I owe you” and refers to an informal document that acknowledges a debt one party owes to another.

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.

Keccak

A versatile cryptographic function designed by Guido Bertoni, Joan Daemen, Michaël Peeters, and Gilles Van Assche.

Know Your Customer (KYC)

A standard procedure in the finance industry which allows companies to identify their customers and comply with KYC AML laws

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.

Layer 2

A secondary framework or protocol that is built on top of an existing blockchain system to provide increased scalability.

Ledger

A physical book or a digital computer file where monetary and financial transactions are tracked and recorded.

Library

A collection of stable resources, which may include executable files, documentation, message templates, and written code.

Lightning Network

A second layer operating on top of a blockchain, enabling increased transaction speed among participating nodes. This is one proposed scaling solution.

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.

Liquidity

The ability to sell or buy any given asset without causing significant fluctuations in the market price for that asset.

Listing

The addition of an asset to an exchange either as a request from the project team or as a decision made by the exchange.

Mainnet

A blockchain protocol which is fully developed and deployed where transactions are being broadcasted, verified, and recorded.

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.

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

Any software program or code that is created to infiltrate and intentionally cause damage to computer systems and networks.

Margin Trading

Trading using borrowed funds - note: this is a high risk strategy and should only be done by experienced investors.

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.

Masternode

Nodes on a network that often require a minimum amount of a given coin staked in order to access staking rewards.

Maximum Supply

Refers to the maximum number of coins or tokens that will be ever created for a given cryptocurrency.

Mempool

A node’s mechanism for keeping track of unconfirmed transactions that the node has seen (but have not yet been added to a block).

Merged Mining

The act of mining two or more cryptocurrencies at the same time, without sacrificing overall mining performance

Merkle Tree

A way of organizing and structuring large amounts of data to make it more straightforward to process. A hash-based data structure.

Metadata

Data that includes information about other data, such as information about features of a specific transaction.

Mining

The verification of transactions on a blockchain network, in which transactions are added as entries into the blockchain ledger.

Mining Farm

A collection of many miners, often in a warehouse or large data center devoted to mining cryptocurrencies

Monetary Policy

Refers to the policies that authorities create and adopt to control the money supply and interest rates of a country.

Moon

A colloquial expression used to describe a cryptocurrency or other asset that is experiencing a strong upward market trend.

Multisignature

Wallet which requires another party to authorize a transaction before it is broadcasted to the network.

Node

A participant on a blockchain network that communicates with other participants to ensure the security and integrity of the system.

Non-fungible Token (NFT)

A type of cryptographic token that represents a unique digital or real-world asset and isn't interchangeable.

Nonce

A single-use arbitrary string or number generated for verification purposes to prevent replaying past transactions.

Off-chain

Transactions that occur off a given blockchain network, that may be later reported or batched together before submitted to the main chain.

Offshore account

An account that is registered in a jurisdiction that is different to the jurisdiction of the holder's citizenship.

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.

Oracle

A data source or feed from a third party used for determining outcomes for smart contracts

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.

Paper Wallet

A piece of paper on which a cryptocurrency address and its corresponding private key are physically printed out.

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.

Phishing

A malicious attack where a bad actor will attempt to obtain the credentials of a user in order to gain unauthorised access into their account.

Plasma

An Ethereum off-chain scaling solution which may allow Etherum to greatly increase the transactions per second capablities.

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 scam in which new investors' funds are used to pay returns promised to previous investors. Do not invest in these.

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 Key

In cryptocurrency, a private key is a lengthy number that allows users to sign transactions and to generate receiving addresses.

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 Stake (PoS)

A consensus mechanism that reward block validators according to the amount of coins they have at stake.

Pseudorandom

The property of a definite function that can produce an outcome that passes statistical tests of randomness.

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.

Race attack

When two transactions are created with the same funds at the same time, with the intention of spending those funds twice.

Ransomware

A type of malware which takes over your computer and threatens to destroy or reveal files unless a ransom is paid.

Rekt

A slang term used to define someone or something that has been destroyed or experienced catastrophic failure and a synonym for liquidated

Relative Strength Index (RSI)

A technical indicator that measures market momentum & used to identify overbought and oversold conditions.

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.

Roadmap

A business planning technique which lays out the short and long term goals of a company within a flexible estimated timeline.

Routing Attack

An attack on the Internet Service Provider level to affect uptime or participation in a web-enabled system, such as a blockchain.

Rug pull

A rug pull in the crypto industry is when a development team suddenly abandons a project and sells or removes all its liquidity.

Satoshi

The smallest unit of a bitcoin, as defined by the Bitcoin protocol. It equals one-hundred-millionth of a bitcoin or 0.00000001 BTC.

Satoshi Nakamoto

The pseudonym of the creator or creators of the bitcoin protocol and whitepaper.

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

A seed phrase or menmonic seed is a collection of words that can be used to access your cryptocurrency wallet.

Segregated Witness (SegWit)

A process where the transaction signatures are separated from bitcoin transactions. Allowing more transactions to fit within one block.

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.

Sharding

Sharding is a method of splitting blockchains ( or other types of databases) into smaller, partitioned blockchains that manage specific data segments.

Sharpe Ratio

A ratio created in 1966 that investors and economists use to assess the potential return of investment (ROI).

Smart Contract

Automated contracts that trigger certain action when predetermined conditions are met. It works like 'If…then' conditions as for instance, it needs condition C met before money can be transferred from A to B.

Snapshot

The ability to record the state of a blockchain ledger, storage device, or computer system at a specific point in time.

Source Code

Computer code, which is responsible for defining how software will function based on a list of instructions and statements.

Stablecoin

A type of cryptocurrency that is designed to maintain a stable value, rather than experiencing significant price changes.

Staking Pool

A pool where stakeholders combine their staking power to increase their chance of successfully validating a new block.

State Channel

A two-way communication channel between two users or nodes on a network, or between a user and a service.

Store of Value

A commodity, asset or currency that can be saved, retrieved and exchanged at a future date, without suffering depreciation.

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.

Taker

The 'taker' is someone who decides to place an order that is instantly matched with an existing order on the order book.

Tank

A term adopted from the traditional financial markets and describes a strong negative financial performance of a particular asset

Ticker

The trading 'symbol' or shortened name (typically in capital letters) that refer to a coin on a trading platform. For example: BNB

Token

Tokens (not to be confused with coins) are digital units issued on a blockchain. They can hold value or be redeemed for assets.

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.

Total Supply

Refers to the number of coins or tokens that currently exists and are either in circulation or locked somehow.

Transaction ID (TXID)

A transaction ID (TXID) is a unique string of characters that labels each transaction on the blockchain.

Transactions Per Second (TPS)

The number of transactions that a blockchain network is capable of processing each second.

Trustless

No single entity has authority over the system and consensus is achieved between participants who do not have to trust each other.

Turing Complete

A machine that, given enough time and memory along with the necessary instructions, can solve any computational problem, no matter how complex.

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.

Verification Code

Code sent to a second device to ensure the identity of someone logging in to an account. Used for Two-Factor Authentication

Virtual Machine

An emulated computer system, or a distributed system that is designed to replicate the features of a computer's architecture.

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.

Wallet

Used to send and receive cryptocurrencies. Different types include software wallets, hardware wallets, and paper wallets.

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.

Wei

The smallest possible denomination of ether (ETH), the currency used on the Ethereum network. Often used when referring to gas prices.

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.

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.

Win Rate

In financial markets, win rate (or win ratio) is a metric that indicates how profitable a trader might be.

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.

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-Snarks

“Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge” - an approach to zero knowledge proofs.