101 plain-English definitions. No jargon, no hype — just what each term actually means.
101 terms
An attack where a single party gains control of more than half of a blockchain's mining power or staked value, letting them block or reverse transactions. It is the main theoretical vulnerability of blockchain networks, and it becomes prohibitively expensive to attempt as a network grows larger.
When a project distributes free tokens to wallet holders, often to reward early users or promote adoption.
Any cryptocurrency that is not Bitcoin.
The pricing system most decentralized exchanges use instead of an order book. Prices are set automatically by a formula based on the ratio of tokens in a liquidity pool, so trades execute instantly without needing a matching buyer and seller.
Two ways of quoting a yield. APR is the simple annual rate. APY includes the effect of compounding, so it is always the higher number for the same underlying rate. Staking and DeFi platforms usually advertise APY because it looks better, so check which one you are actually being shown.
The highest price a coin has ever reached in its entire history.
The lowest price a coin has ever reached.
A prolonged period of declining prices — typically defined as a 20%+ drop from recent highs over an extended period.
The first cryptocurrency, launched in 2009 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. It runs on its own blockchain, has a fixed maximum supply of 21 million coins, and is most often described as a store of value or digital gold rather than a platform for building other applications.
A collection of transactions bundled together and permanently added to the blockchain. Each block references the previous one — forming a chain.
A decentralized digital ledger that permanently records all transactions across a network of computers. No single person or company controls it.
A tool that moves tokens from one blockchain to another, usually by locking them on the original chain and minting a wrapped version on the destination chain. Bridges are useful but have been the target of some of the largest hacks in crypto history, since they concentrate a lot of value in one place.
A prolonged period of rising prices and positive market sentiment.
A chart element showing a coin's open, close, high, and low price for a given time period. Green = price went up. Red = price went down.
When investors give up and sell in panic near market bottoms — often a signal that a bottom may be near.
A traditional crypto exchange run by a company (Coinbase, Binance, Kraken). You trust them to hold your funds.
Reading a coin's price history as a visual chart instead of raw numbers, using candlesticks, moving averages, and indicators like RSI to spot trends and possible turning points.
The number of coins currently available and circulating in the market (not locked or reserved).
The most widely used crypto price and market data website.
A crypto wallet, usually a physical hardware device, that stores private keys completely offline. Immune to remote hacking, which makes it the standard recommendation for holding larger amounts long term.
The method a blockchain uses to get thousands of independent computers to agree on which transactions are valid, without any central authority deciding. Proof of Work and Proof of Stake are the two most widely used approaches.
A price decline of 10% or more from a recent high — considered a normal part of market cycles.
A digital currency secured by cryptography and recorded on a blockchain, rather than issued or controlled by a government or bank. Bitcoin was the first, launched in 2009, and thousands of others have followed since.
Whether you or someone else controls your private keys. A custodial account, like on most exchanges, means the platform holds your crypto for you. A non-custodial wallet means you alone control it, with no company able to freeze or recover it if you lose access.
An organization run by rules encoded in smart contracts and voted on by token holders, instead of a traditional management structure. Decisions like spending treasury funds or changing protocol rules get proposed and voted on directly by members.
Investing a fixed amount at regular intervals (weekly or monthly) regardless of price — reduces the impact of volatility over time.
Financial services (lending, trading, earning yield) that run on blockchain without banks or intermediaries.
A peer-to-peer trading platform where you keep custody of your own assets (Uniswap, dYdX).
The percentage of total crypto market cap that Bitcoin represents. High dominance = Bitcoin leading the market.
Do Your Own Research. Always verify information independently before making any financial decision. You will see this throughout Crypto Flo as a reminder.
A formal proposal to change or improve the Ethereum protocol — referenced often in ETH news.
A fund that trades on a stock exchange like a regular stock, holding assets on investors' behalf. A crypto ETF lets someone get price exposure to Bitcoin or another coin through an ordinary brokerage account, without opening a crypto exchange account or managing a wallet themselves.
The second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, and the blockchain most other crypto projects are built on. Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum runs smart contracts, which is what makes DeFi, NFTs, and most tokens possible. Its native coin, Ether, is used to pay transaction fees on the network.
A platform where people buy, sell, and trade cryptocurrency. Centralized exchanges (CEX) are run by a company and hold your funds on your behalf, similar to a brokerage. Decentralized exchanges (DEX) let you trade directly from your own wallet instead.
Evaluating a project's real-world value — team, technology, adoption, tokenomics — rather than just price charts.
The anxiety of watching prices rise and feeling like you need to buy immediately.
A change to a blockchain's protocol. A soft fork is backward compatible. A hard fork is not and creates a new chain (Bitcoin Cash forked from Bitcoin in 2017).
Negative news or sentiment that may or may not be accurate — often spreads quickly on social media.
An ETF that holds futures contracts rather than the underlying asset. Because those contracts expire and have to be replaced, a futures ETF can drift away from the actual spot price over time, which is why spot ETFs are generally considered the more faithful way to track a coin.
The transaction fee paid to validators on Ethereum and other networks to process your transaction. Fees fluctuate based on network demand.
A tiny denomination of Ether, one billionth of one ETH, used to price gas fees on Ethereum. When people talk about gas costing 30 gwei, they are describing the fee rate per unit of computation, not a full ETH amount.
A programmed event in Bitcoin where the reward for mining a block is cut in half approximately every 4 years — reduces new supply.
The total computing power being used to mine and secure a proof-of-work blockchain like Bitcoin. Higher hash rate = more secure network.
Hold On for Dear Life. Originally a typo for "hold," now means holding crypto long-term regardless of price swings.
A crypto wallet connected to the internet, like a mobile app or browser extension. Convenient for everyday use, but more exposed to remote hacking than a wallet kept offline.
A fundraising method where a new project sells its tokens directly to the public, similar in spirit to a stock IPO. ICOs were extremely common during the 2017 boom, and a large share turned out to be low substance or outright fraudulent, which led to far heavier regulatory scrutiny afterward.
The gap that can open up when you provide liquidity to a DeFi pool and the prices of the two tokens in it move apart. You can end up with less total value than if you had simply held both tokens separately. It is called impermanent because the loss can shrink if prices move back together, but becomes permanent the moment you withdraw.
The identity verification process, government ID and sometimes proof of address, that regulated exchanges require before you can deposit, trade, or withdraw. It exists mainly to prevent money laundering and fraud, the same requirement traditional banks operate under.
The base blockchain itself — Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana are all Layer 1 networks.
A network built on top of a Layer 1 to make it faster and cheaper — Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base are Ethereum L2s.
Borrowing funds to increase the size of a trading position beyond what your own capital would allow. It multiplies both potential gains and potential losses, and can lead to losing more than your original investment.
When an exchange or protocol automatically closes a leveraged position because losses have eaten through the trader's collateral. It usually happens fast and without warning once a specific price level is hit, which is why leveraged trading carries real risk beyond just being wrong about direction.
How easily a coin can be bought or sold without significantly moving the price. High liquidity = easy to trade.
A pool of two or more tokens locked in a smart contract that lets people trade between them without a traditional buyer and seller matching up. Anyone can add funds to a pool and earn a share of trading fees, which is the basis of most decentralized exchanges.
Moving Average Convergence Divergence. A trend-following indicator that shows the relationship between two moving averages of a price.
Market Capitalization. Coin price × circulating supply = total value of all coins in existence.
The maximum number of coins that will ever exist. Bitcoin has a max supply of 21 million.
A cryptocurrency created around an internet joke or cultural reference rather than a specific technical purpose, Dogecoin being the original example. Value tends to be driven by community momentum and social media attention rather than utility, making meme coins some of the most volatile assets in crypto.
Using computing power to solve a mathematical puzzle in order to validate transactions and add a new block to a Proof of Work blockchain like Bitcoin. Miners are rewarded with newly created coins plus transaction fees for the block they successfully add.
The average price over a set period (20-day, 50-day, 200-day). Used to identify trends and potential support/resistance.
A unique digital asset on a blockchain — ownership of digital art, collectibles, or in-game items.
Not Gonna Make It. Crypto slang for someone making poor decisions with their portfolio. Opposite: WAGMI (We're All Gonna Make It).
A computer that runs blockchain software and helps validate and relay transactions across the network. Anyone can run a node, and the fact that thousands of independent nodes each keep their own copy of the ledger is what makes a blockchain hard to tamper with.
A banking term, not a crypto one, but relevant if you follow crypto: the correspondent bank accounts that let banks hold and settle foreign currency for each other. Crypto and stablecoins are increasingly pitched as a faster, cheaper alternative for the same cross-border settlement job.
Data that is publicly recorded directly on the blockchain — wallet movements, transaction volume, holder counts.
A service that feeds real world data, such as asset prices or event outcomes, into a blockchain so smart contracts can act on it. Blockchains cannot access outside information on their own, so oracles fill that gap. Chainlink is the largest oracle network.
A live list of buy and sell orders for an asset at different prices, used by centralized exchanges to match trades. The gap between the highest buy order and lowest sell order is called the spread.
Your gain or loss on a trade or position.
The consensus mechanism Ethereum uses — validators lock up crypto as collateral to validate transactions.
The consensus mechanism Bitcoin uses — miners compete to solve math problems to validate transactions.
A secret code that proves ownership of your crypto. Never share it with anyone. Whoever has your private key controls your funds.
The shareable half of a wallet's key pair. Your address is what you give someone so they can send you crypto, and it is safe to share publicly. The private key is the other half, and it must never be shared with anyone.
A price level where selling pressure has historically been strong — the price tends to struggle to break above it.
The percentage gain or loss relative to what you invested.
A momentum indicator ranging 0-100. Above 70 = potentially overbought. Below 30 = potentially oversold.
A scam where developers abandon a project and take investor funds — common in low-quality DeFi or NFT projects.
A physical or traditional financial asset, like a Treasury bond, real estate, or gold, that has been tokenized and represented on a blockchain. RWAs are one of the fastest-growing categories in crypto, with tens of billions of dollars now tracked on-chain.
The smallest unit of Bitcoin. 1 Bitcoin = 100,000,000 Satoshis. Named after Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.
The anonymous creator (or group) who published the Bitcoin whitepaper in 2008 and launched the network in 2009. Their true identity remains unknown.
A measure of Bitcoin's price in reverse — how many Satoshis one US dollar can buy. Used when Bitcoin price is very high.
The core question regulators ask about any crypto asset: is it a security, which falls under SEC oversight and rules built for investment contracts, or a commodity, which falls under the CFTC instead. Legislation like the CLARITY Act exists specifically to answer this question clearly for the first time.
A 12 or 24-word backup phrase generated when you create a wallet. Store it offline and never digitally. Anyone with your seed phrase has full access to your wallet.
The difference between the price you expect a trade to execute at and the price it actually fills at. Larger orders and less liquid tokens tend to have more slippage, which is why big trades often get quoted with a maximum slippage tolerance.
Code deployed on a blockchain that automatically executes when certain conditions are met, with no company or intermediary needed to enforce it. Smart contracts are the foundation that makes DeFi, NFTs, and most Ethereum-based applications possible.
An ETF that holds the actual asset it tracks. A spot Bitcoin ETF owns real Bitcoin held in custody, so its value tracks the live market price closely. This is why the first US spot Bitcoin ETF approvals in January 2024 mattered so much: every crypto ETF available before then held futures contracts instead of the coin itself.
A cryptocurrency pegged to a stable asset like the US dollar (USDT, USDC) — designed to hold a consistent value.
Locking up cryptocurrency to support a network's operations in exchange for rewards — similar to earning interest.
A price level where buying pressure has historically been strong — the price tends to bounce off it.
Using price charts, patterns, and indicators (RSI, MACD, moving averages) to predict future price movements.
Permanently removing coins from circulation by sending them to a wallet nobody can access. Projects burn tokens to reduce supply, which can support the price if demand holds steady. Ethereum automatically burns a portion of every transaction fee.
Converting ownership rights in a real-world asset — real estate, stocks, gold, even a bank deposit — into a digital token on a blockchain, so it can be transferred or traded like crypto.
The economics of a cryptocurrency token — total supply, circulating supply, distribution, inflation/deflation mechanics, and utility.
The total amount of assets deposited in a DeFi protocol — a measure of its size and adoption.
A participant in a Proof of Stake network chosen to verify transactions and add new blocks in exchange for rewards. Validators lock up a stake as collateral, which they can lose if they act dishonestly or go offline, which is what keeps them honest.
A schedule that gradually releases tokens to founders, investors, or team members over time — prevents immediate selling of large amounts.
The total value of a coin traded in a 24-hour period — high volume often signals strong conviction behind a price move.
Software or hardware that stores your private keys and lets you send and receive cryptocurrency. You do not actually store coins in a wallet — you store access to them.
A broad term for a version of the internet built on blockchains, where users own their data and digital assets directly rather than through platforms. At this stage it is more an aspiration and a marketing label than a fully realized alternative to the current web.
An individual or entity holding a very large amount of a cryptocurrency — their moves can significantly impact price.
The technical document that describes a cryptocurrency project's purpose, technology, and design. Bitcoin's whitepaper was published in 2008.
Providing liquidity to DeFi protocols in exchange for rewards, often in the form of additional tokens.
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These definitions are educational content, not financial advice — always do your own research before making any investment decisions. Learn more →