Crypto, word by word
383 words, each in plain English: what it is, what it means for your money, and the source we checked it against. Ask any of them in search as a question, or two side by side: “proof of work vs proof of stake”. The coins’ own whitepapers are on founding papers. Know these words? Think you know crypto? Prove it!
The basics
Wallets and keys
Adding a network to MetaMask
BIP39 passphrase
Cold storage
Crypto wallet
Custodial wallet
Derivation path
ENS name
Hardware wallet
Hot wallet
Lost crypto
MPC wallet
Multisig
Passkey wallet
Private key
Public key
Seed phrase
Self-custody
Smart contract wallet
Social recovery
Wallet address
Watch-only wallet
Transactions and fees
Block explorer
Confirmation
Failed transaction
Faucet
Finality
Gas
Gwei
Insufficient funds for gas
Intent
Mempool
MEV
Nonce
Replace-by-fee
Revoking an approval
Sent on the wrong network
Sent to the wrong address
Stuck transaction
Token approval
Token not showing in wallet
Transaction
Transaction hash
UTXO
Withdrawing from an exchange
Tokens and supply
Airdrop
Algorithmic stablecoin
Altcoin
Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC)
Circulating supply
Crypto-backed stablecoin
CryptoPunks
Depeg
ERC-20
ERC-721
ERC-1155
Fan token
Fiat-backed stablecoin
Fully diluted valuation
GameFi (blockchain gaming)
Governance token
ICO (initial coin offering)
Market cap
Max supply
Memecoin
Metaverse
NFT
NFT floor price
NFT royalty
Real-world asset tokenization
Soulbound token
SPL token
Token burn
Tokenomics
Token unlock
Utility token
Wrapped token
Yield-bearing stablecoin
DeFi
APY vs APR
Automated market maker
Bridge
CEX
Collateral
Concentrated liquidity
DAO
DeFi
DEX
DEX aggregator
Flash loan
Funding rate
How to use Uniswap
Impermanent loss
Lending protocol
Leverage
Liquidation
Liquidity pool
Liquidity provider
Liquid restaking token
Liquid staking
Oracle
Perpetual futures
Prediction market
Price impact
Restaking
Slippage
TVL
Vote-escrow
Yield farming
Chains and scaling
Scams and security
51% attack
Address poisoning
AML
Blind signing
Bridge hack
Clipboard malware
Deepfake scam
Dusting attack
Fake airdrop
Fake exchange
Fake wallet app
Front-end hijack
Giveaway scam
Governance attack
Hacked wallet
Honeypot token
Impersonation scam
KYC
Oracle manipulation
Permit phishing
Phishing
Pig butchering
Ponzi scheme
Pump and dump
Recovery scam
Reentrancy attack
Rug pull
SIM swap
Smart contract audit
Social engineering
Two-factor authentication
Wallet drainer
Markets and money
Altcoin season
Bear market
Bid-ask spread
Bull market
CBDC
Cost basis
Crypto ETF
Crypto exchange
Crypto slang (WAGMI, NGMI, diamond hands)
Dollar-cost averaging
Exit friction
Fear and Greed Index
FOMO
FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt)
HODL
Limit order
Liquidity
Market order
Off-ramp
On-ramp
Order book
P2P (peer-to-peer) crypto
Price prediction
Volatility
Whale
Trading and derivatives
Arbitrage
Call option
Candlestick chart
Copy trading
Cross margin
Day trading
Dead cat bounce
Fundamental analysis
Futures contract
Isolated margin
Liquidation price
Long position
MACD
Maker-taker fees
Margin trading
Market maker
Moving average
Open interest
Options contract
OTC trading
Put option
RSI
Short selling
Slippage tolerance
Spot trading
Stop-limit order
Stop-loss order
Support and resistance
Take-profit order
Technical analysis
Trading bot
Trading volume
Trailing stop
Wash trading
Inside Bitcoin
ASIC
BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal)
Block reward
BRC-20
Change address
Coinbase transaction
CoinJoin
CPFP (child pays for parent)
Difficulty adjustment
Dust
Full node
Genesis block
Hard fork
Hashrate
Lightning Network
Mining pool
OP_RETURN
Ordinals
Pruned node
PSBT (Partially Signed Bitcoin Transaction)
Runes
Sats per vbyte (sat/vB)
SegWit (Segregated Witness)
Soft fork
Taproot
Timelock
xpub (extended public key)
Inside Ethereum
Cryptography
Infrastructure and development
ABI
Admin key
AI agents in crypto
Appchain
Based rollup
Bug bounty
Chain abstraction
Cross-chain messaging
Data availability
Decentralized storage
DePIN
Governance timelock
Indexer
IPFS
Light client
Modular blockchain
Proxy contract
RPC node
Sequencer
Shared sequencer
Solidity
Validium
Verified contract
Law, tax and regulation
Bitcoin in El Salvador
Capital gains
CLARITY Act
Commodity
Crypto broker
Crypto inheritance
Crypto rules in China
Crypto rules in India
Custody
Exchange insolvency
FDIC and crypto
Form 1099-DA
Howey test
MiCA
Money services business
Proof of reserves
Qualified custodian
Sanctions
Security token
Stablecoin reserves
Staking income
Taxable event
Travel rule
Ideas and debates
Blockchain trilemma
Censorship resistance
Code is law
Credible neutrality
Crypto energy use debate
Cypherpunk
Digital scarcity
Disintermediation
Don't trust, verify
Financial privacy
Immutability
On-chain governance
Open source
Permissionless
Pseudonymity
Self-sovereignty
Social consensus
Sound money
Trust minimization
Wealth concentration in crypto
Events and incidents
Educational content, not financial advice. Something wrong? Tell us and we reply within two business days.