Cryptocurrency Glossary / dictionary

2FA means "Two-factor Authentication". This means that logging into one of your accounts will require two means of identity for full confirmation.  The first required item will typically be your standard password or PIN.  After that is entered then you will be required to enter the second type of identity confirmation. The second type will typically be a numeric code sent to you via:

1. an SMS message or telephone call.
2. a pre-set smartphone authentication app.
3. your email address.

2FA may also be called:

• two-step verification
• TFA
• 2FA is a subset of "Multi-Factor Authentication" (MFA).

The smartphone apps can be found in the app store of your smartphone.  Search for "Two-factor Authentication" app. Two very common ones are:

1. Google Authenticator
2. Authy app

This concept may also be called any one of the following:

• "2-step verification/authentication"
• "2-phase verification/authentication"
• TFA
• SMS verification/authentication

2FA is a subset of "multi-factor verification/authentication" (MFA)

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A 51% attack refers to the ability of one or more miners combine their computing power so that they have 51% or more of a cryptocurrency's hashing power. With this power, they would have the ability to create a new branch of the blockchain. In this new branch then can insert false transactions, such as reversing old transactions so that they can spend the same coins more than once. This is called "double spending". They can also prevent other legitimate transactions from being approved. This may also be called a "Majority Attack". These attackers would make money by double spending, and also by "earning" the rewards for adding new blocks to the blockchain. This attack would not allow them to alter " really old" transactions - they can only modify more recent transactions. These old transactions are hardwired into the blockchain and are unchangeable. They also would not be able to change the maximum limit of total coins. Cryptocurrencies which don't have many miners are more easily attacked than more common cryptocurrencies. For example, bitcoin would be very hard to attack since there are so many independent miners working on the blockchain. But it would still not be impossible to launch a successful 51% attack on bitcoin. Several different cryptocurrencies have been attacked in this way over the years. The attacks usually only last a short period of time before the attack is discovered and/or thwarted. The attackers may also choose to stop the attack once they have achieved what they wanted. Sometimes, after discovery, a cryptocurrency's developers will create an emergency fork in the software to stop the attack.

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An "Air-gapped" computing system (such as a computer) is one which is not connected to the internet. You can turn off wifi and/or disconnect your network cable to make your computer air-gapped. Air-gapped usually refers to a computer that is NEVER connected to the internet rather than one which is just temporarily disconnected. But depending on your purpose, the temporary air-gap may fulfill your needs. The intent is to protect you from online hackers. But if you connect back to the internet then they can get in, insert a virus, and the virus will still be there even after you disconnect again.

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An "airdrop" is when cryptocurrency is given away for free. This is often done to promote a new coin and get it into circulation. It can also be the result of a hard-fork of a coin you currently own. These giveaways might go to owners of some existing coins, or they could be given away to some other arbitrary group of people. Sometimes in a coins "pre-release", you can sign up to receive the new coins. Some airdrops are fraudulent - i.e. they are performed by a scammer/hacker to steal some other coin from you. Some airdrops require your private key in order to qualify for and receive the drop. This can be true of both legitimate airdrops and fraudulent ones. You should be especially suspicious whenever private keys are needed to receive the drop. One way to be safe is to move your funds from one private key to another private key that you control. Then you can send in your original private key (now empty of funds) to receive the drop.

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An "alphanumeric" is a combination of letters and numbers. This term is usually used when referring to creating a new password so that the password will contain both letters and numbers. Note that the best passwords will also include one or more special symbols, such as: # $ % & * . @. But some websites do not allow these special characters.

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An "altcoin" is usually used to describe any cryptocurrency that’s not the original bitcoin. Some people feel that "altcoin" is a derogatory term and that a few of the other very large cryptocurrencies should also not be considered "altcoins".  Such as ether, bitcoin cash, ....

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AML - "Anti-Money Laundering" - These are government regulations and reporting requirements to prevent criminal use of currency.

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Application Programming Interface - the predefined methods of communication among software. This allows one software to gain access to the functions of other software. This allows programs to be more effective and useful because it gains the abilities of another program. API's are used by programmers to expose the functions in programs that a programmer may need. It provides users the ability to copy files from one program into another program.

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"ASIC" means "Application Specific Integrated Circuit". This is a computer hardware circuit (1 or more chips) that is designed for a very very specific purpose. In relation to cryptocurrency, an ASIC would be designed and used in a computer mining machine that is specifically designed to mine one currency in the most efficient way. This allows the computer to mine the currency faster and/or with less power consumption, than other computers. These ASICs are usually designed to be dedicated to a specific cryptocurrency (and related currencies). I.e. you could not use the same ASIC for all cryptocurrencies.

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"asymmetric encryption" is a type of encryption that uses one public "key" and one private "key". These two keys are used to encrypt and decrypt messages. Asymmetric Encryption is also called Public Key Cryptography. Keys are just 1's and 0's - and typically there are a lot of them to make the encrypted message more difficult to hack. These 1's and 0's are often presented to the human eye as letters and numbers for convenience and to make them a little less frightening. The term "asymmetric" refers to the fact that only one of the keys, (the private key), needs to be kept a secret in order to protect a message. The other key (the public one) can be broadcast to anyone without endangering the message. Typically a message would be encrypted using the public key. The message can contain information such as "I want to send you 5 bitcoins". Then that encrypted message could be put into a public place (such as on a public blockchain) without fear that the wrong person would decrypt it. Only the person who has the private key can decrypt the message (such as to spend their received cryptocurrency).

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Means "All-Time High". This is the highest price that a cryptocurrency has ever achieved. To some degree, this value will depend on the exchange and country where the price is quoted. This difference can be very small, but up to a few percent.

A Bag Holder is someone who refuses to sell a losing cryptocurrency even though the value never stops dropping. He may have bought high and held on while everyone else seemed to be selling. A Bag Holder usually has unrealistic hope that the price will turn around, but it never does. Sometimes bagholders resist selling simply out of pride. In the end, he is usually left with nothing except the (empty) "bag." The term seems to have many non-investment-related origins, from the 1800s in Brittan to Americans in the soup lines during the great depression.

"BCH" is the cryptocurrency symbol for the "bitcoin cash" cryptocurrency. Note that this is different then BTC ("bitcoin") cryptocurrency. Most people consider BTC to be the original bitcoin. BCH was created due to a software fork in BTC in 2017. The current price of BCH is here.

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"BDPL" means "Blockchain Defensive Patent License". It is a type of license agreement that can be entered into by honest cryptocurrency miners. This agreement could, in theory, help to reduce the likelihood of 51% attacks. See more here: https://blockchaindpl.org/

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A Bear refers to a long term downward trend of an investment market or a segment (like cryptocurrencies) to decrease in value. This can be an actual current market downward trend or the anticipation of a down market. It is usually used for something that drops more than a certain percent (usually 20%). The term can refer to the market itself or an investor. It can be used as in: "It is a bear market", or "The Market is Bearish right now." "He is a bitcoin Bear" means an investor who thinks that the price of bitcoin will go down soon and substantially. A Bear can "short" a market to try to make a profit when it is going down. Bearish is the opposite of being a Bull or Bullish.

This is when an investor makes a bad investment decision based on an anticipated long-term decline in an investment (like cryptocurrency), but that decline never significantly occurs. That bearish decision on the investor's part could be to sell an asset or "short" it. In either case, if the price downturn is a short-lived small drop and then the price goes back up, then the investor can lose money. The investor who sold (or shorted) is said to be caught in the Bear Trap. This is the opposite of a Bull Trap.

"BIP" means "Bitcoin Improvement Proposal". A proposal defines a specific improvement in the design of the cryptocurrency software. It was originally a reference to bitcoin software. It typically relates to some new feature of a specific currency. Each BIP has a number associated with it which indicates the exact feature which is being referred to. Such as BIP 123. BIPs are always related to the currency software, but can also impact wallets, exchanges, and mining rig design.  BIPs, among other things, can give a currency more security or more/improved features.

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Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to finally reach mainstream adoption. It is a distributed virtual digital currency whose value is based purely on supply and demand.  The original designers of bitcoin described it this way: “A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. “ The first coin was created in 2009 by a person or group of people named Satoshi Nakamoto. As of 2019, bitcoin is the most valuable and most successful cryptocurrency ever created and it has created an entire industry of competing cryptocurrencies. But bitcoin is FAR more than this simple description.  Learn lots more about bitcoin here.

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"Bitcoin Maximalism" refers to the philosophy that bitcoin and its network will ultimately prove to be the only cryptocurrency that the world will ever need. All other currencies and their networks and blockchains will be unnecessary and useless competition. Maximalists believe in more than the simple idea that bitcoin is best - they also think that all other currencies should not even exist since they a waste of time and effort in their competition with bitcoin. To this end, bitcoin will make all other coins extinct.

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Block lattice architecture allows faster transacting between users. Individual users own their own blockchains that are protected by the users' private keys. What makes this architecture faster is that the global network doesn't have to update every transaction made because each user updates their own blockchains. This makes a shared ledger like bitcoin's into a synced network of individual networks, which makes for a faster transaction time.

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A blockchain is where all cryptocurrency transactions are stored. Transactions include information such as the amount and the address of the "to" and "from" currency wallets involved. The individual transactions are organized into larger blocks of data that are validated and then added to the blockchain. The blocks of transaction data are linked serially together in a chain -hence the term "blockchain." Each block contains information about the previous block making it very hard for a hacker to cheat and change old transactions. Typically blocks are validated and added to the chain by miners. Every cryptocurrency is based on some type of blockchain. Sometimes a cryptocurrency will have its own unique blockchain, or sometimes it will ride on some other preexisting blockchain. Blockchains are (typically) decentralized, and often some portion of the stored transactions is always viewable by the public.

"BTC" is the cryptocurrency symbol for the "bitcoin" cryptocurrency. Most people consider this to be the original bitcoin.  Many other "altcoins" have been spawned (forked) from bitcoin. Probably the most well-known spawn (fork) is bitcoin cash. The symbol for bitcoin cash is BCH. The current price of BCH is here.

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Means "Buy The Dip". It refers to the investment technique to buy a cryptocurrency only when the price goes down. The assumption and belief is that the price will ultimately go back up after the purchase. This is common with a volatile investment so that the investor doesn't feel like he is overpaying. It is related to the plan to "Buy-Low-Sell-High". 

"BTG" is the cryptocurrency symbol for the "Bitcoin Gold" currency. Note that this is different from the original bitcoin cryptocurrency. Bitcoin Gold was created by a fork from bitcoin in October 2017. This means that the software of BTG was based on bitcoin but then it diverged with the intent of providing different and/or improved features. The current price of BTG is here.

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The term Bull (Bullish) refers to a long term upward trend of an investment market or a segment (like cryptocurrencies) to increase in value. This can be an actual current market upward trend or the anticipation of an upmarket. The term can refer to the market itself or an investor. It can be used as in: "It is a bull market", or "The Market is Bullish right now." "He is a bitcoin Bull" means an investor who thinks that the price of bitcoin will go up soon and substantially.  But sometimes Bulls can be caught in a "Bear Trap". A Bull, or Bullish, is the opposite of being a Bear or Bearish.

A "Bull Trap" is when a bad investment "buy" decision is made in anticipation of a long-term significant increase in an investment (like cryptocurrency). That Bullish decision to buy becomes a trap if the price upswing never substantially occurs. If the price instead goes down, then the investor is said to be caught in a Bull Trap and loses money. A Bull Trap is the opposite of a Bear Trap.

To Burn refers to intentionally making a certain amount of cryptocurrency permanently unusable. The Burn is accomplished by sending cryptocurrency to a specialized public address, called the "Burn Address," in a transaction that can't be reversed. That address has no known private keys, making it impossible to spend those burnt coins, nor put them back into circulation in the future. Since the burn address is public, anyone can verify that the coins have been permanently destroyed, making the Burn 100% transparent. Burning coins increasing the relative scarcity of that currency and, potentially, increasing its value due to that scarcity. Burning can be done by anyone, with any coin for any reason. Still, it is usually only done for specific coins, by particular people, and for practical reasons. Typically a Burn is done by an issuer of an ICO coin after the initial purchase period is over. The remaining coins will often be burned at that point. This is to assure initial investors that unpurchased coins won't later flood the market, thereby devaluing their investment. Burning coins is vaguely similar (but different) to why a company buys back its own stock.  

"BYOB" means "Be Your Own Bank". (Not Bring Your Own Booze 🙂 ) This refers to the concept that by using cryptocurrencies you do not need to rely on any government, nor bank to spend, withdraw or transfer your money. Your money is under your total control. It is yours to keep and spend as you wish and no one can restrict you. But it also means that you are in full charge of security too. If your currency gets stolen, then there will be no one to help you recover it.

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Central Bank-Issued Digital Currencies - also called Digital Fiat Currency or Digital Base Currency is fiat money in digital form. This is a type of digital currency that the government recognizes and establishes as money. Unlike other digital currencies or cryptocurrencies, governments accept CBDC as a legitimate currency which can be used for transactions with the government. Governments and central banks all over the world as still experimenting with this type of currency, testing whether its theoretical benefits, such as technological efficiency, will work in real time.

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Centralized exchanges require middlemen to facilitate transactions between two digital currency users. Middlemen or intermediaries usually collect trading fees for their service. Those interested in trading cryptocurrencies usually come into contact with these currencies via centralized exchanges. The process is straightforward if one wishes to buy a coin, he would have to go to the order book (the middleman) to specify his requirements, such as price and amount of coins. The book will then match his requirements with a selling user that meets the requirements.

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Contract for difference is a type of trading that anticipates the rise or fall of the value of fast-moving global markets, such as currencies, shares or treasuries, to determine whether one should sell or buy stocks or coins. If one thinks that the value of his respective market drops, he can go short (sell) or go long (buy) if he thinks the value will rise.

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Child keys - In HD wallets, child keys are derived from parent keys. These can be either private or public. These should not be confused with public keys which are derived from private keys.

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Client - The cryptocurrency client is the end-user software meant to facilitate the generation of a private key and its security. Clients may also send payments on behalf of a private key, provide useful data about how the state of the network and its transactions. Many different clients provide many different types of services, such as reviewing how well protected one's private keys are or making sure that the entire safety protocol is implemented every time there is a transaction.

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Client Side Encryption - All encryption is done on the user's computer and not transmitted to the internet. This makes for a safer encryption process than the server side encryption. To put broadly, it is the process of encrypting data before it is sent to the internet from the user's device. This method removes the possibility of the data being stolen or compromised in any way while in transit to any server.

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A Coin (as opposed to a Token) is a cryptocurrency used for general purpose payments. A Coin is also the underlying fundamental cryptocurrency of its own blockchain. See also "How a coin is different from a Token"

Coinjoin - This is a transacting security measure in which multiple spenders combine their multiple payments into one transaction towards multiple recipients. This prevents outside parties from determining who pays and receives what amount. All concerned spender must agree to the amount of output each provides and the amount of input each receiver gets. When everything is agreed upon, everyone involved must sign the transaction.

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Commodity Currency - a currency that co-move with the prices of commodity products due to the reliance of some countries to their export of raw materials. Commodity currency is most often popular in developing countries. However, some developed countries also use such currency. In the foreign exchange market, commodity currencies refer to Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, Norwegian, South African, Brazilian, Russian and Chilean currencies.

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A consensus algorithm is what keeps each block of transaction that transpires within a digital network. There are different types of consensus algorithms, each one serving a specific purpose. In computer science, consensus algorithm is a process that is used to achieve agreement on a single data among multiple systems. The main purpose of these algorithms, where cryptocurrency is involved, is that they make sure that the next block in the blockchain is a legitimate part of the network, not added by outside parties to derail the system.

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Cryptocurrency is a term for digital (virtual) currency which uses cryptography for security. Cryptocurrency, as we know it today, was first created in January 2009. Bitcoin is a type of cryptocurrency.  So is ether, bitcoin cash, litecoin, and over 1000 others. But cryptocurrency is much more than this.  Learn more about the basics of cryptocurrencies here.

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Cryptography - is the method of securing communication among parties from outside parties called adversaries. It can also be referred to as the study of techniques to construct and analyze protocols that prevent third parties from reading private messages or data transfers. In computer terms, it is the process of translating ordinary plain text into unintelligible text so that only the intended recipient can read and process it. The most common cryptography techniques used are symmetric-key cryptography, public-key cryptography, and hash functions.

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Cryptojacking - is a form of malware that steals a device's computing power to mine precious digital coins. It can take over browsers and compromise all kinds of devices from PCs to smartphones and even network servers. Like most malware, its motive is profit. But unlike other malware, it's designed to be hidden from the user. Because building a device capable of effectively mining crypto coins, hackers found a way to use others' devices as a means to mine for them, sparing them the hurt in their pockets.

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Cryptominers - are people who mine cryptocoins. These are people who build special computer hardware designed to effectively mine digital coins. The process of mining coins requires strong computational prowess because of the complex mathematical equations each transaction within the blockchain requires in order to verify transactions. The device which can solve the math problem the fastest gets rewarded with some coins by the network. But because the competition for the coins and the price of decent mining hardware are both high, some miners tend to seek out cheaper and shady methods, like putting software in unknowing people's devices to get those devices to mine for them.

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Currency Exchange - business or an institution that allows the exchange of one currency for another. In the digital world, these are digital marketplaces in which traders can buy and sell cryptocurrencies. These marketplaces also allow traders to spend their crypto coins for other assets such as fiat money or other physical goods.

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Currency Miners - People who devote computer time, space and power to mining crypto coins.

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Currency Mining - The process of adding transaction records to a cryptocurrency's transactions ledger by solving complex math problems. This process will generate brand new currency which is rewarded to the miner who cracks the math puzzle first.

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Currency Wallet - A secure software program used to store, send and receive digital coins. In order to use and trade digital coins, one must own a digital wallet. Some wallets are meant for only one type of coin, while some can be used for a multiple of them. Some wallets the user controls, some are custodial.

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A custodial wallet is any wallet where the private key for controlling your coins is in the hands of a third party. One should choose to trust their chosen third party. In essence, having a custodial wallet is similar to having a bank, you have to trust someone else to manage and protect your assets. In such an arrangement, one only needs an internet connection to make transactions. This also prevents the loss of the private keys that can happen when the keys are printed on a piece of paper. If you are just starting out on cryptocurrency trading, a custodial wallet may be beneficial because you can be sure of the security some of the custodial wallet agencies offer.

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DAG - Directed Acyclic Graph is a cryptocurrency first introduced in 2015 by Sergio Demian Lerner. It differs from other digital currencies in that it does not need blocks or miners to function with blockchains. In order to confirm transactions, DAG employs the transactions made to confirm each others' transactions. In a way, only those participating in the transactions are needed to confirm other transactions, not outside parties. The current price of DAG is here.

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"DApp" means Distributed Applications. They are software applications that use APIs (see definition above) in order to share data which is necessary to complete some task. These apps are usually stored in the cloud.  When related to cryptocurrency, they are stored on the related blockchain.  Two, or even more, apps can coordinate with each other for this purpose. They must be on the same network to communicate, but not necessarily on the same computer platform.

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A "Dead Cat Bounce" is when the price of a cryptocurrency that is in a long-term falling trend makes a short-term reversal. The price might start to go back up by some small percent, but the decline continues again soon after that. Some investors make the mistake of buying the cryptocurrency during that bounce because they can't believe the coin can fall further. They mistakenly jump back in, hoping that they have found the bottom and make a profit, but they are soon disappointed. An investment can experience many dead cat bounces on its way down before it finally finds a base and then begins a long journey back up.

"Decentralized" means that no one central authority controls all cryptocurrency transactions. Instead, many independent and unrelated parties share the work to make the buying and sell currencies possible. See also "Peer-to-Peer" and "DEX".

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DeFi means Decentralized Finance. It is an attempt on the part of the crypto community to create an alternate system to the traditional brick-and-mortar financial system. DeFi's goal is to use smart contacts to allow for lending/borrowing funds, earn interest on savings, provide credit, etc. It will also provide for all other traditional banking services. Since this will be accomplished with cryptocurrency, it will be implemented in a decentralized way that the government will not control. Most cryptocurrency tokens that are implementing these smart contracts are currently on the Ethereum blockchain.

A "Destination address" is the cryptocurrency address of some user (or business) which can receive cryptocurrency. Any sender of coins needs to know this address to ensure that coins are sent to the right destination.  The destination address will be entered into a cryptocurrency wallet to make a transaction.  This destination address might also be called a "receive address" and is very closely related to a "public address".

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"Deterministic" mathematically means the ability to consistently compute the same set of outputs (data) given a specific set of inputs. This term is often used when referring to a feature of cryptocurrency wallets, passphrases and private keys. It indicates the ability of a wallet to faithfully recreate the same set of private keys given a single passphrase input. This ability is considered a positive feature of a wallet since only a single passphrase needs to be memorized (or written down) and backed up. Otherwise, ALL private keys in a wallet would need to be recorded and backed up. You can always "Determine" all of your private key from your single passphrase (if you have a deterministic wallet). Deterministic wallets can create a nearly infinite number of keys from one passphrase. If you use this type of wallet and you later lose it, but you remember your passphrase, then you can get a new wallet and regenerate all your previous private keys - nothing will be lost. Not all wallets are deterministic but more and more wallets are adding this feature. Note also that you can have as many passphrases as you have wallets. See also "HD" and "HD Wallet".

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"DEX" means Decentralized Exchange. A Dex facilitates cryptocurrency trading (i.e. currency exchanges) without relying on a trusted third party to hold (temporarily) or transfer your funds.  A DEX also does not rely on any centralized authority, such as the government to make transactions. A peer-to-peer exchange is an example of a decentralized exchange since funds can be sent directly between two users without relying on a third party, nor government, to permit nor help in the transfer. DEXes are usual more secure and more private then centralized exchanges - but there are also no ways to revert any transactions if an erroneous or fraudulent transfer is made on a DEX. A DEX is the opposite of a centralized exchange.  See also "decentralized".

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A "Dictionary Attack" is a method of trying to guess a user's password. This attack is a type of "brute force" attack in that it attempts to use every word in a standard dictionary as a possible password. It may also combine words. This attack takes more time and computer power than other types of more sophisticated attacks. This attack can often be successful since many users still use simplistic passwords. Better passwords do not use any known words and include upper as well as lower case letters, numbers and special symbols. A dictionary attack will never be able to break these types of better passwords.

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"DID" means Decentralized Identification. A blockchain is typically used to store a DID. The blockchain used is also usually decentralized (but a centralized blockchain can also be used for other types of digital IDs). A DID allows a user/owner to fully control their identification by ensuring that only chosen applications and entities (like school, doctor, government, ...) can access the ID. Access to the DID can also be permanently and completely revoked if and when desired by the user. When a DID is stored on a decentralized public blockchain, then it is also censorship resistant since usage permission can't be denied. Note that even though a blockchain is used to store a DID, a DID is not necessarily related to cryptocurrencies - A DID can be an ID for any digital purpose, and the blockchain is used to protect and control access to it. Microsoft and other large players and investigating creating various types of DID systems.  Microsofts DID system is built on the bitcoin blockchain.

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Digital money is a type of money that can be used only electronically. Although it has no physical form, in most cases, it can be converted into some sort of physical currency.  It may also be called Digital Currency, Electronic Money, CyberCash or Cryptocurrency. It can be used to purchase goods and services which accept that type of money. All cryptocurrency can be considered Digital Money. Digital money can be issued by a bank or by independent currency developers.

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"Distributed" refers to the computers in a network which are located in relatively remote locations. "Distributed" also refers to different computer systems in the network sharing databases and performing different tasks but all are working in conjunction to achieve some common goal. Distributed networks such as bitcoin, ethereum, and many others have computers participating in the network all around the world. The goal of a distributed computer network share resources and ensures that if a small percentage of those computers go offline that the system as a whole can still function. The networked computers may go offline for maintenance, due to hardware failures, or by government or police mandate.  Most cryptocurrencies use a distributed network model to ensure that their networks have near 100% uptime and cannot be forced to shut down.

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"DLT" means Distributed Ledger Technology. DLT is a ledger (a database) of records which is hosted and managed by a set of decentralized computers. A blockchain is an example of a DLT, but it is important to note that not all DLTs are necessarily blockchains. Both blockchains and DLTs may store digital currency data records but storing currency is not a defining element of either one. Cryptocurrency blockchains are always encrypted, but not all DLTs are necessarily encrypted. See also "blockchain" and "decentralized".

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"DPoS" means Delegated Proof-of-Stake. It is a type of "consensus algorithm" which is used to validate data blocks on a blockchain. In this type of consensus algorithms, the token (or currency) holders are allowed to vote for a small group of "delegates" (other token holders) to validate blocks of data. The token holders do not directly vote on the validity of the blocks themselves. The term "proof of stake" is referring to the fact that only the token holders own the tokens and, as such, have a "stake" in the process. Not all blockchains use the same consensus algorithm. There are many other types of consensus algorithms, such as "Proof of Work" which is most famously used by bitcoin. See also "Proof of Stake" and "Proof of Work".

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A "dump" has various meanings in the cryptocurrency world and relates to the price and/or trading volume of a coin. It can mean that one or many currency holders are selling (dumping) large amounts of their currency quickly. They usually sell regardless of the price. It can also mean that the price of a currency is going down very fast. These two things usually go hand-in-hand.  Currency holders will often sell their currency when prices are going down which makes the downwards price movement even more dramatic. See also "Pump-and-Dump" [link].

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"ECB" means European Central Bank. It performs a similar function as the US Federal Reserve Bank which is to try to ensure a stable monetary system. This "stabilization" can be done with the intent to control inflation, increase economic development, and/or raise employment rates. These banks control the money supply and can influence bank interest rates to fulfill their mission. The ECB works to stabilize the Euro, and the US Federal Reserves works to stabilize the US dollar.

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"ECDSA" means Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm for Cryptography. It is a mathematical algorithm which is used to validate and secure cryptocurrency. It is a mathematical algorithm which is used to validate and secure cryptocurrency. It is called an "asymmetric encryption" technique since it uses an asymmetric public and private key set to ensure that only the owner of private keys [link private keys] can spend their funds. It is used to prevent the theft of cryptocurrency. There are many types of cryptography algorithms which fulfill the same critical purpose. Each type of cryptocurrency may use the same or a different encryption algorithm. Older discarded algorithms can now be hacked, and so new algorithms are always under development to ensure that cryptocurrency stays unhackable in the future. See also encryption.

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"Encryption" is the process of scrambling data so that it is unrecognizable and yet it is scrambled in such a way that it can be "unscrambled" only by authorized people. The unscrambling is often based on a private "key" which only the authorized person(s) knows.  This type is called private key encryption.  There are MANY types of encryption algorithms, such as ECDSA which is common in the cryptocurrency world. Encryption is used by anyone who wants to hide data from unauthorized snoopers.  Any website which uses "https" is encrypted.  It is used by banks, email programs, websites, personal computer data sets, and more. See also ECDSA.

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"ENS" means Ethereum Name Service. It is similar in function to a DNS (Domain Name Server) which is used to map website URLs to the computer server where the website is hosted. The difference is that an ENS is used to find (map) Ethereum domains, which contain addresses, metadata, and hashes for smart contracts, to the ethereum network. The ENS uses the ETH blockchain to do this mapping.

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"ERC" means Ethereum Request for Comment. It is the official method for anyone in the ethereum community to propose changes, fixes, and/or improvements to the ethereum design. These proposals are voted on and, if approved, then they are assigned a formal ERC number.  ERC-20 is one of the better known and approved ERCs.

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"ERC-20" is one of many Ethereum network token "standard" protocols. This particular standard defines 6 principle functions that an ERC-20 based token must perform to be considered ERC-20 compliant.

• totalSupply
• balanceOf
• transfer
• transferFrom
• approve
• allowance

ERC-20 was the 20th ERC approved for the ethereum network. ERC-20 itself is not a token, it is just a standard for other tokens to follow. Many different tokens (almost 200,000 token types) have been created that conform to the ERC-20 standard, and so they can interact with each other if so desired. It also allows different types of ERC-20 compliant tokens to be easily exchanged for each other. ERC-20 tokens are intended to all operate on the same ethereum main blockchain, and so they do not need to run their own blockchain. Surprisingly, the first native ethereum token, called "ether", does not conform to directly to this standard. There are many well-known ERC-20 compliant tokens, such as TUSD, TON, Filecoin, EOS, GUSD, etc. See also ERC.

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"Ether" is the first cryptocurrency token created for the ethereum [link] network. It is not an ERC-20 compliant token since it was created before the ERC-20 standard was approved. As of 2019, ether is the second most valuable cryptocurrency after bitcoin, as it has been since it was first created. Mining of ether generates 18million tokens per year but, unlike bitcoin, there is no lifetime cap of ether that can be generated. The trading symbol of ether is ETH. See the current price here.

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Ethereum is an "open-source" "public" "globally distributed" "decentralized" "censorship-resistant" "permissionless" "blockchain" "platform".

• open-source software [link] (means that anyone can contribute acceptable code changes and improvements to the network)
• public (Means anyone can view all transactions)
• global-distributed (Means that computers around the world help to run the network)
• decentralized [link] (means there is no one single controlling authority)
• censorship-resistant (since it is decentralized no government, nor police force can directly shut it down)
• Permissionless (you don't have to ask anyone for permission to use the network - related to censorship resistant)
• blockchain [link] (Means that data records are stored as blocks of multiple transactions)
• platform (means it is designed to support the execution of other applications - like smart contracts and compliant tokens)

It is similar to, but different in purpose from the bitcoin blockchain network. The purpose of the Ethereum network is to allow tokenization and control of the ownership of an "asset". The "asset" can be almost anything, such as a cryptocurrency (like ether or any other ERC-20 compliant tokens), or a physical asset like a house, or a cow, or a work of art, or even intellectual property. The ethereum network provides for the ability of users to securely control their ownership of assets, and also to provide an easy mechanism to trade, give, or sell their asset(s) via Smart Contracts [link] Some advantages of the Ethereum network over other cryptocurrency networks is that any Ethereum compliant tokens and smart contracts on the Ethereum network don't need to create a new blockchain - They can simply build an application to run on the existing ethereum blockchain. They also get a readymade "run-time" platform and programming language, so that that infrastructure does not need to be reinvented. This is called the Ethereum Virtual Machine with programming opcodes as well as high-level languages which can be used to build the new tokens and smart contracts. A few other interesting points about the Ethereum network:

• Ethereum is the name of the blockchain - The native cryptocurrency on this blockchain is called "ether". The operation of the network is partially paid for by the cost of Ethereum "Gas". Gas is the price paid for executing contracts and/or transferring funds on the blockchain. Gas is paid for in the Ethereum "ether" cryptocurrency.
• The Ethereum transaction block validation uses a "Proof of Work" (PoW) model, but in 2019 this is being transitioned into a "Proof of Stake" (PoS) model. PoS provides several distinct advantages over PoW.
• The Ethereum model was first written about in the Ethereum "White" paper by Vitalik Buterin in 2013

Note that Ethereum is NOT the same thing as the cryptocurrency "ether" - Ethereum is the network and ether is a cryptocurrency that executes on that network. See also Ethereum 2.0, Smart Contract, DApps, ERC-20, ether, Token, PoW, PoS.

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Ethereum 2.0 is also called Eth2 or Serenity. It is a very significant design upgrade to the existing Ethereum blockchain. Eth2 will be faster, more energy-efficient, more secure, and handle far more transactions per second. The primary ways it will achieve these essential improvements via two major changes: 1) Changing its current PoW consensus algorithm to PoS. 2) Splitting the existing single blockchain into many smaller parallel "Shard" blockchains. It is anticipated that Eth2 transaction processing speed will be more than 3000 times faster than Eth1. The transition from Eth1 to Eth2 will be carried out in 3 phases that will take two years to complete. The first phase has already been implemented as of December 2020. The final phase may complete in the year 2022.

An Exit Scam usually consists of an aggressively promoted new ICO. The promoters will often promise a get-rich-quick magic system with a high rate of return to investors. The founders of the scam will create a lot of excitement via press releases and social media. There will also often be a short deadline for investors. FOMO takes over, and money pours in. Then, often before they have to pay any returns, the scammers take all the invested funds and stop returning emails. The website may go offline, social media stops being updated, and the chat lines go quiet. The value of the coin crashes, and the initial investors are left with, at best, pennies on the dollar. Due to the unregulated and decentralized nature of cryptocurrency, it is often impossible to persecute the scam's perpetrators.

A faucet is a mechanism that continuously gives away tiny amounts of free cryptocurrency. You usually need to go to a faucet website and perform one or more simple tasks on that site to qualify for the giveaway. The tasks are generally very minor, like reading an article, clicking a captcha, viewing a video, or looking at an advertisement. Due to the faucet's very slow drip, it can take quite a while to earn even 1 dollar's worth of crypto. Faucets are sometimes created to be educational and to spread the word about a new cryptocurrency - this is what bitcoin did in its early days. Other faucets use advertising on the page or affiliate offers to pay for the distribution and make their own profit. There are sites, like FaucetDump, where you can find a list of the more common faucets.

"FBA" means Federated Byzantine Agreement. It is one of the many types of consensus algorithms for cryptocurrency.  It is a special type of "Byzantine Agreement" scheme. A basic Byzantine Agreement is the common way to validate blocks of data on a blockchain via a "voting" process. Participating blockchain nodes vote on proposed block solutions. If a predetermined minimum number of voting nodes agree then the block is accepted and added to the blockchain. The term "Federated" modifies this behavior a little by allowing voting nodes to accept the voting choice of a set of other voting nodes. These other voting nodes must, of course, have been deemed to be trustworthy ahead of time. The Ripple blockchain was one of the first networks to use FBA as their consensus algorithm.  

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Fiat Currency is currency declared by any government to be legal tender in that country.  It is almost always paper money and physical coins.  Examples of fiat currency are British Pounds, Japanese Yen, United States dollars, Europen Euros, Chinese Yuan, etc.  There is no fixed exchange rate between fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies.  The rate changes by the second and depends on what buyers are willing to pay in that moment.

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The term Flipping usually refers to the event when some cryptocurrency's market cap becomes worth more than bitcoin. It has not happened yet, but many people assume that the cryptocurrency ether will be the one to take the market cap crown from bitcoin. In a more traditional investment sense, flipping can also mean to buy an asset and then sell it a short time later at a profit. Flipping can be done with assets such as stocks, real estate, or cryptocurrency.

FOMO means Fear Of Missing Out. In regards to cryptocurrency, it is the physiological condition that causes people to rush to buy some coin as its price is going up. They fear missing out on a substantial future profit. They also hope (and often assume) that the price will keep going up. This mistake is usually more common in those who are new to cryptocurrency, but old hands can also get caught up in the euphoria. Fear Of Missing Out also applies to many other things besides cryptocurrency. It can also apply to the stock market investors and even to social media. If you see your friends having extraordinary times in their posts, you may fear that you are missing out on the fun.

A Fork is most often created by an intentional change in the fundamental software program that runs a cryptocurrency's blockchain. A small percentage of other forks are caused by hackers trying to fraudulently manipulate the blockchain. Forks come in two possible flavors. They can be Soft forks or Hard forks.

• A Soft fork is usually the result of adding some new software feature or fixing a minor bug. A soft fork is backward compatible and so does not affect historical transactions. From a coin user perspective, nothing really changed.
• A Hard fork is a much more drastic change to the blockchains operating software. It makes it incompatible with the original blockchain. It creates a new coin with an entirely new branch of the blockchain for its future transactions. When a Hard fork occurs, the original blockchain may continue on its own path using the original software. After the split, both branches may successfully grow, or one, or both may die out for various reasons.

Complementary new coins that may be obtained due to some special types of Hard forks. A newly spawned blockchain may allocate an equal number of new cryptocurrency for the original owners.

FUD means "Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt". FUD can be a strong emotional response to a situation, such as watching bitcoin soar or crash. It is often related to an investor's decision to buy or not buy a cryptocurrency.  It can cause paralysis so no decision is made at all.

But FUD can also be an anticompetitive tactic. One company can install FUD in its customer's minds to not buy similar competitor's products. This is often by creating false or misleading information about the competitor. 

Fungible means that one unit of currency is perfectly interchangeable with another unit of the same type of currency. For example, one unit of bitcoin is just as good and has just as much value as any other same-sized unit of bitcoin. Bitcoin is fungible. Any item for sale that takes bitcoin will take ANY bitcoin, regardless of that bitcoin's history. A dollar bill is also fungible since you can receive a $100 bill from a coworker and pay him back a different $100 without question.

But fungibility also has gray areas. For example, some bitcoins could become non-fungible if governments start to track and restrict certain bitcoin suspected to have been used criminally. This could be done due to the ability to monitor bitcoin as it moves through the blockchain. BUT, as bitcoin are split up and used in different ways and "mixed", how can the trail be followed?

Halving refers to a reduction by one half in the amount of reward earned for mining a cryptocurrency. All bitcoin-based currencies (such as bitcoin and bitcoin cash, etc.) offer a fixed reward to miners. But these rewards get cut in half approximately every 4 years. More specifically, it happens after every 210,000 blocks are mined. As of 2021, the current reward for mining a block of transactions is 6.25 coins. The halving will continue until the maximum number of coins have been mined. In bitcoin's case, this will be when 21 million have been created. When a halving occurs, miners earn fewer bitcoins, but they will make up for that (if) each coin's price increases. Plus, they can earn transaction fees for their mining. Note that halving is not a part of all cryptocurrencies.

A "hash" (function) is a mathematical formula (an equation/algorithm) that accepts any arbitrary amount of input data (such as a short string of letters and/or number, a long text file, a digital photo file, etc...) and computes a fixed-length output value. No matter how long the input data is, the output is always a fixed length. A hash value is a shortened representation of the original message. A "good" hash algorithm for cryptographic purposes:

• Is "one-way", i.e., it can't be reversed to determine the input. (This actually depends on the amount of computational power applied to the attempted reversal, plus the quality of the hash function).
• No two sets of input data will result in the same hash output value. Otherwise, this would be considered a "collision" (which is a bad thing).
• Is "deterministic" since the same output value will always be computed given the same input data.
• Does not take much computational power to generate the output.
• Even a very small change in the input value will have a dramatic change in the output value. (This is so an attacker can't determine a pattern of outputs and use that to guess inputs)

The purpose of the hash is a security technique to prove that you own the input data (since only you can hash the input to produce the related output). A hash function can also be used as a data integrity check to be sure that the input data has not been changed, either accidentally or maliciously, since the short output can be more easily compared then the long input. The output of a hash function can also be called: "data signature", "message digest", "hash", "hash value", "digest", "checksum", "digital fingerprint". Some currently common hash functions are MD5 and SHA-1, SHA-2, SHA-3. (Note that some of these have already been demonstrated to have potential vulnerabilities)  

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A Hidden Wallet is a wallet feature which allows you to create two wallets on one device. One can be considered a “dummy” wallet which you can load with a few bitcoins, and the other wallet is the “hidden wallet”, which can contain your real fortune. If a thief forces you to reveal your secret codes then you only have to reveal your dummy wallet codes.  The thief will think that he got what he came for and you will be left with your fortune intact.  One specific wallet that has this feature is the Trezor Hardware wallet.

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HODL means "Hang On For Dear Life". It refers to the philosophy that cryptocurrency investors should not sell their currency in a panic if there is some sudden price drop. They should "hold on" for long term big profits. The bitcoin urban legend is that "HODL" is actually someone's misspelling of the word "hold" in a cryptocurrency forum. As in "Hold On!!!". After that, the crypto community adopted it, and the term took on its own meaning for investors who believe in the future of cryptocurrency and don't lose faith when the price goes down. A "Hodler" is someone who follows the HODL philosophy and doesn't sell. 

ICO means "Initial Coin Offering". It is a method that a newly proposed cryptocurrency project can use to raise funds. In exchange for the investment, a token is received. The invested money is used for the startup and development costs of the project. An ICO is somewhat similar to a stock IPO in a traditional stock market. The investors may also receive some tangible product or service that is being developed, but not always. Some investors have an egalitarian reason for investing, while most invest for the potential price appreciation of the new currency. The ICO is usually accompanied by a detailed White Paper. That document defines all the essential aspects of the project, such as; founders, development team, backers, budget, finance, technical details, and purpose. You usually have to buy an ICO token with some other well-established crypto, like bitcoin. Some ICOs have been very successful and profitable. Still, many others have failed, and the investors have lost 100% of their investment. Some failed due to poor planning or execution, and others were pure scams from the get-go. Since ICOs are generally unregulated, and new cryptocurrencies are relatively easy to create, ICO scams are also easy to create. 

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Means "unchanging" and "unchangeable". This refers to the concept that transactions on the blockchain can't ever be changed or modified. This is a fundamental requirement of a blockchain to prevent hacking.

IoT means "Internet Of Things" It refers to physical objects that have added microchips, software, sensors, and wifi to connect them all to the internet. It is becoming more and more common that these "things" are everyday household devices and business/industrial machines that will all be communicating on the internet: your doorbell, your refrigerator, your washing machine, your light bulbs, and much more.

KYC, or "Know Your Customer" is a term related to government requirements for financial institutions to know exactly who their clients are. It usually involves extensive proof of customer identity. KYC is intended to prevent money laundering and became far more critical after the attacks on September 11, 2001. Find IRS approved KYC rules here

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Long, in investing, means to directly own an asset, rather than owning the option to buy or sell an asset at some future date. Options have a much higher risk than being "long," but options also have much higher profit potential.

MCap means Market Cap (capitalization). It is a measure of the total market value of a cryptocurrency. To compute the market cap, the total amount of cryptocurrency in circulation must be multiplied by that currency's current price.

To mine is the process of creating new units of cryptocurrency.  As part of the mining process, individual transactions are validated, added to a new block of transactions, and the block is appended to the end of the blockchain. Mining is usually very competitive, processor-intensive, and energy-hungry.  Profitable miners will use dozens, 100s, or even 1000s of specialized computers to do the mining.

To "Moon" means that a cryptocurrency is very rapidly increasing in value with seemingly no limit to its top. A crypto can be described as "going to the moon", or as a "moon shot" to mean that it's (or soon will be) worth 100, or 1000 times more than what it was in the not too distant past.

"Multi-Sig" means "Multi-Signature". It refers to a type of security which requires more than one private key to sign "spending" transactions.  Typically this feature would be used by a small group of people to distribute responsibility and security amongst a team. This feature allows for N of M keys to be required to fully sign a transaction.  For example, it can be set up so that 2 out of 3 private keys are required.  Or 3 out of 5 - or whatever combination you want.  It is only used to control spending of currency.  There is no such comparable concept for receiving nor monitoring funds.  It is a feature of many, but not all wallets.

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Refers to a collaborative group of computers around the world that collectively support a blockchain. Each computer in the network is referred to as a Node. Every unique blockchain relies on its own network of nodes. For example, Bitcoin and Ethereum are different blockchains, and therefore have a different network.

Is also called an NFT.  It is used to represent and prove ownership of digital data. Such as digital music, art, identity information, and much more. It is a unique token that can't be interchanged with any other token on the same blockchain (or ANY other blockchain).  See also "What is a Non-Fungible Token" for a more in-depth description.

Nodes are the individual computers that support and interact with a blockchain. They can be located anywhere in the world. These nodes, working together, are called the blockchain's network. Examples of nodes are Wallets, Transaction Validators, Exchanges, Miners, etc. Anything that can interact with the blockchain is a node. Nodes can be "full" nodes, "partial" nodes, or "lite" client nodes. They are all using some identical subset of the complete blockchain software.

Nonce means "Number Used Only Once".  It is a fancy name for what is essentially a counting integer.  The "used only once" refers to the fact that it is used in any type of looping mathematical formula that expects an input number which is never repeated during in any of the loops. For example, a nonce is used by bitcoin miners who are running the Proof 0f Work algorithm to generate a valid bitcoin block to be added to the blockchain.  They must execute the PoW algorithm 1000s of times, and each time they need to use a different nonce. RELATED TERMS

• PoW

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Also known as a P2P network. This is a type of computer network where each computer linked on the network (called a node) has equal abilities and equal obligations. There is no central controller of the network. So, there is also no central point of failure. No node acts as solely a server or receiver of data. All nodes do both serve and receive data for the network. For this reason, each node on the network is considered a peer. All cryptocurrencies use P2P networking to host their blockchains. Earlier uses of peer-to-peer networks from the 1990s were often set up to share music and videos

The term Permissionless is usually used in regards to a blockchain. It means that anyone can interact with that blockchain. It is also known as a "public" blockchain without any omniscient controlling entity. Everyone and yet no one fully controls it. Anyone can create an address, make/monitor/validate transactions, mine the cryptocurrency, etc. Most, but not all, cryptocurrency blockchains are permissionless. Examples of blockchains that are not permissionless are Corda, Ripple, Quorum, and more. Note that many private businesses are starting to use blockchain technology for their own unique data needs, and they use private "permissioned" blockchains.

A hacker technique with an amusing play on the word "to fish". But in this case, it is fishing for victims on the internet. The method attempts to "hook" the victim to do something that they shouldn't do. The "hook" is usually some sort of cellular text message or email that can be sent to 1000s or even millions of people at the same time. The message usually sounds legit, like from a trusted friend, an organization, or the government. It usually will tell the recipient to click on a link in the message, which will lead to a malicious website. Sometimes that website will download a virus to your computer. Or it may imitate a real banking or investment website and ask you to enter your login information. Or the website may even try to convince you to enter your cryptocurrency private key. That information will then be sent to the hackers.

A more targeted kind of phishing is called "Spear Phishing".

See a much longer description of phishing here.

A PIN is a "Personal Identification Number". It is usually 4 or 6 digits long (no letters) and is commonly associated with a phone lock screen, a Mobile wallet, and/or a Hardware wallet. It will give you access to any of these devices.  For security sake, you should not use the same PIN for all of your devices.

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Means "Proof of Stake".  PoS is a type of "consensus algorithm" which defines who (which node on the blockchain) gets to validate and add the next group of transactions to the blockchain. PoS was proposed as an alternative to the Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm to try to improve on some of the drawbacks of the PoW consensus algorithm

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PoW means "Proof of Work". PoW is a type of "consensus protocol". It is the key to ensuring that the decentralized blockchain will only contain data that all actors on the blockchain network agree is valid. Performing PoW requires repeated trial-and-error effort to find a magic number that can pass a mathematical Hash test. The test is to hash part of a new block of transactions and compare it to a Target Hash value. When the test hash value is less than the Target hash, then the block is declared valid, the PoW is complete, and the block is added to the blockchain. Solving for this magic number (called a nonce) takes a lot of processing power and time. That is what is referred to as the "work" in Proof of Work. The amount of difficulty to pass the test can be adjusted over time to control the rate at which blocks are created. The design of bitcoin uses this system that intentionally requires a lot of work from the miners. PoW acts like a guard to the blockchain. It makes it challenging to add invalid transactions to the blockchain without being detected unless the bad miner(s) control at least 51% of all mining power at one time. RELATED TERMS

• PoS - Proof of Stake
• Nonce
• Target Hash
• Mining

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A Private Key is a very long and complex Hexadecimal number composed of letters and digits. (Example: 1F38B0ECCC....) It is also known as a "Secret Number." This key proves ownership of (your) cryptocurrency. The key allows you to unlock your currency and spend it. If you lose the key, then you effectively lose your currency. A private key is tightly coupled, one-for-one, with a Public key. Together, they are used to fully control your currency. Public/Private key encryption is the fundamental tool of all cryptocurrency security. You risk losing your cryptocurrency if you ever divulge your Private key.

This key represents an address where cryptocurrency can be sent to you. Every cryptocurrency owner has one or more Public keys. The key is represented by a long string of hexadecimal digits. A public key is paired with a private key, and together, they are the cryptographic "keys" to the security of cryptocurrency. A Public key allows anyone to send you cryptocurrency. But you need your Private key to be able to spend those funds.

These keys can be compared to your email system. Your email address is like your public key. Anyone in the world can know it, so they can send you messages. Your private key is like your email password. You need that password to get into your email account to read and send messages. Similarly, You need your private key to get access to your cryptocurrency to send it.

See also Private Key.

Pump and Dump is a type of scam where the perpetrators use various means to increase the price of a crypto that they own, and then they sell it all after the price goes up. Typically they drive the price higher by inducing others to buy the coin. That influence is often via the use of overwhelmingly positive social media and/or messaging posts touting how great the coin is. They often rely on the population's FOMO as a motivator to cause the near panic buying. This is only an effective scam when the currency has low volume. If the currency is already owned by lots of people then it is much more difficult to influence their collective purchasing decision. If the scammers are actually the founders of the coin, then that would be called an "Exit Scam".

A "Receive Address" is a location on the blockchain where currency can be sent.  It can be your address so that others can send funds to you, or it can be someone else's address so you can send funds to them.  The receive address is tightly mathematically related to a public key, but it is not the exact same thing. It is perfectly safe to give out your receive address since no one can steal funds knowing only that address.  For privacy and security, it is recommended that you only use that address one time to receive funds.  The next time you want to receive funds you should generate a completely new receive address - all wallets except Paper and Brain wallets will do this for you.  When you spend funds from one of your receive addresses the entire currency content at that address will be sent out and then you will receive back "change" into a new receive address. You change is the difference between the amount that was originally at the address minus the amount of your purchase and transaction fees.

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Satoshi (Nakamoto) is the name of the creator(s) of bitcoin. No one is exactly sure who Satoshi is, nor if it even represents a single person. (COMMENT: The term "satoshi" would be better not to appear on this page since it is the definition page for satoshi.)

THIS IS A NEW PARAGRAPH - THERE SHOULD BE SPACES BEFORE AND AFTER THIS SENTENCE BUT FOR SOME REASON THE CR/LF ADDED BY THE DEFAULT WORDPRESS VISUAL EDITOR ARE IGNORED. I CAN ONLY GET A CR/LF IF I HARD CODE THEM IN THE WORDPRESS TEXT EDITOR WITH <br><br>

In honor of Satoshi Nakamoto, the name "Satoshi" is also the name of the smallest fraction of a bitcoin that can be owned. 1 satoshi = 0.00000001 bitcoin. Interestingly, 1 satoshi will equal 1 US penny when the price of bitcoin hits 1 million dollars. 

Secret Codes refer to any sequence of words, numbers and/or symbols that you need to keep private and secret in order to safeguard your currency.  These include your Private keys, PINs, Passwords, and/or your Seed Phrase. Although "Secret Codes" is not a standard term in the cryptocurrency world we have decided to use this phrase in all of our text for convenience sake so that we do not have to repeat "Private keys, PINs, Passwords, and/or your Seed Phrase" over and over.

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A "Seed" is typically a 12-24 natural language word phrase which is used to generate all the private/public keys and addresses in an HD wallet. This Seed phrase is created by the wallet when the wallet is first set up. It can be used to recover these same keys and addresses if you want to move to a different wallet and/or if you simply need to recreate your previous wallet. It is only available on wallets which have the "HD (Hierarchical Deterministic) ability. Some wallets also allow for one or more extra USER SELECTED words that add an additional layer of security.

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A Shitcoin is a divisive term to describe a cryptocurrency that is either pointless, and/or useless, and/or valueless, or an outright scam. But beauty can bein the eye of the beholder, and so not all "shitcoins" are universally agreed to be shit.

A Smart Contract is a software program with terms and conditions that executes on a blockchain. The terms of the contract are defined in the program code itself. Smart Contracts related to the purchase of something contain terms such as the price, how and when it must be paid, and all the details of what is being sold. These contracts are self-executing once started i.e. the contract software knows when the terms have been fulfilled. Then the contract itself sends the final payment. If executed on a secure public decentralized blockchain, both parties can trust these contacts because they are theoretically unchangeable, verifiable, unhackable, and dependable. Public Smart Contracts are not under the control of any centralized authority nor state-sponsored legal system. But not all blockchains can support Smart Contracts. The Ethereum blockchain is the most well-known blockchain platform for Smart Contracts.

A Stable Coin is a cryptocurrency whose value does not change much day-to-day nor week-to-week. It is best if the fluctuations are not much greater than any significant national fiat currencies, like the US dollar or Euro. A currency needs to maintain a reasonably stable price to be confidently used as a daily payment device. Generally, most cryptocurrencies that are not considered Stable Coins have prices that can swing wildly in an hour. So they do not inspire much confidence to use them as a payment method. Stability can be achieved in various ways, but the more common practice is to back a Stable coin with a known verifiable amount and value of fiat currency, or gold, silver, etc. Some popular stable coins are Basecoin, TrueUSD, Tether, USD Coin, and more.

Target Hash is a hash value that determines the success of consensus algorithm tests.  Its value indicates the difficulty of finding a successful hash solution.  A test with a large value of Target Hash is easier to pass than a smaller Target hash.  The blockchain network can update the Target Hash to control the speed of mining work, and therefore the rate at which new currency is created.

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A Token (as opposed to a Coin) is a cryptocurrency used for a very specific purpose: to trade specific "things" via smart contract. It is not a general-purpose payment instrument. A Token is built on a pre-existing blockchain, it doesn't create its own unique blockchain. See also: How a Coin is different from a Token.

Tor means "The Onion Router". It is free, open-source anti-surveillance software. This software makes it difficult for hackers and governments to track anyone's internet usage. Although standard https website encryption hides the contents of messages, it does not hide the source or destination. Tor throws off trackers by creating multiple layers of hidden message routing information. The word "onion" represents these various layers. Tor can be used to protect your privacy, such as when you are buying and selling cryptocurrency. You would typically need to install a unique tor-enabled browser and/or messenger to use this software.

URL technically means "Uniform Resource Locator".  But to most people URL really just is the name of a website that they can visit. An unencrypted URL uses the old HTTP format and will look like this: http://www.myfavoritewebsite.com An Encrypted URL will use the new secure HTTPS format and will look like this: https://www.myencryptedwebsite.com Don't trust, and don't enter important data, on sites that don't use HTTPS.

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"Watch-mode" is a wallet (or website) which has been set up to monitor one or more currency receive address(es).  This allows anyone to check the activity and balances of an address(es) without fear of getting their currency stolen. For this same reason, you are also not able to spend your coins with a "watch-mode" wallet.   You can "watch" any address in the blockchain.  It does not have to be just your address(es). This may also be referred to as:

• Watch wallet
• Watch Only

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See our full cryptocurrency glossary here. If you disagree with this answer or would like to add more information, then please write your comments here.