The Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Dictionary

Categories: EducationalPublished On: July 23rd, 202012.6 min read

2FA (Two-factor-authentication) → a method of confirming a user’s claimed identity in which a computer user is granted access only after successfully presenting two or more pieces of evidence to an authentication mechanism: knowledge, possession, and inherence.
51% attack → an attack on a blockchain network where a majority of the networks mining hash rate is controlled by one party. They can then revise transaction history and double spend. This causes a the blockchain to no longer be valid.
Addresses → public key to which transactions can be sent.
Agreement Ledger → a distributed ledger utilized by two or more parties to negotiate and reach agreement on a given topic or problem.
Algorithm → a clearly defined specification of how to solve a class of problems. Algorithms can perform calculation, data processing and automated reasoning tasks
Altcoins → cryptocurrencies that aren’t considered one of the main three, typically agreed to be Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum.
AML → (anti-money laundering) – legal controls that require financial institutions and other regulated entities to prevent, detect, and report money laundering activities
API (Application Programming Interface)→ a set of subroutine definitions, communication protocols, and tools for building software. Allows two programs to talk to each other.
Arbitrage → the practice of taking advantage of a price difference between two or more markets: striking a combination of matching deals that capitalize upon the imbalance, the profit being the difference between the market prices
ASIC (Application-specific integrated circuit)→ integrated circuit developed for a particular use, as opposed to a general-purpose device.
Asset Backed Security (ABS) – a security whose income payments and hence value are derived from and collateralized by a specified pool of underlying assets.
ATH (all time high) → a term that describes when a crypto or share of a company has broken all past price records and achieved an “all time high”.
Atomic swap → a feature in cryptocurrencies that allows for the exchange of one cryptocurrency for another cryptocurrency without the need for a trusted third party.
Bag holder → refers to an investor who has held onto their investment for too long and has now lost the value that was once present.
Bitcoin maximalist → believe that Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that matters & that it is the answer to the future of finance.
Blockchain → a growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data. By design, a blockchain is resistant to modification of the data.
Blockchain → a growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data. By design, a blockchain is resistant to modification of the data.
Block explorer → a web tool that provides detailed information on blocks in a blockchain, addresses, transactions, etc.
Block height → the number of blocks in the chain between any chosen block and the genesis (first) block.
Block reward → refers to new cryptocurrencies that are awarded by the blockchain network to miners for each block they successfully mine.
Block timestamp → the time that is attributed a specific block.
Block time → an average time of how long it will take the hashing power of the network to find a solution to the block hash and create a new block.
Bond → a fixed income investment and debt security, under which the issuer owes the holders a debt and is obliged to pay them interest or to repay the principal at a later date, termed the maturity date.
Breakout → when the price of a stock or cryptocurrency goes beyond the line of resistance, meaning it goes above the given time frames price barrier and reaches a new level.
Bull → a person who buys a stock, security, or crypto with the idea that it will eventually go up in price. (e.g. that trader is very bullish on bitcoin)
Centralized → the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those regarding planning and decision-making, become concentrated within a particular geographical location group. This moves the important decision-making and planning powers within the center of the organization.
Chain linking → the connection of two chains.
Circulating supply → the number of coin or tokens that are in circulation at a given time.
Coin → has its own platform which is called blockchain.
Cold storage → a method of storing your cryptocurrencies that is offline. (paper wallet/hardware)
Collateralized Debt Obligation → A collateralized debt obligation (CDO) is a type of structured asset-backed security (ABS).
Collateral → something pledged as security for repayment of a loan, to be forfeited in the event of a default.
Confirmation → when the network verifies and records any new transactions.
CPU → the electronic circuitry within a computer that carries out the instructions of a computer program by performing the basic arithmetic, logical, control and input/output (I/O) operations specified by the instructions.
Cryptocurrency → A cryptocurrency is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange that uses strong cryptography to secure financial transactions, control the creation of additional units, and verify the transfer of assets.
Cryptography → the art of writing or solving codes. The practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties called adversaries.
DAO→ an organization represented by rules encoded as a computer program that is transparent, controlled by shareholders and not influenced by a central government.
dApp → an application that is run by many users on a decentralized network with trustless protocols. They are designed to avoid any single point of failure. They typically have tokens to reward users for providing computing power.
Decentralized → the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those regarding planning and decision-making, are distributed or delegated away from a central, authoritative location or group.
Decryption → The conversion of encrypted data into its original form. A decoding
Difficulty → a measure of how difficult it is to find a hash below a given target.
Digibyte → DigiByte is a public, rapidly growing and highly decentralized blockchain. DigiBytes are digital assets that cannot be destroyed, counterfeited or hacked, making them ideal for protecting objects of value like currency, information, property or important digital data.
Digital asset → A digital asset is anything that exists in a binary format and comes with the right to use.
Digital Identity → information on an entity used by computer systems to represent an external agent. That agent may be a person, organization, application, or device.
Distributed Ledger → a consensus of replicated, shared, and synchronized digital data geographically spread across multiple sites, countries, or institutions. There is no central administrator or centralized data storage.
Dogecoin → Dogecoin is an open source peer-to-peer digital currency.
Double Spend → a potential flaw in a digital cash scheme in which the same single digital token can be spent more than once. This is possible because a digital token consists of a digital file that can be duplicated or falsified.
Encryption → the process of encoding a message or information in such a way that only authorized parties can access it and those who are not authorized cannot. Encryption does not itself prevent interference, but denies the intelligible content to a would-be interceptor.
Ethereum → Ethereum is an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform and operating system featuring smart contract functionality.
Exchange → an organized market where tradable securities, commodities, foreign exchange, futures, and options contracts are sold and bought.
Fiat currency → a currency without intrinsic value that has been established as money, often by government regulation.
Fiduciary → a person who holds a legal or ethical relationship of trust with one or more other parties.
Finality → when a settlement has been executed and is no longer reversible.
Fork → what happens when a blockchain diverges into two potential paths forward a change in protocol or a situation that occurs when two or more blocks have the same block height.
FUD → Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. A term that refers to the tumultuous and fearful conversations and sentiments that surround the cryptocurrency market.
Full node → a program that fully validates transactions and blocks.
Fungible → the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are essentially interchangeable.
Genesis block → The first block on a blockchain ledger.
Hard fork → a radical change to the protocol that makes previously invalid blocks/transactions valid (or vice-versa).
Hash rate → the number of double SHA-256 computations performed in one second
Hash → any function that can be used to map data of arbitrary size to data of a fixed size. The values returned by a hash function are called hash values, hash codes, digests, or simply hashes. Hash functions are often used in combination with a hash table, a common data structure used in computer
HODL → “hold on for dear life” refers to cryptocurrency investors who buy a coin or token and hold on to it regardless of what the price is doing, whether going up or down, in hopes of it eventually going back up.
Hot storage → a method of storing your cryptocurrencies that is online. (exchange/app)
ICO → a type of funding using cryptocurrencies. Mostly the process is done by crowdfunding but private ICO’s are becoming more common.
Interoperability → the ability of computer systems or software to exchange and make use of information.
KYC → (know your customer) – the process of a business verifying the identity of its clients and assessing potential risks of illegal intentions for the business relationship.
Ledger → a book or other collection of financial accounts of a particular type
Lightning Network → a “second layer” payment protocol that operates on top of a blockchain (most commonly Bitcoin).
Liquidity → having sufficient funds available to meet all foreseen and unforeseen financial obligations.
Market Capitalization → the market value of a publicly traded company’s outstanding shares. Market capitalization is equal to the share price multiplied by the number of shares outstanding.
Miner → a person who uses computers, electricity and specific hardware/software to solve complex problems presented to them in return for a reward.
Mooning → a verb form of the word “moon” which indicates an extreme increase in the price of a crypto. (we are going to the moon!)
Multi-signature → a digital signature scheme which allows a group of users to sign a single document. Usually, a multi-signature algorithm produces a joint signature that is more compact than a collection of distinct signatures from all users.
Node → a point at which lines or pathways intersect or branch; a central or connecting point.
Peer to Peer (P2P) → communicating and/or transacting person to person with no middleman (third party) in between.
Private key → any cryptographic system that uses pairs of keys: private keys are known only to the owner.
Proof of Burn → consensus algorithm combines the proof of work and proof of stake.
Proof of Capacity → a means of showing that one has a legitimate interest in a service (such as sending an email) by allocating a non-trivial amount of memory or disk space to solve a challenge presented by the service provider.
Proof of stake → a type of algorithm by which a cryptocurrency blockchain network aims to achieve distributed consensus. Here the creator of the next block is chosen via various combinations of random selection and wealth or age.
Proof of work → an economic measure to deter denial of service attacks and other service abuses such as spam on a network by requiring some work from the service requester, usually meaning processing time by a computer.
Public key → any cryptographic system that uses pairs of keys: public keys which may be disseminated widely, and private keys which are known only to the owner.
Resistance Level → refers to the price level that historically a stock does not rise above.
Ripple → Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system, currency exchange and remittance network created by Ripple Labs Inc., a US based technology company. Also called the XRP Ledger, Ripple is built upon a distributed open source internet protocol, consensus ledger and the decentralized native cryptocurrency known as XRP.
Satoshi Nakamoto → the name used by the unknown person or people who developed bitcoin, authored the bitcoin white paper, and created and deployed bitcoin’s original reference implementation. As part of the implementation, they also devised the first blockchain database.
Scrypt → a password-based key derivation function.
Settlement → a business process whereby securities or interests in securities are delivered, usually against payment of money, to fulfill contractual obligations, such as those arising under securities trades.
Sha256 → SHA-256 and SHA-512 are novel hash functions computed with 32-bit and 64-bit words, respectively.
Share → one of the equal parts into which a company’s capital is divided, entitling the holder to a proportion of the profits
Sideways → a term that indicates that the market is neither going up or going down but is stagnant and exhibits a somewhat flat line pattern.
Smart contract → a computer protocol intended to digitally facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract. Smart contracts allow the performance of credible transactions without third parties. These transactions are trackable and irreversible.
Soft fork → an open-source code modification, where a change to the software protocol is made that only the previously valid blocks/transactions are made invalid.
Solvency → the degree to which the current assets of an individual or entity exceed the current liabilities of that individual or entity.
Stock → the capital raised by a business or corporation through the issue and subscription of shares.
Support Level → refers to the price level that historically a stock does not fall below.
Technical Analysis → an analysis methodology for forecasting the direction of prices through the study of past market data, primarily price and volume.
Token-less ledger → a distributed ledger that doesn’t require a type of currency to function.
Token → represent a particular fungible and tradable asset or a utility that is often found on a blockchain. Require another platform to exist and operate
Trustless → a term that describes a system that doesn’t require a third party for verification/validation and instead is verified by smart contracts and code. Since everything is on the blockchains public ledger transactions can be verified through these distributed networks.
Utility → the state of being useful, profitable, or beneficial, used to model worth or value.
Volume → the amount of a security, stock or cryptocurrency that was traded during a given period.
Wallet → stores the public and private keys which can be used to receive or spend a cryptocurrency.
Whale → a term use to identify an individual who hold a large share of any given cryptocurrency. Whales have the ability to influence or manipulate markets due to them holding a large share of any given crypto.
Whitepaper → an authoritative report or guide that informs readers concisely about a complex issue and presents the issuing body’s philosophy on the matter. It is meant to help readers understand an issue, solve a problem, or decide.