Glossary A–Z

The public string that receives coins and tokens, how it is derived and how to check it.

Lookalike sites and lookalike addresses: how both scams work and the habits that defeat them.

Tokens sent to many wallets at once — the tax angle and the scam angle.

Simple rate versus compounded yield, with the official formula and a worked example.

Attestation vs audit vs proof of reserves, what US rules require, and a five-step way to read a report.

How a pool and a formula replace the order book — and why big trades get worse prices.

The gap between buy and sell prices, and how to turn it into a cost you can compare.

The first cryptocurrency: how payments are verified, why supply is capped, and what can go wrong.

The 210,000-block rule that halves new supply, the math behind the 21 million cap, and the price myths.

What miners compute, how difficulty keeps blocks near 10 minutes, and why most miners join pools.

The search engine for a public blockchain, and how to read a transaction page.

A record book copied across many computers, where changing old pages is easy to spot.

How prices and other outside data reach smart contracts — and what happens when they are wrong.

Scalability, security, decentralisation: why chains trade one for another, with real node-hardware numbers.

How pay-in-four works, what late payments cost, why stacking loans matters, and the new UK rules.

Digital money owed by a central bank: how it differs from deposits and stablecoins, and who is building one.

Keeping private keys offline: hot vs cold wallets and the risks of each.

Lock-and-mint, burn-and-mint and swaps: how bridges move tokens, and why they are a favorite target for hackers.

Wallets hold keys, not coins. Custodial vs self-custody, hot vs cold, and how each can fail.

A checklist for judging a project's own document: problem, design, token numbers, risks and red flags.

Digital money kept on a shared ledger: how it works, how it differs from a bank account, and the risks.

Financial services run by smart contracts: how they work, who controls them and where the risks hide.

Exploits, oracle attacks, bridges, liquidations, governance and scams — and how to cut your exposure.

When a stablecoin slips from $1: causes, the 2023 USDC case and the UST collapse.

A blockchain that runs programs: ether, gas fees, smart contracts and what the Merge changed.

Chains that run Ethereum's virtual machine: what carries over, what differs, and where users slip up.

A fund you trade like a share: creation and redemption, costs, and ETF vs mutual fund.

What the word covers, how fintech apps plug into banks, and which protections change.

How blockchains change their rules, and when a change splits the network.

What you pay to get an Ethereum transaction processed, with the formula worked through.

Reserves, licences, the yield ban and the timeline of the US payment stablecoin law.

The fixed-length fingerprint behind blocks, addresses and mining.

Pools, collateral, health factor and liquidation — the mechanics behind on-chain loans.

Why a liquidity provider can trail a simple hold — with the numbers for every price move.

How the CPI and HICP turn price tags into one number, what drives inflation, and who it hurts.

The per-transaction fee paid to the card issuer, with US and EU caps worked through.

Why banks and crypto exchanges verify your identity, what they check and which reports they file.

Base chains settle; layer 2s batch transactions on top. What each layer does and who you end up trusting.

Payment channels, routed payments and invoices on Bitcoin's layer 2 — and what you must watch for.

Receipt tokens for staked ETH: rebasing vs wrapped designs, withdrawal queues, discounts and smart contract risk.

Price × supply: size bands for stocks, and why crypto market caps can overstate real money.

Tightness, depth and resiliency: how much it really costs to trade, and why liquidity dries up in a crisis.

The waiting room for unconfirmed transactions, and how fees decide who goes next.

The EU's crypto rulebook: token types, issuer duties, exchange licences and the dates that matter.

Wallets that need several keys to sign, and what an m-of-n set-up protects against.

Licensed bank or app with a partner bank? What it means for deposit insurance and failures.

Full, light and archive nodes, what each verifies, and what running one for Bitcoin or Ethereum takes.

How consent-based bank data sharing and pay-by-bank work, and the rules in the UK, EU and US.

Primary vs secondary markets, arbitrage with real fee schedules, and the three things that break a peg.

A fake relationship, a fake trading platform and a scripted ending: the stages and the red flags.

The secret that signs transactions, how it links to addresses, and why it cannot be reset.

Two ways to pick who writes the next block — and what each one asks an attacker to put on the line.

How automated investment advice works, what it really costs, and how to check the firm.

Optimistic vs zero-knowledge rollups: fraud proofs, validity proofs, blobs and the seven-day exit.

When project creators raise money and disappear with it — how it works and the warning signs.

What the 12 or 24 recovery words actually encode, and how to keep them out of reach.

Why a swap fills at a different price than quoted, and how slippage tolerance limits it.

Programs that live on a blockchain and run as written: how they work, their limits and their risks.

A single fast layer 1: proof of history, parallel execution, lamport fees and the hardware trade-off.

Exchange-traded products that hold bitcoin: how they work, what they cost, what they don't fix.

Tokens designed to stay at $1: what backs them, how redemption works, and why runs happen.

How locked-up coins secure proof-of-stake chains, the four ways to stake ETH, and what can go wrong.

What you allow when you click Approve, how drainers exploit it, and how to revoke old permissions.

How DeFi's headline size figure is calculated, why it double-counts, and what it cannot tell you.

Why exchanges ask who owns the receiving wallet, what data travels with your transfer, and the thresholds.

SMS codes, authenticator apps, passkeys and security keys compared for bank and crypto accounts.

Standard deviation, beta and the VIX in plain numbers — and why big swings cost you even when averages look fine.