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Crypto glossary

Every term comes with a technical definition and a plain-English one. Search anything — "private key", "slippage", "rollup".

AML
Regulation
Anti-Money Laundering: the body of laws and procedures requiring financial institutions to monitor and report suspicious activity.
In simple English: Rules that make it hard for criminals to wash dirty money through banks or exchanges.
APR
DeFi
Annual Percentage Rate: the yearly interest rate without compounding.
In simple English: The yearly interest a lender or staker earns, before compounding is considered.
APY
DeFi
Annual Percentage Yield: the yearly return including the effect of compounding interest.
In simple English: Your yearly return when earned interest is reinvested automatically.
Address
Basics
A unique alphanumeric identifier on a blockchain that can receive cryptocurrency. Addresses are derived from public keys and can be shared safely.
In simple English: Like an account number you can safely give out so people can send you crypto.
Airdrop
Basics
A distribution of free tokens to wallet addresses, usually for marketing, early adoption or rewarding loyal users of a protocol.
In simple English: Free tokens given away, often to attract or reward users.
Automated Market Maker (AMM)
DeFi
A smart contract that automatically prices and swaps tokens using a liquidity pool formula, without an order book or intermediary.
In simple English: A robot trader that always holds both coins in a pool and swaps them at a price set by the pool's own ratio.
Bitcoin
Basics
The first and largest cryptocurrency, launched in 2009 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, using Proof of Work and capped at 21 million coins.
In simple English: Digital money with a fixed supply that nobody, not even its creator, can inflate.
Block
Blockchain
A bundle of validated transactions cryptographically linked to the previous block, forming the blockchain's history.
In simple English: A page in the network's shared record book — once written, it can't be edited.
Blockchain
Blockchain
A distributed, append-only ledger maintained by a network of nodes, where each block references the hash of its predecessor.
In simple English: A shared notebook that thousands of computers keep identical copies of — nobody can secretly change a page.
Bridge
Infrastructure
A protocol that locks assets on one blockchain and issues representative assets on another, enabling cross-chain transfers.
In simple English: A bridge between two blockchains that carries your money across — and is a popular target for hackers.
Cold Wallet
Wallets
A wallet that stores private keys offline, such as a hardware device or paper backup, isolated from internet-connected devices.
In simple English: A vault: keys kept offline where hackers can't reach them remotely.
Consensus
Blockchain
The mechanism by which distributed nodes agree on a single version of the ledger, e.g. Proof of Work or Proof of Stake.
In simple English: How a network with no leader all agrees on whose transaction list is the real one.
DAO
Web3
A Decentralised Autonomous Organisation: an organisation governed by token-holder votes executed via smart contracts.
In simple English: A club run by its members voting on proposals, with rules enforced by code.
DApp
Web3
A decentralised application: an app whose core logic runs on smart contracts rather than a company's servers.
In simple English: An app that runs on a blockchain instead of one company's computers.
DEX
DeFi
A decentralised exchange where users swap tokens against liquidity pools or order books without giving up custody to the platform.
In simple English: A marketplace where you trade directly from your own wallet — no middleman holds your money.
DeFi
DeFi
Financial services (lending, trading, derivatives) built on public blockchains using smart contracts, without traditional intermediaries.
In simple English: Banking-style services rebuilt with code instead of banks.
Ethereum
Basics
A blockchain platform for programmable smart contracts, launched in 2015; its native currency is ETH.
In simple English: The world computer: a blockchain you can program, not just send money on.
Fiat Currency
Basics
Government-issued currency declared legal tender, such as the US dollar, pound or euro — not backed by a commodity.
In simple English: Normal money like pounds or dollars — valuable because the government says so and people trust it.
Gas
Ethereum
The unit measuring the computational effort of an Ethereum transaction; fees are paid in ETH based on gas used and the gas price.
In simple English: The fuel price for doing anything on Ethereum — complex actions burn more fuel.
Hash
Blockchain
The output of a hash function: a fixed-length fingerprint of input data where any change to the input changes the fingerprint completely.
In simple English: A digital fingerprint: change one letter of the input and the whole fingerprint changes unrecognisably.
Hot Wallet
Wallets
A wallet connected to the internet (mobile, browser or desktop), convenient for frequent use but more exposed to malware and phishing.
In simple English: A wallet on a connected device — like cash in your pocket: handy but less safe than a vault.
Impermanent Loss
DeFi
The temporary loss a liquidity provider experiences when pool prices diverge from the deposit-time ratio, compared with simply holding the assets.
In simple English: The hidden cost of providing liquidity: when prices move apart, you'd sometimes have been richer just holding.
KYC
Regulation
Know Your Customer: the identity-verification process regulated businesses must perform to combat money laundering.
In simple English: The ID checks that make you upload your passport before using a regulated exchange.
Layer 1
Blockchain
A base blockchain that settles its own transactions and security, e.g. Bitcoin or Ethereum.
In simple English: The main road a network is built on.
Layer 2
Infrastructure
A network built on top of a Layer 1 that executes transactions cheaply and settles back to the base chain, e.g. rollups.
In simple English: A side-road that takes the traffic so the main road isn't jammed — with the main road still guaranteeing safety.
Liquidity
DeFi
The availability of assets for trading or borrowing; in AMMs, the pooled tokens that a swap draws from.
In simple English: How much money is in the till. Deep pools = easy trading; thin pools = big price swings.
MEV
Security
When a price moves in the moments between your transaction being broadcast and being included in a block, harming (or benefiting) your final price.
In simple English: Your trade waiting in a queue while the price changes — often used by bots front-running you.
Mining
Blockchain
The process by which Proof of Work participants compete to solve a hash puzzle, produce the next block and earn new coins plus fees.
In simple English: A number-crunching competition that both adds new transactions to the ledger and mints new coins.
NFT
Web3
A Non-Fungible Token: a unique token whose metadata distinguishes it from any other, recording ownership of a specific item.
In simple English: A one-of-a-kind collectable token proving you own a specific digital item.
Node
Blockchain
A computer participating in a blockchain network by validating and relaying transactions, and holding a copy of the ledger.
In simple English: One of the many computers running the network and keeping the shared records.
Oracle
Infrastructure
A service that feeds real-world data (prices, sports results, weather) to smart contracts, which cannot access the outside internet themselves.
In simple English: A messenger that brings real-world facts into blockchain programs.
Private Key
Wallets
The secret half of a cryptographic key pair. Whoever holds the private key controls the funds; it must never be shared.
In simple English: The master key to your money. Anyone who has it IS you, as far as the blockchain is concerned.
Proof of Stake
Blockchain
A consensus mechanism where validators lock up (stake) coins and are chosen to produce blocks, risking loss of stake ('slashing') for dishonesty.
In simple English: Security by deposit: validators put their own money on the line and lose it if they cheat.
Proof of Work
Blockchain
A consensus mechanism where miners compete using computational work to add blocks; attacking the ledger requires redoing the work of the whole chain.
In simple English: Security by effort: cheating means out-muscling the entire network's computing power.
Public Key
Wallets
The shareable half of a key pair, derived from the private key; the receiving address is itself derived from the public key.
In simple English: The safe-to-share half of your keys — used to create your receiving addresses.
Rollup
Infrastructure
A Layer 2 that executes transactions off the main chain and posts compressed data or validity proofs back to it, e.g. optimistic and ZK rollups.
In simple English: A helper network that batches transactions and posts a summary (or proof) back to the main chain.
Seed Phrase
Wallets
A list of 12–24 words encoding a wallet's private keys, allowing full recovery of all its accounts. Must be stored offline and never shared or typed into websites.
In simple English: The master backup of your entire wallet. Twelve words = total control. Never share them with anyone, ever.
Slippage
DeFi
The difference between the expected and executed price of a trade, caused by price movement within the pool or market before settlement.
In simple English: The price gap between quoting 'buy' and actually buying — thin markets make it bigger.
Smart Contract
Blockchain
A program deployed to a blockchain that automatically executes agreed terms when conditions are met, without an intermediary.
In simple English: An agreement written in code that runs itself — no middleman can bend the rules.
Stablecoin
Crypto
A cryptocurrency designed to maintain a stable value against a reference asset, typically the US dollar, via collateral or algorithmic mechanisms.
In simple English: Crypto that behaves like steady dollars rather than a rollercoaster.
Staking
Blockchain
Locking coins to support a Proof of Stake network (or to earn rewards in a protocol), earning newly issued or fee-based rewards.
In simple English: Putting your coins to work securing a network and getting paid interest for it.
TVL
DeFi
Total Value Locked: the aggregate value of assets deposited in a protocol's smart contracts, a common DeFi usage metric.
In simple English: How much money sits inside a protocol — a rough measure of how much people trust it.
Token
Crypto
A digital asset issued on a blockchain representing an asset, right or membership — as opposed to a chain's native coin.
In simple English: A digital voucher living on someone else's blockchain.
Tokenomics
Crypto
The study of a token's supply, distribution, emissions, utility and incentives — how a token is designed and who benefits.
In simple English: A token's business plan: how many exist, who holds them, how new ones appear and what they're actually for.
Validator
Blockchain
In Proof of Stake, a participant who locks stake, proposes/attests blocks, and can be slashed for provable misbehaviour.
In simple English: A network referee who locks up money and loses it if they cheat.
Wallet
Wallets
A tool (hardware, app or browser extension) that manages private keys and lets a user sign transactions. Wallets control access, not the coins themselves.
In simple English: Your keychain and signature pen for crypto — it doesn't hold coins, it holds the keys that prove they're yours.
Web3
Web3
A vision of the internet where ownership, identity and value are held by users via blockchains and wallets rather than platforms.
In simple English: An internet where you own your accounts and assets instead of renting them from big companies.
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