Crypto glossary

Short definitions of the terms that come up during an exchange — without the parts you do not need on your first transfer.

A B C D E F G H K L M N P R S T V W

A
AML: Anti-money-laundering checks. An exchanger screens incoming coins against lists of thefts and sanctions; a flagged transfer can be held until the check is finished.
Address: The line of characters money is sent to, like 1A1z… or T9yD…. Each network has its own address format, and an address of one network does not work in another.
Airdrop: A free distribution of tokens to holders or to people who used a protocol. Real airdrops never ask for a private key or a transfer "to confirm the wallet".
All-time high: The highest price a coin has ever reached. Distance from it is often quoted as a share of the way back, but it says nothing about the future.
Altcoin: Any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin. The word says nothing about quality — it only means "not BTC".
B
Block: A batch of transactions written into the blockchain at once. The average time between blocks sets how fast a transfer gets its first confirmation.
Blockchain: A public ledger of transactions kept by many independent computers at once. Records can be added but not silently rewritten, which is why transfers can be verified by anyone.
Bridge: A way to move the same asset from one network to another, for example USDT from Ethereum to TRON. An exchanger does the same thing in one order and without a separate bridge wallet.
C
Cold wallet: A wallet whose keys never touch the internet — a hardware device or a paper copy. Safer for storage, less convenient for daily transfers.
Confirmation: A block added on top of the one holding your transaction. Services wait for several confirmations because the last block can still be replaced.
Custodial wallet: A wallet whose keys are held by a service, not by you. Convenient, but access depends on that service staying available and unblocked.
D
DeFi: Financial services built as smart contracts instead of companies: lending, exchange, derivatives. The rules are public code, and so are the risks in it.
E
Exchanger: A service that swaps one asset for another at its own rate, usually without registration and without holding your balance between orders.
Explorer: A site that shows every transaction of a network. Pasting a transaction hash into it is the fastest way to see whether a transfer really went out.
F
Fixed rate: A rate locked when the order is created: the amount you receive does not change while the transfer travels through the network, but the service takes the risk and prices it in.
Floating rate: A rate calculated at the moment the exchange happens. It is usually better than a fixed one, but the final amount is known only at the end.
G
Gas: The unit of work in Ethereum-like networks. The fee is the gas used by the transaction multiplied by the gas price, so a token transfer costs more than a plain one.
H
Hash: A short fingerprint of data. A transaction hash (TXID) identifies a transfer and is the thing to send to support when something goes wrong.
Hot wallet: A wallet on a phone or computer connected to the internet. Convenient for spending, which also means keeping only working amounts in it.
K
KYC: Identity verification. Most instant exchanges do not require it, but a flagged transfer or an unusual amount can trigger a request for documents.
L
Liquidity: How much of an asset can be bought or sold without moving the price. Thin liquidity is why a rare coin has a worse rate and a smaller limit.
M
Market capitalisation: The price of a coin multiplied by the number of coins in circulation. A rough measure of size, not of value or quality.
Memo: An extra field required by some networks (TON, XRP, XLM) to identify the recipient inside a shared address. A transfer without it usually has to be recovered by hand.
Mempool: The queue of transactions waiting to be included in a block. When the queue grows, the same fee buys a slower confirmation.
Mining: Producing new blocks by spending computing power. Miners receive the block reward and the fees, and that reward is what a halving cuts in half.
N
Network: The blockchain a token lives in: the same USDT exists in TRON, Ethereum, BNB Chain and others. The sending and receiving network must match, or the money will not arrive.
Network fee: What the blockchain charges for including a transfer, paid in the coin of that network. It depends on the network and its load, not on the amount you send.
Node: A computer that keeps a copy of the blockchain and checks new blocks. The more independent nodes, the harder it is to rewrite history.
P
Private key: The secret that controls the coins at an address. Anyone who learns it can spend them, and no service ever needs to see it.
Proof of Stake: A way to agree on blocks by locking coins instead of spending electricity. Validators put their own funds at risk and can lose part of them for misbehaviour.
Proof of Work: A way to agree on blocks by spending computing power, used by Bitcoin. It makes rewriting history expensive rather than impossible.
R
Reserve: The amount an exchanger can pay out in a given direction right now. A reserve smaller than your amount means the order will have to wait or be split.
S
Seed phrase: Twelve or twenty-four words that restore a wallet with all its keys. Written on paper, never in a chat or a photo, and never entered on a site.
Slippage: The difference between the rate you saw and the rate you got, caused by the price moving while the order was being processed.
Smart contract: A program stored in a blockchain that runs by itself when called. Tokens, bridges and DeFi are all smart contracts, and a bug in one is a bug in the money.
Stablecoin: A token that holds a price close to a currency, usually the dollar, backed by reserves or by a mechanism. Used to sit out volatility and to move money between networks.
Staking: Locking coins to support a network and earn a reward. The reward is paid in the same coin, so its market price still decides the result.
T
TXID: The identifier of a transaction. With it, anyone can look up the transfer in an explorer and see its status without trusting a screenshot.
Token: An asset issued inside someone else's blockchain, unlike a coin that has its own. A token transfer is paid for in the network's own coin.
Transaction: A record of moving funds between addresses. Once it is in a block it cannot be cancelled or called back.
Two-factor authentication: A second confirmation on login, usually a code from an app. It protects an account even when the password has leaked.
V
Validator: A participant that proposes and checks blocks in a Proof of Stake network, with their own stake at risk.
Volatility: How widely a price swings over a period. High volatility means both a bigger possible gain and a bigger possible loss, in equal measure.
W
Wallet: A program or device that stores keys and signs transfers. The coins live in the blockchain; the wallet only holds the right to move them.
Wrapped token: A token that represents another asset in a foreign network, like WBTC for Bitcoin in Ethereum. Its price depends on whoever guarantees the backing.

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