A

Algorithm
A process or set of rules to be followed in problem-solving or calculation operations, usually by a computer, although people often subconsciously follow an algorithm to perform most tasks that involve mathematics or logic.
ATH (All Time High)
The highest price that a cryptocurrency has been in history.
ATL (All-Time-Low)
The lowest price that a cryptocurrency has been in history.
Altcoin
Short for alternative coins. Basically any crypto that isn’t Bitcoin (BTC)
ASIC
‘Application Specific Integrated Circuit’ refers to mining equipment that is used specifically to mine a certain cryptocurrency. not all coins need ASIC’s to mine but bitcoin (and others) do, they can no longer be mined by computer CPU)

B

Bagholder
A person who has bough large quantities of a specific cryptocurrency. If the price of that coin then falls and the person is left holding the coin at a loss they are sometimes referred to as a bagholder.
Bear
Someone who is pessimistic about the state of the cryptocurrency market and prices and expects them to continue to decline. The term “bearish” reefers to someone who believes this.
BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal)
A technical document providing information about proposed new features, processes, changes or environments affecting the Bitcoin protocol.
Bull
someone who is optimistic about cyrptocurrency market price and feels they will increase “bullish” is a term used to describe people who feel like this.

C

Circulating Supply
An approximation of the number of coins that are circulating in the market and in the hands of users, traders, and investers
Cold Storage
Offline storage of cryptocurrency, this provides a means of safekeeping your crypto-currency by moving it offline. There are different ways this can be achieved but a paper wallet would be an example of cold storage.

D

Decentralised
Decentralisation refers to a system or network in which nodes or actors work together in a distributed fashion to achieve a global goal. The nodes are not owned or controlled by a single company or enterprise in a decentralised network
DEX (Decentralized Exchange)
A cyrptocurrency exchange that allows users to buy and sell cryptocurrency and other assets without a central intermediary involved.

E

EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine)
A ‘virtual machine’ that enables execution of code on the Ethereum network. This allows the execution of smart contracts. Every Ethereum node runs on the EVM to maintain consensus across the blockchain.

F

Fiat
Fiat currency is the government backed legal tender of a specific country. EG: In the UK our fiat currency is the Pound (GBP). In France it would be the Euro (Euro), In the USA it would be the Dollar (USD).
FOMO
Fear Of Missing Out. The overwhelming sensation that you need to buy before the price of something starts to skyrocket.
FUD
Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. Baseless negativity spread intentionally by someone that wants prices to drop.

G

Genesis Block
The genesis block is the first ever block created on a blockchain.
When a block is broadcasted to the blockchain, it references the previous block. However, in the case of the genesis block, there is no previous block to reference, instead, it is hard coded into the software.

H

Hash Rate
A unit of measurement for the amount of computing power a miner is capable of (usually measured in kH/s, MH/s, GH/s, TH/s, PH/s or EH/s) This is how many individual hashes per second are produced computed.
HODL
The term first became famous due to a typo made in a bitcoin forum, and the term is now commonly expanded to stand for “Hold On for Dear Life”.
The term suggests a person is not intending to use, spend, or trade their cryptocurrency. Instead they intend to save it for longer term investment.
You might also hear the terms Hodl’er and Hodl’ing.

I

ICO (Initial Coin Offering)
A type of crowd sale using cryptocurrency as a means of raising capital in the early-stages of a project. ICO’s offer early investors the opportunity to pick up new projects coins cheap in they hope the price will rise when the project gets listed on exchanges. However, ICO’s have been criticized due to the lack of regulation and the occurrence of scams and market manipulators. A lot of ICO projects never made it onto exchanges.
IEO (An Initial Exchange Offering)
A fundraising event that is administered by an exchange.
In contrast to an ICO where the project team themselves conduct the fundraising, an IEO will conduct fundraising on exchange platforms. This gives more legitimacy as the exchange has hopefully ran some back-ground checks on the project as they will have their own reputation to protect.

J

K

KYC (Know Your Customer)
The process refers to a project’s or financial institution’s obligations to verify the identity of a customer in line with global anti-money laundering laws.

L

Lambo
Literally short for Lamborghini (car brand). People often use this to express excitement over getting rich from cryptocurrencies. You may hear phrases like “when Lambo” or “Lambo soon”.

M

Mainnet
An independent blockchain running its own network with its own technology and coin/token. It is a production blockchain rather than a testnet.
Masternodes
Servers maintained by their owners, somewhat like full nodes, but with additional functionalities such as anonymizing transactions, clearing transactions, and participating in governance and voting.
Mempool
The Mempool is a “waiting area” for transactions that each full node maintains for itself. After a transaction is verified by a node, it waits inside the Mempool until it’s picked up by a Bitcoin miner and inserted into a block.
Merkle Tree
A tree structure in cryptography where every leaf node is labelled with the hash of a data block. Every non-leaf node is labelled with the cryptographic hash of the labels of its child nodes. Hash trees allow efficient and secure verification of the contents of blockchains, as each change propagates upwards so verification can be done by simply looking at the top hash.
Mining
The process in which Proof of work is used to create new blocks are add them to a blockchain. It is also the process through which new bitcoins created.
Mnemonic Phrase
A list of words used in sequence to access or restore cryptocurrency wallets. This must be kept secret from everyone.
Moon
The word moon is used to describe the price of a cryptocurrency going very high. You might here questions in the community like “When moon?”
Multi-sig
Short for multi-signature address. This provide additional security by requiring more than one key to authorize a transaction.

N

Node 
A computer which is participating in the bitcoin network and has a copy of the ledge stored in its memory. Full nodes connect to other nodes to provide a fully decentralised network.
No-coiner
Someone who has no cryptocurrency and generally believes that cryptocurrency will fail.

O

Open Source 
Open-source software is a type of software in which the copyright holder or developer grants users the rights to study, change, and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose. It encourages the free and open sharing of information in pursuit of the greater common good.
Orphan Block 
A valid block on the blockchain that is not part of the main chain. They may come into existence when two miners produce blocks at almost the same time, or they can be caused by an attacker attempting to reverse transactions. Transactions in orphaned blocks will go back into the mempool once the longer leg of the blockchain is decided.
OTC (Over The Counter)
Over The Counter transactions are made outside of exchanges, often peer-to-peer through private trades, or ‘OTC desks’ which pair together buyers and sellers. In jurisdictions where exchanges are not allowed or where amounts traded will move the markets (very large orders), traders may choose the OTC route.

P

P2P (Peer to Peer)
This refers to the interactions between two parties without any intermediary. Participants of a P2P network or transaction deal directly with each other.
Public Address
This is the cryptographic hash of a public key. They are addresses that can be published anywhere for you to receive payments.
Private Key
A private key is a string of data generated in the asymmetric-key encryption process. This key allows access to the funds held by specific wallet. This acts as a kind of password that should be kept hidden from anyone but the owner of the address.
PoB (Proof-of-Burn)
A consensus mechanism aiming to bootstrap one blockchain to another with increased energy efficiency, by verifying that a cost was incurred in burning coin by sending it to an un-spendable address
PoS (Proof of Stake)
A consensus algorithm that rewards earnings based on the number of coins you own or hold. The more coins you stake, the more you gain by mining with this protocol. When someone stakes their coins they are using them to help secure the network.
PoW (Proof of Work)
A consensus algorithm which involves solving computationally intensive puzzles to validate transactions and create new blocks. This consensus methods requires the consumption of resources, such as electricity. The more ‘work’ you do or the more computational power you provide to the network, the higher your chance of finding a block and receiving the block reward.

Q

QR Code
QR code stands for Quick Response code. They are machine-readable labels which could be compared to a bar-code you would find in a supermarket. These are commonly used in cryptocurrency wallets to share public payment addresses, but can contain other information like links to websites. Its recommended caution is used when scanning QR codes as they could contain links to harmful content.

R

REKT 
In the crypto world this is slang for “wrecked”. REKT is often used to describe a bad loss in a trade.
ROI 
This stands for ‘Return on Investment’, the ratio between the net profit and the money invested.

S

SATS (Satoshi’s)  
The smallest unit of bitcoin. 1 SAT = 0.00000001 BTC.
Satoshi Nakamoto
The individual or group of people that created Bitcoin. The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto has never been confirmed and to this day remains a mystery.
Second-Layer Solutions 
A set of solutions built on top of a blockchain to extend its scalability and efficiency. Some examples of second-later solutions include: Bitcoins Lightning network, or Ethereums Plasma.
SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) 
A United States federal agency responsible for proposing and enforcing securities rules, regulations, and laws, regarding stocks and options exchanges and organisations.

T

Ticker
An abbreviation used to uniquely identify a specific cryptocurrency, EG Bitcoin = BTC, Litecoin = LTC.
Token
A digital asset designed with utility in mind, providing access and use of a larger crypto economic system. It may not have its own store of value, but is made so that software can be developed around it.
Total Supply
Sometimes also referred to as ‘Max Supply, or Circulating Supply’, this is the total amount of coins in existence right now (minus any coins that have been burnt).
TX (Transaction) 
The act of making an exchange of cryptocurrencies on a blockchain.
Trustless 
A key property of blockchains. No participant needs to trust any other participant for transactions to be enforced and completed.

U

Unconfirmed 
A transaction which has not yet been appended to the blockchain.
UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output) 
An output of a blockchain transaction that has not been spent, and can be used as an input for new transactions.

V

Validator
A participant on a PoS (Proof of Stake) blockchain who is responsible for validating blocks for rewards.
VC (Venture Capital) 
A form of private equity provided to fund small, early-stage firms considered to be usually high risk but with have high growth potential.
Virgin Bitcoin
A bitcoin that has been created as a result of the miner reward and has never been spent in another transaction.
Volume
The amount of cryptocurrency that has been traded during a certain period of time (Eg: 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, etc). Volume can be used to help technical analysts predict direction of price moment.

W

Wallet 
A cryptocurrency wallet is used to store, send, and receive digital currency. See our page on Wallets for full details.
Weak Hand
A term used to describe an investor who is likely to panic selling at the first sign of a price decline
Whale
A term used to describe an individual who holds a very large amounts of cryptocurrency
Whitepaper
A document which is used to detail the design, technical information, and a roadmap of a project.

X

Y

Z

Zero Knowledge Proof
A zero knowledge proof enables one party to provide evidence that a transaction happened without revealing details of that transaction such as the amount transacted or addresses involved.