Crypto Glossary

51% Attack

If more than half the computing power on the network is in control of a single person or a group of persons, then a 51% attack is in place.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Anarcho-capitalism

A political philosophy and modern school of anarchist thought that advocates the elimination of centralized state domination.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Arbitrage

A way of taking advantage of differences in price of the same commodity in two or more exchanges or markets.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

ASIC

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Astroturfing

The practice of masking the sponsors of a message to make it appear as though it is supported by grassroots participants.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Atomic Swap

A way of letting users directly exchange one type of cryptocurrency for another, off-chain or on a different blockchain.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Bit

A sub-unit of one bitcoin.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Bollinger Band

A type of statistical chart characterizing the prices and volatility over time of a financial instrument or commodity.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Brute-force Attack

An attacker submitting many passwords or passphrases with the hope of eventually guessing correctly.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Chain Split

Another term used for Fork.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Coinbase

The content of the 'input' of a generation transaction.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Cold Storage

An offline storage of cryptocurrencies.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Consensus

A general agreement among the members of a group or community.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Crypto-jacking

The use another party’s computer to mine cryptocurrency without their consent.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Cypherpunk

Any activist advocating widespread use of strong cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies as a route to social and political change.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Dark Web

World Wide Web content that exists on darknets.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Dead Cat Bounce

A small, brief recovery in the price of a declining stock.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS)

A consensus mechanism where users can vote for delegates producing blocks on the blockchain.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Digital Signature

A digital code that is generated and authenticated by public key encryption.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

FOMO

A pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Fork

When developers take a copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

FUD

An acronym that stands for “fear, uncertainty and doubt”.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Full Node

Node that downloads a blockchain’s entire history in order to observe and enforce its rules.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Genesis Block

The first block of a blockchain.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Halving

An event in which the total rewarded bitcoins per confirmed block halves.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Hard Fork

Rule change such that the software validating according to the old rules will see the blocks produced according to the new rules as invalid.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Hash Function

A mathematical algorithm that maps data of arbitrary size (often called the "message") to a bit string of a fixed size.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Hash Power (or Hash Rate)

A unit of measurement for the amount of computing power the Bitcoin network is consuming in order to be continuously operational.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Hybrid PoS/PoW

A Hybrid PoS/PoW cryptocurrency is one that allows consensus to occur through both proof of stake and proof of work mining.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Merkle Tree

A tree in which every leaf node is labelled with the hash of a data block.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Mining

A validation of transactions.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Node

A copy of the blockchain that exists on a computer or other type of hardware device.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Nonce

An arbitrary number used only once in a cryptographic communication.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Proof-of-Work (PoW)

A consensus mechanism deters denial of service attacks and other service abuses such as spam on a network.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Relative Strength Index (RSI)

A technical indicator that tells the current and historical strength or weakness of a stock or market.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

REKT

A shorthand slang for “wrecked”.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Satoshi

The smallest unit of bitcoin with a value of 0.00000001 BTC.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Scrypt

A password-based key derivation function created by Colin Percival.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Second-Layer Solutions

Solutions that process data in a way that decreases the burden of the base layer (root chain).

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Seed Phrase

A list of words which store all the information needed to recover a Bitcoin wallet.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Sharding

A scaling approach that enables splitting of blockchain network into individual segments (or shards).

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Sidechain

A designation for a blockchain ledger that runs in parallel to a primary blockchain.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Soft Fork

It occurs when old network nodes do not follow a rule followed by the newly upgraded nodes.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Stablecoins

Cryptocurrencies designed to minimize the volatility of the price of the stablecoin.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

Staking

A process of pooling (delegating) the validation stakes with one wallet, called a staking pool.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago

State Channel

The process in which users transact with one another directly outside of the blockchain.

Written by Muhammad Azeem
Updated over a week ago