Crypto & AI Glossary

A crypto address is a public, shareable string that identifies where blockchain assets should be sent and lets anyone view that address’s on-chain activity.

Algo-trading is the automated buying and selling of assets using pre-programmed rules that analyze market data and place orders without manual input.

Allocation is how a crypto project divides its token supply among groups like the community, team, investors, and treasury, often with vesting rules.

An asset is anything of value you can own or control, including crypto coins, tokens, NFTs, stablecoins, and tokenised real-world items.

An audit is an independent review that checks a crypto project’s code, security, and controls to find risks, verify claims, and improve trust.

A bail-out is government or central bank financial support for a failing institution to prevent wider economic damage and systemic risk.

Bitcoin halving is a scheduled Bitcoin protocol event that cuts the block reward in half, slowing new BTC issuance about every four years.

A blockchain explorer is a search and analytics tool that lets anyone view blocks, transactions, addresses, and smart contract activity on a blockchain.

A bull market is a sustained period of rising asset prices, typically driven by strong demand, improving sentiment, and increasing participation.

A bull run is a sustained period of rising crypto prices, typically driven by strong demand, high trading activity, and broadly optimistic market sentiment.

Bullish means expecting a crypto asset or the broader market to rise in price, often reflected in optimistic sentiment and increased buying pressure.

A buy wall is a large cluster of buy orders at a specific price that can act as support by absorbing selling pressure in a crypto market.

A candlestick is a chart bar that shows an asset’s open, high, low, and close prices for a set time period, helping traders read momentum and sentiment.

Capitulation is a market phase where investors panic-sell en masse after a sustained decline, often marking the peak of fear and heavy volume.

Collateral is an asset pledged to secure a loan, giving the lender a way to recover funds if the borrower fails to repay.

Confluence is when multiple independent trading signals align to support the same market idea, increasing confidence in a potential entry, exit, or price level.

A cryptocurrency is a digital currency secured by cryptography and run on decentralized networks, enabling peer-to-peer payments without a central bank.

DEX aggregators are DeFi tools that route a swap across multiple decentralized exchanges to find the best price and lowest slippage in one transaction.

Day trading is a strategy of buying and selling an asset within the same day to profit from short-term price movements.

Decentralization is the distribution of control across many independent participants so no single party can unilaterally change, block, or own the system.

A decentralized application (DApp) is software that runs on a blockchain or peer-to-peer network, using smart contracts so no single party controls it.

A decentralized exchange (DEX) is a crypto trading platform that lets users swap tokens directly from their wallets using smart contracts, without a central…

Derivatives are financial contracts whose value is based on an underlying asset—like Bitcoin or Ethereum—used to hedge risk or speculate without owning the…

A digital asset is any item of value or content that exists digitally and can be owned, transferred, and verified—often using cryptography and blockchains.

Digital currency is money that exists electronically and can be stored, transferred, and recorded on digital networks rather than as physical cash.

A distributed ledger is a shared database replicated across many computers, where updates are agreed by consensus rather than a central administrator.

ERC-20 is the standard set of rules that makes Ethereum-based tokens work consistently across wallets, exchanges, and smart contracts.

The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is the runtime environment that executes smart contract code and updates Ethereum’s blockchain state deterministically.

An exit scam is a crypto fraud where a project’s operators abruptly disappear or shut down after collecting user funds, leaving investors unable to recover…

A falling knife is a rapid, steep price drop in an asset that can punish buyers who enter too early before the decline stabilizes.

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is the anxiety that you’ll miss a profitable move, pushing you to buy or sell impulsively based on hype rather than a plan.

Fiat currency is government-issued money that isn’t backed by a commodity like gold and holds value because it is legal tender and widely trusted.

Funding payments are periodic transfers between traders in perpetual futures that keep the contract price close to the spot market price.

Futures are standardized contracts to buy or sell an asset at a set price on a future date, widely used to hedge risk or speculate on price moves.

Gas is a unit that measures the computational work needed to process blockchain transactions and smart contracts, determining fees and transaction priority.

A genesis block is the first block in a blockchain, hard-coded as the chain’s starting point and used to anchor all later blocks.

A governance token is a crypto asset that gives holders voting power to propose and decide changes to a DAO or blockchain protocol.

Gwei is a small unit of Ether used on Ethereum to quote gas prices and calculate transaction fees for sending ETH or running smart contracts.

HODL is a crypto slang term meaning to hold a cryptocurrency long term and avoid selling during short-term volatility.

A hot wallet is a crypto wallet connected to the internet that makes sending, receiving, and trading digital assets fast but less secure than offline storage.

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique blockchain token that proves ownership or authenticity of a specific digital or real-world item.

Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization is the process of issuing blockchain tokens that represent legal rights to off-chain assets like bonds, real estate, or…

Restaking is the reuse of staked ETH (or liquid staking tokens) to secure additional Ethereum-based services via EigenLayer, in exchange for extra rewards and…

Tokenomics is the study of a crypto token’s supply, distribution, utility, and incentives to judge whether its value can grow sustainably over time.

A wallet address is a public string of characters that identifies where cryptocurrency can be sent on a specific blockchain network.