Crypto & Finance Glossary

Someone stuck holding a cryptocurrency that's dropped significantly in value.

A DEX and automated portfolio manager that allows liquidity pools with multiple tokens in custom ratios, not just the standard 50/50 split.

Coinbase's Layer 2 blockchain built on the OP Stack (Optimism's technology).

The minimum gas price required for a transaction to be included in an Ethereum block.

An approval term meaning authentic, bold, or worthy of respect.

A rollup that uses Ethereum's own validators (the L1 proposers) for transaction ordering instead of running a centralized sequencer.

One hundredth of a percentage point (0.

The proof-of-stake coordination layer of Ethereum, launched in December 2020.

A prolonged period where prices fall 20% or more from recent highs.

The token standard on BNB Chain, equivalent to Ethereum's ERC-20.

The highest price a buyer is willing to pay for an asset right now.

The difference between the highest price a buyer will pay (bid) and the lowest price a seller will accept (ask).

The first cryptocurrency, created in 2009 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto.

Bitcoin's market cap as a percentage of the total crypto market.

A corporate strategy of using company treasury funds and debt to buy Bitcoin, popularized by MicroStrategy's Michael Saylor.

An Ethereum Layer 2 that offers native yield on ETH and stablecoins deposited on the chain.

A separate fee market for blob data introduced by EIP-4844 that operates independently from Ethereum's regular gas fee market.

Data inscribed in Ethereum blob space (introduced by EIP-4844) rather than in regular calldata.

Temporary data storage introduced by Ethereum's EIP-4844 (proto-danksharding).

A new transaction type introduced with Ethereum's EIP-4844 upgrade that lets Layer 2s post data to Ethereum much more cheaply.

A bundle of transactions that gets permanently added to the blockchain.

A website that lets you search and view everything happening on a blockchain, like transactions, wallet balances, and smart contracts.

The cryptocurrency given to miners or validators for successfully adding a new block to the blockchain.

The average time it takes to produce a new block on a blockchain.

A distributed database where transactions are grouped into blocks and linked together cryptographically.

A well-established, financially sound company or crypto project with a proven track record.

A technical analysis tool that plots two standard deviation bands above and below a moving average.

A mathematical formula that automatically sets token prices based on supply.

Debt securities where you lend money to a government or corporation in exchange for regular interest payments and your principal back at maturity.

A reward offered by crypto projects for completing specific tasks like finding bugs, writing code, or creating content.

When price moves above a resistance level or below a support level with strong volume.

Paying token holders to vote in a specific way on governance proposals or emissions.

A protocol that lets you move tokens between different blockchains.

DeFi protocols built on or around Bitcoin, enabling lending, borrowing, and yield on BTC without converting to other tokens.

A reward program where protocols pay security researchers for finding and responsibly disclosing vulnerabilities.

A sustained period of rising prices and positive market sentiment.

In ERC-4337 account abstraction, a bundler collects UserOperations from a mempool and submits them to the blockchain in a single transaction.

Permanently removing tokens from circulation by sending them to an unusable wallet address.

When a protocol uses its revenue to buy its own token from the open market and then burns it, permanently reducing supply.

The compiled, machine-readable version of a smart contract that runs on the blockchain's virtual machine.

A system's ability to keep functioning correctly even when some participants are acting maliciously or failing.