Crypto & Finance Glossary
Your guide to understanding cryptocurrency and finance terminology. From Bitcoin basics to advanced DeFi concepts.
Showing 1–42 of 42 terms starting with "P"
P
P/E Ratio (Price-to-Earnings)
traditional-financeA valuation metric comparing a company's stock price to its earnings per share.
PancakeSwap
defiThe largest DEX on BNB Chain, also running on Ethereum and other chains.
Paper Hands
tradingSomeone who sells at the first sign of price decline.
Paper Trading
tradingPracticing trading strategies with fake money to learn without risking real capital.
Parallel Execution
blockchainProcessing multiple transactions simultaneously instead of one at a time.
Passkey Wallet
cryptocurrencyA crypto wallet that uses device biometrics (Face ID, fingerprint) or hardware security keys for authentication instead of seed phrases.
Paymaster
blockchainA smart contract in the ERC-4337 account abstraction system that sponsors gas fees on behalf of users.
PBS
blockchainProposer-Builder Separation.
Peer-to-Peer (P2P)
cryptocurrencyTrading or transacting directly with another person without an intermediary.
Peg
cryptocurrencyA fixed exchange rate between two assets.
Pendle
defiA DeFi protocol that lets you trade future yield.
Permissionless
blockchainA system that anyone can use or participate in without needing approval from a central authority.
Perpetual Swap
tradingA derivative contract similar to futures but with no expiration date.
Phishing
cryptocurrencyA social engineering attack where scammers create fake websites, emails, or messages that look legitimate to steal your credentials or trick you into signing malicious transactions.
Plasma
blockchainAn early Ethereum scaling solution that creates child chains anchored to the main chain.
Points Meta
cryptocurrencyA trend where protocols reward users with points instead of tokens, with the implied promise that points will convert to tokens in a future airdrop.
Points System
defiA mechanism where protocols award non-transferable points to users for specific actions like providing liquidity, trading, or bridging.
Polkadot
blockchainA multi-chain network that connects different blockchains (called parachains) through a central relay chain.
Polymarket
defiA decentralized prediction market where you can bet real money on the outcome of real-world events like elections, sports, and crypto prices.
Portfolio
traditional-financeYour collection of investments across different assets.
Position Sizing
tradingDetermining how much of your portfolio to allocate to a single trade based on your risk tolerance and the trade's risk/reward profile.
Precompile
blockchainSpecial smart contracts built directly into a blockchain's core code rather than deployed as regular contracts.
Preconfirmation
blockchainA guarantee from a block proposer that a transaction will be included in a future block before it's actually confirmed.
Prediction Market
defiA market where people trade contracts based on the outcome of future events.
Price Impact
tradingHow much your trade moves the market price of an asset.
Priority Fee
blockchainAn optional tip paid directly to validators on top of Ethereum's base fee to incentivize faster transaction inclusion.
Privacy Coin
cryptocurrencyA cryptocurrency designed to hide transaction details like sender, receiver, and amount.
Private Key
cryptocurrencyA secret code that gives you control over your cryptocurrency.
Private Sale
cryptocurrencyAn early funding round where tokens are sold to select investors (usually VCs and angels) at a discount before the public launch.
Probably Nothing
cryptocurrencyAn ironic phrase used to draw attention to something that's actually very significant.
Proof of Reserves
cryptocurrencyA cryptographic method for exchanges to prove they hold enough assets to cover all customer deposits.
Proof of Stake (PoS)
blockchainA consensus mechanism where validators stake tokens as collateral to secure the network.
Proof of Work (PoW)
blockchainA consensus mechanism where miners solve computational puzzles to create blocks and earn rewards.
Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS)
blockchainAn Ethereum design change that separates the roles of building blocks (choosing which transactions to include) and proposing them to the network.
Proto-Danksharding
blockchainAn Ethereum upgrade (EIP-4844) that introduced blob transactions as a stepping stone toward full danksharding.
Protocol
blockchainA set of rules governing how a network or application operates.
Protocol-Owned Liquidity
defiLiquidity that a protocol owns directly instead of renting it through yield farming incentives.
Proxy Contract
blockchainA smart contract pattern that separates the contract's logic from its storage, allowing the logic to be upgraded while keeping the same address and data.
Pseudonymous
cryptocurrencyOperating under a persistent fake identity rather than being fully anonymous or using your real name.
Public Key
cryptocurrencyA cryptographic key you can share publicly, derived from your private key.
Pump
tradingA rapid price increase, often coordinated by groups to artificially inflate value before dumping on latecomers.
PvP (Player vs Player)
tradingCrypto slang describing markets where one trader's gain is another's loss, especially in meme coins and low-cap tokens.
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