Crypto & Finance Glossary

Government-issued money that isn't backed by a physical commodity like gold.

A technical analysis tool that uses horizontal lines at key percentages (23.

The guarantee that a blockchain transaction can't be reversed or altered once confirmed.

A sudden, severe price drop that happens within minutes or even seconds, often caused by cascading liquidations or a large sell order on thin order books.

An uncollateralized loan that must be borrowed and repaid within a single blockchain transaction.

An exploit that uses flash loans to borrow massive amounts without collateral, manipulate markets or protocol mechanics within a single transaction, profit from the manipulation, repay the loan, and keep the profit.

A research organization and infrastructure provider that tries to make MEV extraction more fair and transparent.

The hypothetical moment when Ethereum's market cap surpasses Bitcoin's.

The hypothetical moment when Ethereum's market cap surpasses Bitcoin's.

The lowest price at which an NFT in a collection is listed for sale.

The anxiety that others are profiting from an opportunity you're missing.

A mechanism on Layer 2 rollups that allows users to submit transactions directly to the L1 chain if the L2 sequencer is censoring them.

A change to a blockchain's protocol that creates a new version.

A mathematical approach to proving that smart contract code behaves exactly as intended for all possible inputs.

A mechanism used by optimistic rollups to verify transactions.

The challenge period in optimistic rollups during which anyone can submit a fraud proof if they detect an invalid state transition.

A stablecoin protocol that originally used a fractional reserve model, partially backed by collateral and partially by its algorithm.

Placing a transaction ahead of someone else's known pending trade to profit from the price impact.

Negative information spread to scare people into selling.

A project's theoretical market cap if all tokens were in circulation.

Evaluating an asset based on its underlying value rather than price patterns.

A periodic payment between long and short traders in perpetual futures markets that keeps the contract price close to spot price.

Contracts to buy or sell an asset at a specific price on a future date.

The fee paid to process transactions on Ethereum and similar blockchains.

The maximum amount of gas you're willing to spend on a transaction.

Writing smart contracts that use as little computational resources as possible to save users money on transaction fees.

When a third party pays the transaction fees on behalf of a user.

The native token of a blockchain used to pay transaction fees.

When many people try to execute transactions at the same time, bidding up gas fees to get their transaction included first.

A mechanism where token holders vote on how protocol incentives (emissions) are distributed across different pools.

The total value of goods and services produced in a country over a period, usually a quarter or year.

The very first block in a blockchain, also called Block 0.

A platform that funds open-source projects through quadratic funding, where small donations from many people get amplified by a matching pool.

Good Morning.

A decentralized perpetual futures exchange that runs on Arbitrum and Avalanche.

A bullish technical pattern where the 50-day moving average crosses above the 200-day moving average.

The process of making decisions about a protocol's development and direction.

When someone acquires enough governance tokens to pass malicious proposals that benefit them at the expense of the protocol.

A token that gives holders voting rights in a protocol's decision-making.

The difference between the market price of Grayscale trust shares and the net asset value of the crypto they hold.

A small unit of ETH used to measure gas prices.

When Bitcoin's block reward gets cut in half, happening roughly every four years.

A permanent, backward-incompatible change to a blockchain's rules that creates a split.

A physical device that stores cryptocurrency private keys offline.

A Layer 1 blockchain that uses sharding and effective proof-of-stake for fast, cheap transactions.

The total computational power securing a proof-of-work blockchain.

A smart contract that requires the recipient to acknowledge receiving payment within a timeframe by generating a cryptographic proof, or the payment returns to the sender.

Taking a position that offsets potential losses in another investment.

Crypto slang for holding an investment long-term rather than trading.

A scam token designed so you can buy it but can't sell it.