The crypto glossary A–Z
The words from the charts, the wallet pop-ups and the group chat. Get the meaning, see an example and follow the source.
Collateral
Assets pledged to support a loan or leveraged position.
Collision resistance
The difficulty of finding two different inputs that produce the same cryptographic hash.
Composability
The ability to combine existing programs or protocols as parts of a larger application.
Concentrated liquidity
An AMM design that lets liquidity providers allocate assets within chosen price ranges.
Confirmation
Inclusion of a transaction in a block, with later blocks adding confidence that it will remain accepted.
Consensus
Agreement about which valid blockchain history and state the network accepts.
Consensus rules
The protocol rules that determine whether blockchain transactions and blocks are valid.
Constant product
An AMM model that relates two asset reserves through the formula x × y = k.
Contract account
An Ethereum account associated with deployed code that runs when it is called.
Contract deployment
The onchain creation of a contract account with executable code.
Contract upgrade
A change to a contract system’s behavior through a mechanism designed to allow it.
Contract verification
The process of matching published source code and compiler settings to a deployed contract’s bytecode.
Copium
A joking label for excuses or comforting stories that make a bad crypto outcome feel less bad.
Cryptographic hash
A deterministic digest designed to make reversing it or finding certain matching inputs computationally impractical.
Custody
Practical control over the keys or other mechanisms that authorize movement of assets.
DAO
A decentralized autonomous organization: a group coordinating decisions and resources through defined rules, often using blockchain contracts.
Dapp
A decentralized application with important backend logic or state running on a decentralized network.
Data availability
The ability to obtain the data needed to verify or reconstruct a blockchain system's state.
Decentralized exchange
An exchange whose trading execution or settlement relies on blockchain protocols.
DeFi
Decentralized finance: financial applications that use blockchain protocols and smart contracts.
Degen
A crypto risk-taker who dives into speculative trades, often with more enthusiasm than research.
Delegatecall
An EVM call that runs another contract’s code using the calling contract’s storage and context.
Depeg
A significant move away from an asset's intended reference price, such as a stablecoin's dollar target.
Derivation path
A sequence of indexes that identifies a key within a hierarchical wallet's key tree.
Page 3 of 12
Looking for an earlier definition? Explore the original collection
Concept entries explain ideas. Our separate asset registry identifies coins, tokens and networks by source metadata. Sources & standards