Two sources make up this reward: newly issued bitcoin and fees from the block's transactions. When people casually say 'the reward halves,' they usually mean the subsidy. Fees can still vary from block to block, so the miner's total permitted reward isn't a fixed number.
IN THE WILD
A miner's coinbase transaction claims the allowed subsidy and the fees from the payments included in that block.
The interval between successive blocks, or a protocol's intended interval when quoted as a network statistic.
A network's target or slot interval is different from a guarantee that every block arrives exactly on schedule. Bitcoin block arrivals vary, and Ethereum can have missed slots. Block time also differs from finality and application throughput, so a shorter interval alone does not describe the whole user experience.
IN THE WILD
"That gap was longer than one Ethereumslot." One slot passed without producing a block.
Weight counts different parts of a transaction differently, which is why a byte count alone doesn't tell you its fee-relevant size. Wallets commonly express size in virtual bytes derived from weight and quote fees in sats per virtual byte. That helps compare transactions with different input and witness structures.
IN THE WILD
Your wallet quotes 8 sats per virtual byte. Its estimate uses the transaction's weight-based size, not simply the raw file's byte count.
A borrow rate is the cost of keeping debt open, often displayed as an annualized figure. Variable rates can change with the pool's conditions, including utilization, so the number you saw at entry isn't necessarily the cost for the whole loan. Growing interest also affects your debt balance and collateral position.
IN THE WILD
You check a loan after a busy week and find both a higher variable borrow rate and a larger outstanding debt balance.
A mechanism for moving assets, asset representations or messages between blockchain environments.
A bridge connects environments that do not otherwise share one execution system. Some designs lock an asset on the source chain and create a representation elsewhere; others use different mechanisms. The verification and custody model matter because the destination token can depend on the bridge as well as its own chain.
IN THE WILD
"The destination wallet received a bridged representation; it isn't the original token contract on the source network."
An ERC-4337 participant that packages UserOperations into transactions sent through an EntryPoint contract.
A bundler connects smart-account requests to the chain by assembling operations and submitting a regular transaction. It's a service role, rather than automatically an Ethereumvalidator. Availability, validation rules and fee arrangements affect which operations it accepts; the underlying chain still has to include the resulting transaction.
IN THE WILD
A wallet sends your UserOperation to a bundler, which submits it with other operations in a transaction calling the EntryPoint.
Machine-oriented instructions that a virtual machine executes, often produced by compiling source code.
Developers usually write readable source code, while the chain runs compiled bytecode. Looking at a project's source repository is therefore only part of checking a contract: you also want to know that the source and compiler settings match the code actually deployed at the address you're using.
IN THE WILD
“The code is public” is useful, but you still check the explorer to see whether that source matches this deployed contract.
Calldata tells a contract what you're asking it to do and with which arguments. A wallet may turn a long hexadecimal string into a readable function name and values using the contract's ABI. That decoding is helpful, but you still need the correct contract and interface to understand the request.
IN THE WILD
A swap request includes calldata describing the swap function, input amount and minimum amount you agree to receive.
A trading platform run by an organization that manages accounts, orders and exchange services.
A CEX usually provides an account interface for deposits, trading and withdrawals. Many also custody deposited assets, so trading balances sit within the operator's system rather than giving each customer direct signing control. The operator's security, solvency and withdrawal policies become part of the user's access to those funds.
IN THE WILD
You trade BTC inside an exchange account; the balance updates in the platform's system while the operator handles custody.
A change to the accepted chain that replaces previously accepted blocks with another valid branch.
A reorg can make a transaction lose confirmations after you already saw it in a block. It may become pending again, or a conflicting transaction may take its place. This is one reason apps distinguish 'included' from more confidently settled, especially when only a few blocks have followed.
IN THE WILD
'The explorer said confirmed a minute ago.' A short reorg replaced that block, and the payment is waiting for inclusion again.
The daily pick rotates automatically. Our initial collection was published on October 9, 2026. New words join on their publication date. Every concept includes a reference.