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.
ABI
The Application Binary Interface: the rules and interface description used to encode and decode contract interactions.
Account abstraction
An approach that makes blockchain account authorization and operation more programmable.
Address
A blockchain identifier used to receive assets or refer to an account or contract.
Address poisoning
An attack that plants a lookalike address in transaction history to encourage a later transfer to the wrong recipient.
Admin key
A key or authorization role with privileged control over part of a contract or protocol.
Air-gapped wallet
A signing setup disconnected from networks that exchanges transaction data through a separate transfer method.
Allowance
The amount an ERC-20 token owner has authorized a particular spender to transfer.
Alpha
Information someone thinks gives them an early edge in crypto: a lead, insight or tip others haven't spotted.
Ape in
Jumping into a token or NFT quickly, usually before doing much research.
Approval revocation
An onchain action that removes or reduces an existing token-spending permission.
APR
Annual percentage rate: in DeFi yield displays, an annualized rate usually quoted without compounding periodic returns.
APY
Annual percentage yield: an annualized measure that includes the stated effect of compounding.
Arbitrage
Attempting to capture price differences between related assets, markets or trading routes.
Ask
A price at which a participant or trading system is prepared to sell an asset.
Atomic transaction
An operation whose included state changes succeed together or are rolled back together under the execution rules.
Attestation
A validator’s signed vote about the blockchain history it considers valid.
Automated market maker
A trading mechanism that uses an algorithm and available liquidity to quote or determine exchange prices.
Bagholder
Someone still holding a coin or token after its value has dropped badly, often hoping it will recover.
Base fee
Ethereum’s protocol-set execution fee per gas unit, which adjusts with block demand and is burned.
Bech32
An address encoding with error detection, introduced for native SegWit Bitcoin outputs.
Bid
A price at which a participant or trading system is prepared to buy an asset.
Bid-ask spread
The gap between the best available buying and selling prices in a market.
Bitcoin
A peer-to-peer monetary network whose native asset is bitcoin, usually written as BTC.
Bitcoin Script
Bitcoin’s stack-based programming language for defining the conditions needed to spend transaction outputs.
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