Cryptography glossary
Hashes, signatures and zero-knowledge proofs. Explore the cryptography behind transactions, ownership and verification through plain-English explanations.
Checksum
Extra information used to detect certain accidental changes in encoded data.
Collision resistance
The difficulty of finding two different inputs that produce the same cryptographic hash.
Cryptographic hash
A deterministic digest designed to make reversing it or finding certain matching inputs computationally impractical.
Digital signature
Cryptographic evidence that a message was authorized by the key corresponding to a verifying public key.
ECDSA
Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm: a public-key method for creating and verifying digital signatures.
Encryption
Transforming readable data into a form that requires appropriate key material to recover.
Entropy
A measure of uncertainty that helps describe how unpredictable a cryptographic secret is.
Keccak-256
A Keccak hash function with a 256-bit output, used extensively in Ethereum.
Key derivation function
An algorithm that derives cryptographic key material from input secrets and contextual data.
Merkle proof
Intermediate hashes used to check that an item belongs to a Merkle-root commitment.
Merkle root
The top-level hash that commits to the contents of a Merkle tree.
Merkle tree
A tree of hashes that commits to many data items through one root hash.
Preimage resistance
The difficulty of finding an input that produces a specified cryptographic hash output.
Private key
Secret key material used to create signatures or perform other private-key operations in a public-key system.
Public key
The shareable part of a public-key pair, used to verify signatures or perform certain encryption operations.
Schnorr signature
A digital-signature construction with properties useful for certain multisignature and aggregation protocols.
SHA-256
A cryptographic hash algorithm in the SHA-2 family that produces a 256-bit digest.
Zero-knowledge proof
A cryptographic way to demonstrate a claim without revealing the secret information used to establish it.
ZK-SNARK
A succinct, non-interactive argument of knowledge that can demonstrate a claim with a compact zero-knowledge proof.
ZK-STARK
A zero-knowledge form of a scalable, transparent argument of knowledge, typically using hash-based techniques.
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