Glossary

List of terms and definitions to help you get started in Web3.

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51% attack

A condition in which more than half the computing power of a cryptocurrency network is controlled by a single malicious miner or group of miners. If he controls 51% of the network that makes him the authority on the network, giving him the power to spend the same coins multiple times, issue transactions that conflict with someone else’s or stop someone else’s transaction from being confirmed

A

Abstract

An abstract is defined as a summary of a larger written written document. Abstracts are common in the beginning cryptocurrency technical documents to briefly describe the entire document.

Account

An account is access to a computer, website or software that allows users to use the tools located within. Access is usually gained through a username and password but with cryptocurrencies, it is often done with what is known as a private key.

Addresses (Cryptocurrency addresses)

Used to receive and send transactions on the network. An address is a string of alphanumeric characters, but can also be represented as a scannable QR code.

Agreement ledgers

Distributed ledgers used by two or more parties to negotiate and reach agreement.

Airdrop

An airdrop is the process of freely distributing a new cryptocurrency to people hopefully creating more demand. When a new cryptocurrency is created, it needs to gain users. One way of doing this through an airdrop. The group issuing the airdrop hopes new users will begin researching and sharing the coin creating more demand. To start an airdrop, the crypto group will often find people who already have another cryptocurrency and identify them as being equipped with wallets that can accept these airdropped coins. Their other option is to have people voluntarily complete a form where they will then receive their coins. NOTE: Beware of any website that asks for your private keys. DO NOT share your private keys with anyone unless you trust them with your money!

Algorithm

An algorithm is a series of steps that will solve a problem. In cryptocurrencies, algorithms are used to hide and reveal information.

Alphanumeric

Alphanumeric is something made up of both letters and numbers. Alpha- comes from the word “alphabet” and -numeric comes from the word “numerical” meaning relating to numbers.

Altcoin

An abbreviation of “Bitcoin alternative”. Currently, the majority of altcoins are forks of Bitcoin with usually minor changes to the proof of work (POW) algorithm of the Bitcoin blockchain. The most prominent altcoin is Litecoin. Litecoin introduces changes to the original Bitcoin protocol such as decreased block generation time, increased maximum number of coins and different hashing algorithm

Anonymous

Anonymous is something made or done by an unknown person or group. Compare this definition with “pseudonymous” which means acting or done under a false name.

Anti-Money Laundering (AML)

Anti-Money Laundering or AML is a set of laws designed to prevent the conversion of illegally earned money into what appears to be legally earned money. Money laundering is the process of making illegally earned money appear to be legally earned.

Application-Specific Integrated Circuit

Application-Specific Integrated Circuit is commonly known as ASIC. “Integrated circuit” is just a computer chip. “Application-specific” means it was built for one specific purpose or computer application. An ASIC is used in cryptocurrencies to help record transactions on the digital record or blockchain. This process is known as mining.

Arbitrage

Arbitrage is the business of making money by buying something for a low price in one market and selling it in another for a profit. Arbitrage can be done with virtually any product including cryptocurrencies.

ASIC

An acronym for “Application Specific Integrated Circuit”. ASICs are silicon chips specifically designed to do a single task. In the case of bitcoin, they are designed to process SHA-256 hashing problems to mine new bitcoins.

ASIC Miner

ASIC is short for “Application-Specific Integrated Circuit”. And that’s a computer chip or “integrated circuit” which was built for the single purpose of mining cryptocurrencies. Mining is the process of recording on a digital record, known as the blockchain, money being received and spent. All of this is requires computer power and is done in return for money. Because an ASIC is built specifically for mining, it does the job faster than other computers and can earn more digital money.

ATH

ATH is short for All Time High. ATH is the highest price an investment has ever reached in its history. Whenever a cryptocurrency price passes its ATH, things can get crazy. While many leading investors thought bitcoin would hit an ATH of $10,000 by the end of 2018, it actually did so on December 6th, 2017. The price continued to rocket upward hitting $18,000 on the 8th. Time will tell if bitcoin can pass that and hit an even higher cost.

Atomic Swap

Atomic Swap is technology that allows two different people to exchange different cryptocurrencies directly. Right now, if you wanted to exchange bitcoin for ethereum, with another, you couldn’t. However, any coin using Atomic Swap can be exchanged for any other coin also using Atomic Swap.

Attestation Ledgers

Distributed ledgers that provide a durable record of agreements, commitments or statements, providing evidence (attestation) that these agreements, commitments or statements were made.

B

Bag Holder

A bag holder is an investor who continues to hold onto his asset even though the price is dropping towards $0, has little to no future potential and will probably become worthless.

Bear Market

A bear market is a decreasing set of prices for various types of assets. You can think of a bear, swinging his big paw downard on the investment, crushing prices. An investor who is a bear wants to profit from the movement of dropping prices.

Bear Trap

A bear trap is an investor who wants to profit from the movement of dropping prices. A bear trap is a false impression that the prices are dropping causing a bearish investor to try to take advantage of that. The price then reverses going back up causing the him to lose money.

Brute Force Attack (BFA)

Brute Force Attack is a method of obtaining secret, unreadable information by guessing at every single possible key that will unlock the security system.

Byzantine Generals' Problem (BGP)

Byzantine Generals’ Problem describes a situation where spread out units need to coordinate their behavior or action but cannot trust each other to get organized.

Bit

A bit is the smallest unit of digital, computerized information represented as either a 0 or 1. But bit also refers to a very small amount of bitcoin, specifically, one-millionth of a bitcoin or 0.00000100 bitcoin.

Bitcoin

A well known cryptocurrency, based on the proof-of-work blockchain.

Bitcoin ATM

A cash point where people can trade fiat currency and bitcoins

Bitpay

Bitpay is an online bitcoin payment service provider allowing online stores to accept bitcoin as payment.

Block

A block is simply a recording of information. Blockchain is revolutionary technology for creating permanent, secure digital recordings. It can record any information, but it started with recording transactions. If you imagine the blockchain as a book of records, then each page in that book is what is known as a “block”. Blocks are attached to each other making what is known as the blockchain.

Block ciphers

A method of encrypting text (to produce ciphertext) in which a cryptographic key and algorithm are applied to a block of data at once as a group rather than to one bit at a time.

Block explorer

A block explorer is a search engine that allows users to easily look up, confirm, and validate transactions that have taken place on a Blockchain. Block explorers can serve as blockchain analysis and provide information such as total network hash rate, coin supply, transaction growth, etc.

Block height

Block height is the number of blocks in the chain between the one you are looking at and the very first block in the blolckchain. Blockchain is revolutionary technology for creating permanent, secure digital recordings. It can record any information, but it started with recording transactions. Imagine the blockchain as a book of records where each page in that book is what is known as a “block”. Blocks are attached to each other making what is known as the blockchain. The first block in a blockchain is known as the genesis block.

Block reward

An amount of crypto-currency a miner receives for processing transactions in a given block. Because creating (or “mining”) blocks is so crucial to the security of the Bitcoin network and yet so hard, the Bitcoin protocol includes a mechanism to encourage people to mine: every time a block is added, the miner who found the block is given 12,5 BTC(this number will change at the next halving in 2020) as a block reward

Blockchain

Blockchain is technology for creating permanent, secure digital recordings that don’t rely on any single person or group. Blockchains can record any information, though the first example was created to record bitcoin transactions.

Blockchain Wallet

A blockchain wallet is a digital wallet that allows users to store and manage their Bitcoin, Ether, and other cryptocurrencies. A blockchain wallet allows transfers in cryptocurrencies and the ability to convert them back into a user's local currency. By installing, managing, and funding a blockchain wallet you will be able to deploy and manage transactions on the Hyperverse.

Bot

Bot is short for “robot”. A bot is a computer program that automates the investing of an asset according to criteria set by the investor.

Breaking

Breaking is the process of finding a weakness in the system that made information unreadable and secret so the data becomes easier to expose. There are different levels of breaking, where a full break allows you immediate access to the hidden information, partial breaks don’t give you immediate access, instead they make it quicker and easier for you to unlock the information.

Brute Force Attack

Brute Force Attack is a method of obtaining secret, unreadable information by guessing at every single possible key that will unlock the security system.

BTC

Bitcoin was one of the first digital cash, and definitely the one that started the cryptocurrency movement. It was created in 2009 by an unknown person or group who went by the name, Satoshi Nakamoto.

Bubble

A bubble is a large increase in prices for the whole economy or a part of the economy, followed by a massive, rapid drop.

Bull

A bull market is an increasing set of prices for various types of assets. You can think of a bull, swinging his big horned head upwards rocketing prices upwards. An investor who is a bull wants to profit from the movement of increasing prices.

Bull Trap

A bull trap is an investor who wants to profit from the movement of increasing prices. A bull trap is a false impression that the prices are increasing causing a bullish investor to try to take advantage of that. The price then reverses, going back down causing the him to lose money.

C

Capital

Capital is cash and anything else of value one owns including software, cars, and buildings that contributes to building wealth.

Cash

Cash is physical money available to someone or safely stored in an available resource like a bank or represented by a check.

Central ledger

A ledger maintained by a central agency.

Central Processing Unit

Central Processing Unit, processor or CPU is defined as the brains of the computer. It makes the different parts of a computer work together.

Centralized

Centralized describes a system or organization that is controlled by one person or group. Companies are centralized organizations.

Chain linking

Chain linking is the process of connecting two blockchains with each other, thus allowing transactions between the chains to take place. This will allow blockchains like Bitcoin to communicate with other sidechains, allowing the exchange of assets between them

Chain Split

A chain split is a break in the digital recordings, known as blockchain, created by computers running cryptocurrency technology. With cryptocurrencies, only one recording (block) should be made at a time. However, if the network of users managing cryptocurrency technology disagree on how the blocks should be made, they may split off, each forming their own chain of recordings. This happened with Ethereum in 2016 and now we have Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.

Cipher

A cipher is any series of steps that will make information unreadable so it can be kept secret and can be used to make the information readable again. Ciphers including those used in cryptocurrencies also use a secret key made up of letters and numbers that must be used to unlock the cipher.

Ciphertext

Ciphertext is text that has been made unreadable so the information it contains can be kept secret.

Circulating Supply

Circulating supply is the number of coins currently available and in the hands of people. Coins that are locked, reserved or not able to be sold and traded are not included in the circulating supply.

Client

A software program a user executes on a desktop, laptop or a mobile device to launch an application

Cloud Mining

Classical cryptocurrency mining requires huge investments in hardware and electricity. Cloud mining companies aim to make mining accessible to everybody. People just can log in to a website and invest money in the company which already has mining datacenters. The money is managed by the company and it is invested in mining equipment. Investors get a share of the revenue. The disadvantage for the user is that cloud mining has low returns compared to traditional mining.

Code

A code is a method of making information unreadable so it can be kept secret and can be used to make the information readable again. By replacing the meaning of the information with something meaningless, the message becomes unreadable. Codes use a secret key made up of letters and numbers that must be used to unlock the code.

Coin

A coin is a unit of digital value. When describing cryptocurrencies, they are built using the bitcoin technology and have no other value unlike tokens which have the potential of software being built with them.

Coinbase.com

Coinbase is a cryptocurrency exchange that allows people to trade regular money like US dollars for bitcoin, litecoin, ethereum. Coinbase also has software that lets businesses accept cryptocurencies as payment.

Cold Storage

Cold storage describes digital data that has been stored with the purpose of keeping it very safe and secure. There are many ways to do this but the common techniques include: putting it in an unplugged computer or specially designed and secure USB known as a “hardware wallet”, or by storing the access codes on a piece of paper. As a side effect of cold storage, the data is rarely ever accessed.

Confirmation

Means that the blockchain transaction has been verified by the network. This happens through a process known as mining, in a proof-of-work system (e.g. Bitcoin). Once a transaction is confirmed, it cannot be reversed or double spent. The more confirmations a transaction has, the harder it becomes to perform a double spend attack.

Consensus

Consensus is defined as agreement from the majority of people about something.

Consortium blockchains

A consortium blockchain is a blockchain where the consensus process is controlled by a pre-selected set of nodes; for example, one might imagine a consortium of 15 financial institutions, each of which operates a node and of which ten must sign every block for the block to be valid. The right to read the blockchain may be public or restricted to the participants. There are also hybrid routes such as the root hashes of the blocks being public together with an API that allows members of the public to make a limited number of queries and get back cryptographic proofs of some parts of the blockchain state. These blockchains may be considered “partially decentralized”

Contract

A contract is defined as a spoken or written promise between two or more people for some benefit.

Core Wallet

A core wallet contains the entire blockchain as opposed to a piece of it and allows users to not only receive, store and send digital money but also program on or with it. Bitcoin transactions are kept on a digital record, known as the blockchain, and the blockchain is maintained by thousands of people around the world. This digital record is growing larger every day and in 2016, it exceeded 100 gigabytes. A wallet is software that interacts with the network of recordings (blockchain) and lets users receive, store, and send their digital money.

Central Processing Unit (CPU)

Central Processing Unit, processor or CPU is defined as the brains of the computer. It makes the different parts of a computer work together.

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is a way of raising money by getting small amounts of money from many people. By getting $20 from 1,000 people, a company can quickly and easily raise $20,000.

Crypto

Crypto is short for cryptography or cryptocurrency. Crypto- comes from the Greek word meaning “hidden”.

Cryptoanalysis

Cryptoanalysis is the study of making unreadable, secret information readable again especially when you are not supposed have access to it.

Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency is an electronic money created with technology controlling its creation and protecting transactions, while hiding the identities of its users.

Cryptographic Hash Function

The cryptographic hash function is a mathematical algorithm that takes a particular input which can be any kind of digital data be it a password or jpeg file and produces a single fixed length output. Some examples of different hash function algorithms are MD5, MD4 or SHA256. The last one is used in the Bitcoin protocol. Main properties: (1) easy to compute hash value for any given message (2) infeasible to generate a message from its hash except by trying all possible input combinations(brute force attack) (3) infeasible to modify a message without changing the hash (4) infeasible to find two different messages with the same hash (5) deterministic so the same message always results in the same hash. Cryptographic hash functions have many information security applications, notably in digital signatures, message authentication codes (MACs), and other forms of authentication. They can also be used as ordinary hash functions, to index data in hash tables, for fingerprinting, to detect duplicate data or uniquely identify files, and as checksums to detect accidental data corruption

Cryptography

Cryptography is the study of making information unreadable so it can be kept secret. There are many types of cryptography including hiding words in images, using micro dots and computer programs. With cryptocurrencies, we hide money and the people who sent them in a scrambled, unreadable form. The information can be unlocked and made readable using a code also known as a key. The key is made up of a string of letters and numbers.

Cryptojacking

Cryptojacking is the secret use of your computer to mine cryptocurrency for someone else.

Cryptology

Cryptology is the study of making information unreadable and readable again so information can be sent in secret.

Currency

Currency is a system and its units for exchanging value. The value of each unit is agreed to be worth something. Currency is used to pay for things and services as well as debts. The history of the word currency comes from current, meaning in use now. Currency is usually in use now because the government or banks produced it and we all agree it has value.

D

Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG)

A directed acyclic graph or DAG is a structure that is built out in one single direction and in such a way that it never repeats. Here a “graph” is simply a structure of units. “Directed” describes the connection between each unit in the structure, and that they all flow the same way. And “acyclic” means describing something that is not circular or repeating.

Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations also DAO describe leaderless organization supported by a network of computers. To be decentralized, it must have no central location because it is running on a network of computers. And because there is no single leader and has its own rules to follow, it is autonomous, or self-governing.

DDoS

Distributed Denial-of-Service or DDoS is a computerized attack on a website or other online service that causes the service to slow down or shut down, stopping real users from taking advantage of the service. A DDoS is caused by one computer gaining control of many other computers, unknown to the owners, and directing the computers towards an online service. Because there are many thousands of computers trying to connect with one online service, it becomes overwhelmed and cannot provide services to its real customers.

Decentralized

Decentralized is a system or organization that has no single person or executive group controling the system. Compare this definition with “distributed” which means, a computer system or organization that has entire copies of it being run and maintained simultaneously on multiple computers.

Decentralized Application (dApp)

Decentralized application or DApp is a software application that has its technology running publicly on a network of computers. In other words, the technology is being maintained by many individuals instead of by one organization. That network gives the technology security. A hacker cannot incorrectly alter the application’s data unless they were able to get access into nearly all of the network’s computers and adjust it there.

Decryption

Decryption is the process of making secret information that was unreadable into a readable format for you or computers.

Difficulty

In Proof-of-Work mining, is how hard it is to verify blocks in a blockchain network. In the Bitcoin network, the difficulty of mining adjusts verifying blocks every 2016 blocks. This is to keep block verification time at ten minutes.

Digital

Digital describes electronic technology like computers. Digital technology works by using 1s and 0s. 1 representing positive or on and 0 representing negative or off.

Digital commodity

A scarce, electronically transferrable, intangible, with a market value.

Digital identity

An online or networked identity adopted or claimed in cyberspace by an individual, organization, or electronic device.

Digital Signature

Private keys are used for signing transactions. Each time a transaction is sent over the blockchain it gets signed by the user’s private key. The signed transaction is broadcasted over the network together with the corresponding public key. Each miner is able to verify the signature by verifying the signature with the public key.

Directed Acyclic Graph

A directed acyclic graph or DAG is a structure that is built out in one single direction and in such a way that it never repeats. Here a “graph” is simply a structure of units. “Directed” describes the connection between each unit in the structure, and that they all flow the same way. And “acyclic” means describing something that is not circular or repeating.

Distributed

Distributed describes a computer system or organization that has entire copies of it being run and maintained simultaneously on multiple computers. Compare this definition with “decentralized” which means, no single person or executive group controls the systems.

Distributed Denial-of-Service Attacks

Distributed Denial-of-Service or DDoS is a computerized attack on a website or other online service that causes the service to slow down or shut down, stopping real users from taking advantage of the service. A DDoS is caused by one computer gaining control of many other computers, unknown to the owners, and directing the computers towards an online service. Because there are many thousands of computers trying to connect with one online service, it becomes overwhelmed and cannot provide services to its real customers.

Distributed Ledger (DLT)

Distributed ledger is a digital record of money being received and spent maintained simultaneously by a network of computers. Because the record is shared by many computers in many locations, it makes changing or altering that record incorrectly very difficult and so the technology becomes very safe. Another word for distributed ledge is, blockchain.

Double Spending

Double spending is the action of spending digital money twice. It is meant to cheat the first person out of their money before they’ve received it.

Dust Transactions

Dust transactions describes a purchase or sale using a tiny amount of cryptocurrency.

DYOR

DYOR is short for Do Your Own Research. There are many people who urge others to buy a cryptocurrency so the price will rise and they can sell it for a profit. DYOR is advice for people to study the website, reddit, forums, and other documentation on a cryptocurrency before investing.

E

Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA)

Enterprise Ethereum Alliance also EEA are a group of organizations all working together to learn better ways to grow and build the cryptocurrency known as ethereum.

Electrum Wallet

The electrum wallet is a secure and free wallet that allows people to store bitcoin more quickly and easily. Bitcoin transactions are kept on a digital record, known as the blockchain, and is maintained by thousands of people around the world. This digital record is growing larger every day and in 2016, it exceeded 100 gigabytes. A wallet is software that interacts with the network of recordings (blockchain) and lets users receive, store, and send their digital money. The benefit of an electrum wallet is that it doesn’t have to download and maintain the entire massive blockchain file.

Emission

Emission, also known as Emission Curve, Emission Rate, and Emission Schedule is the speed at which new cryptocurrency coins are created and released.

Encryption

Encryption is the process of locking information in an unreadable form so it can be kept secret. Encryption has existed for thousands of years. With the use of computers, encryption has become much more difficult to break without the code.

Escrow

Escrow is a part of the transaction process where the buyer and seller store money or other valuables with a third-party to minimize risk. The escrow service holds onto the valuables and won’t release it until the agreement has been met.

Ethereum (ETH)

Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency. Ethereum is built with publicly available software that developers can use to build their own cryptocurrency and software. Some cryptocurrencies built with it include: OMG, Qtum, EOS, and BAT. Some of the apps built from it include games, social networks, and marketplaces.

Ether

The native token of the Ethereum blockchain which is used to pay for transaction fees, miner rewards and other services on the network.

Ethereum Classic

A split from an existing cryptocurrency, Ethereum after a hard fork. To learn more about this, click here.

EVM code

The programming language in which accounts on the Ethereum blockchain can contain code. The EVM code associated with an account is executed every time a message is sent to that account, and has the ability to read/write storage and itself send messages.

Exchange

An exchange is a place where something of value can be traded. One of the purposes of an exchange is to ensure fair trades are conducted. Traditionally, stocks were a common item traded on exchanges. Now with exchanges for cryptocurrencies, many new exchanges are being built in countries around the world.

F

Faucet

A faucet is a website or application that provides small, free amounts of new cryptocurrencies to help increase awareness.

Fiat

Fiat is an official command or declaration from someone in power. See fiat currency.

Fiat Currency

Fiat currency is money that has been declared to be valuable by the government. Fiat currency doesn’t have any value by itself and it doesn’t represent anything valuable. Instead, fiat currency maintains its value because it is an idea powered by the people’s confidence and trust in the government and banks that created it. US dollars are a type of fiat currency.

Financial Crimes Enforcement Network

Financial Crimes Enforcement network or FinCEN is a part of the US government that analyzes financial information so they can protect the US financial system.

Flippening

The flippening is the shift of other cryptocurrencies growing bigger, more important and more valuable than bitcoin. Because the first major cryptocurrency was bitcoin, the prices and technology of most other cryptocurrencies have been compared and aligned to bitcoin.

FOMO

FOMO is short for Fear of Missing Out. FOMO is often felt when you see a coin start to increase in value and you don’t yet own it.

Fork

The creation of an ongoing alternative version of the blockchain, by creating two blocks simultaneously on different parts of the network. This creates two parallel blockchains, where one of the two is the winning blockchain.

FUD

FUD is short for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. FUD is any information that is supposed to create feelings of fear, uncertainy, doubt and other negative emotions.

Full Node

A full node is a computer running a cryptocurrency program that is part of a network. Specifically, it is running the entire program, ignoring those transactions that are incorrect and adding every transaction that is correct to its record.

Fungible

Fungible is a positive quality where two or more of the same thing have identical value. That is to say, one of a group of things can be a substitute for another and it won’t change the value.

G

Gas

Gas is a small amount of ethereum paid to people who use their computers to record transactions and do other software actions.

Gas Limit

Gas limit is an amount of ethereum and it is multiplied by a very small amount of ethereum to pay people to record transactions and do other software actions. If the amount of gas is insufficent to complete the work, the work will fail. On the other hand, you can pay a bit more gas and expect the computers to complete your task sooner.

Gas Price

Gas price is a very small amount of ethereum and it is multiplied by an amount known as gas limit to pay people to record transactions and do other software actions. If the amount of gas is insufficent to complete the work, the work will fail. On the other hand, you can pay a bit more gas and expect the computers to complete your task sooner.

Genesis Block

A blockchain is a digital book of records where each new page made in that book is what is known as a “block”. Those blocks are connected in one group known as the blockchain. The first block in a blockchain is known as the genesis block.

Graphical Processing Unit (GPU)

A Graphical Processing Unit commonly known as a graphics card or GPU is a computer chip that creates 3D images on computers. Mining is a computer process of recording and verifying information on the digital record known as the blockchain. Because mining requires computer power, people do this work in return for money. Each computer that fulfills this process can earn a reward in digital money. For a long time, a GPU was the part of the computer used for mining.

Gwei

Gwei is a very small amount of ethereum coin used to calculate transaction fees for sending ethereum to another. One ethereum coin is worth 1 billion (1,000,000,000) gwei.

H

Hacking

Hacking is the process of using a computer to manipulate another computer or computer system in an unauthorized and unapproved way.

Halving

Halving comes from an Old English word meaning “half”. In cryptocurrencies, mining is a computer process of recording and verifying information on the digital record known as the blockchain. In bitcoin and other currencies, mining also requires computers compete with each other to solve a complicated math problem. Once solved, a new block is discovered that can be added to the chain of blocks and a reward of brand new bitcoin is given to the computer that solved the math problem first. Halving is the reduction of the bitcoin mining reward issued by half.

Hard Cap

Hard cap is the maximum amount of money a cryptocurrency can receive from investors in its Initial Coin Offering (ICO). An ICO is the limited-time process by which new cryptocurrencies make their coins publicly known and begin selling them directly to people. People invest their money in these coins in the hopes that they will later be worth many times more that what was paid. A hard cap is the major financial goal and is always larger than the small cap.

Hardfork

A hardfork is a change to the blockchain protocol that makes previously invalid blocks/transactions valid, and therefore requires all users to upgrade their clients. The most recent example of a hardfork in public blockchains is the Ethereum hardfork which happened on July 21st, 2016. The hardfork changed the Ethereum protocol, therefore a second blockchain emerged (Ethereum Classic, ETC) which supports the old Ethereum protocol. In order to continue existing ETC needs miners, which would validate the transactions on the blockchain

Hardware Wallet

A hardware wallet is a specially designed device to lock away access to your cryptocurrency. The device is extra secure because it is disconnected from the Internet and other computers and is virtually virus-proof. A cryptocurency wallet is software that interacts with the network of recordings (blockchain) and lets users receive, store, and send their digital money.

Hash Function

A hash function is a computer program that takes information and turns it into letters and numbers of a certain length. Hashing is used to make storing and finding information quicker because hashes are usually shorter and easier to find. Hashes also make information unreadable and so they become a secret.

Hashcash

A proof-of-work system used to limit email spam and denial-of-service attacks, and more recently has become known for its use in bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) as part of the mining algorithm. Hashcash was proposed in May 1997 by Adam Back

Hashing

A hash is a mathematical computer program that takes any set of information and turns it into letters and numbers of a certain length. Hashing is used to make storing and finding information quicker because hashes are usually shorter and easier to find. Hashes also make information unreadable and so they become a secret.

Hashrate

Hashrate is the speed that a computer can complete a mathematical program that takes any set of information and turns it into letters and numbers of a certain length.

Hidden Cap

Hidden cap is an unknown limit to the amount of money a cryptocurrency can receive from investors in its Initial Coin Offering (ICO). An ICO is the limited-time process by which new cryptocurrencies make their coins publicly known and begin selling them directly to people. People invest their money in these coins in the hopes that they will later be worth many times more that what was paid.

HODL

HODL: verb A misspelling of “hold” that evolved into a shortened form of “Hold On for Dear Life”. After buying crypto, a person who is HODLing intends to keep it even as prices go up and down. Originally a misspelling of “hold”, HODL became a popular term among those who buy cryptocurrencies. A person who does this is known as a “HODLer” or “HOD

I

Initial Bounty Offering (IBO)

An Initial Bounty Offering or IBO is the limited-time process by which a new cryptocurrency is made public and distributed to people who invest their skills and time to earn rewards in the new cryptocurrency. Unlike an Initial Coin Offering where the coins are sold, an IBO requires more mental committment.

Inflation

Inflation is the yearly increase in the prices of products and services, and is measured as a percentage. In other words, increasing inflation means your $5 bill will purchase fewer and fewer candy bars. Government issued money like US dollars are created all the time, there is no limit, and the creation of new money creates inflation. Many cryptocurrencies are set up in the same way where brand new coins are created regularly.

Initial Coin Offering (ICO)

ICOs are types of crowdfunding mechanisms conducted on the blockchain. Originally, the main idea of an ICO was to fund new projects by pre-selling coins/tokens to investors interested in the project. Entrepreneurs present a whitepaper describing the business model and the technical specifications of a project before the ICO. They lay out a timeline for the project and set a target budget where they describe the future funds spending (marketing, R&D, etc.) as well as coin distribution (how many coins are they going to keep for themselves, token supply, etc.). During the crowdfunding campaign, investors purchase tokens with already established cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Input

Input describes digital money coming into your digital wallet. When you want to spend your money, your inputs are later used as proof to show that you have X amount of money. That is known as an “output”.

Instamine

Instamining means new cryptocurrencies, for a short time after launch, are very easy to create. The purpose of instamining is to accumulate a large quantity of the available supply early on and later sell it for a big profit. Mining is a computer process of recording and verifying information on the digital record known as the blockchain. Mining usually also involves computers working very hard at solving a math problem. The first computer to solve this problem would discover a new block and could record information on the blockchain. This earned them a reward in brand new digital money plus fees paid for each transaction.

Invest

Invest is the process of spending money on something with the expectation that it will increase in value later and can be sold for more money.

IPFS

The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is a hypermedia distribution protocol, addressed by content and identities. IPFS enables the creation of completely distributed applications. It aims to make the web faster, safer, and more open. IPFS is an open source project developed by the team at Interplanetary Networks and many contributors from the open source community. It is a peer-to-peer distributed file system that seeks to connect all computing devices with the same system of files. In some ways, IPFS is similar to the Web, but IPFS could be seen as a single BitTorrent swarm, exchanging objects within one Git repository. In other words, IPFS provides a high throughput content-addressed block storage model, with content-addressed hyperlinks. This forms a generalized Merkle DAG, a data structure upon which one can build versioned file systems, blockchains, and even a Permanent Web. IPFS combines a distributed hash table, an incentivized block exchange, and a self-certifying namespace. IPFS has no single point of failure, and nodes do not need to trust each other

J

JOMO

JOMO is short for Joy of Missing Out. This is the pleasure of doing what you are doing and not worrying about anything worthwhile you might be missing out on.

K

Key

A key is a secret string of letters and numbers that must be used to make hidden, unreadable information readable.

Know Your Customer (KTC)

Know Your Customer or KYC is a set of laws where financial organizations must request government issued identification from their customers before allowing them to use their services. KYC was established to prevent criminals from converting their illegally earned money into digital money to hide it from the police.

L

Ledger

A ledger is a book or other collection of records in which a person, business, or other group records how much money it receives and spends.

Leverage

Leverage is increased investment power through margin. Margin is a borrowed asset (stocks or cryptocurrencies), usually from the financial services company you are investing with, that allows you to make larger investments in the hopes of making even more money. Leverage allows the investor to control much more assets than he actually owns giving him the opportunity to make or lose more money.

Light Node

A computer on a blockchain network that only verifies a limited number of transactions relevant to its dealings, making use of the simplified payment verification (SPV) mode

Lightning Network

The Lightning Network is technology that allows near-instant and low fee transactions of cryptocurrencies using bitcoin’s technology. With cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, it can take an average of 10 minutes for your transaction to be registered in the digital recording known as the blockchain. The Lightning Network will make those transactions instant.

M

Margin Trading

Margin trading describes a way of investing where you use margin. Margin increases your investment power. Margin is a borrowed asset (stocks or cryptocurrencies), usually from the financial services company you are investing with, that allows you to make larger investments in the hopes of making even more money. This advantage is known as leverage. The borrowed assets aren’t free, you must pay back interest on each transaction involving margins. Margin allows the investor to control much more assets than he actually owns giving him the opportunity to make or lose more money.

Market Capitalization

Market Capitalization is a way to rank and judge the size of a cryptocurrency or stock in a company. The total dollar value is calculated by taking the total supply and multiplying it by the price. For example, if bitcoin is worth $4,000 and there are 16,500,000 coins in existence, that means its market cap is $66,000,000,000 or $66 billion.

Max Supply

Max supply is the maximum number of coins that will ever exist for a cryptocurrency. With bitcoin, the maximum supply is 21 million. With other cryptocurrencies like EOS, there is no maximum supply, so the number of coins will continue growing.

Millibitcoin (mBTC)

Millibitcoin, also known as the abbreviation mBTC, is one thousandth of a bitcoin or 0.001 of a bitcoin. Compare this with Megabitcoin or MBTC which is one million bitcoin or 1,000,000 bitcoin.

Megabitcoin (MBTC)

Megabitcoin, also known as the abbreviation MBTC, is one million bitcoin or 1,000,000 bitcoin. Compare this with millibitcoin or mBTC which is one thousandth of a bitcoin or 0.001 of a bitcoin.

Megahashes per Second

A hash is a mathematical computer program that takes any set of information and turns it into letters and numbers of a certain length. Hashing is used to make storing and finding information quicker because hashes are usually shorter and easier to find. Commonly known as the abbreviation, MH/S it is one million (1,000,000) hashes. And so MH/s is a measurement of the number of hashes per second measured in millions.

Merkle Tree

A Merkle tree is defined as a way to organize data so it is more efficient and secure.

MH/s

A hash is a mathematical computer program that takes any set of information and turns it into letters and numbers of a certain length. Hashing is used to make storing and finding information quicker because hashes are usually shorter and easier to find. Commonly known as the abbreviation, MH/S it is one million (1,000,000) hashes. And so MH/s is a measurement of the number of hashes per second measured in millions.

Microbitcoin (uBTC)

Microbitcoin, also known as the abbreviation uBTC, is one millionth of a bitcoin or 0.000001 of a bitcoin.

Microtransaction

A microtransaction is an online purchase or exchange that worth very little money.

Mining

Mining is the computer process of recording and verifying information on the digital record known as the blockchain.

Mining (Bitcoin)

Mining is the process of adding transaction records to Bitcoin’s public ledger of past transactions or blockchain. This ledger of past transactions is called the blockchain as it is a chain of blocks. The blockchain serves to confirm transactions to the rest of the network as having taken place. Bitcoin nodes use the blockchain to distinguish legitimate Bitcoin transactions from attempts to re-spend coins that have already been spent elsewhere. Mining is intentionally designed to be resource-intensive and challenging so that the number of blocks found each day by miners remains steady. Individual blocks must contain a proof of work to be considered valid. This proof of work is verified by other Bitcoin nodes each time they receive a block. Bitcoin uses the hashcash proof-of-work function. The primary purpose of mining is to allow Bitcoin nodes to reach a secure, tamper-resistant consensus. Mining is also the mechanism used to introduce Bitcoins into the system: Miners are paid any transaction fees as well as a “subsidy” of newly created coins. This both serves the purpose of disseminating new coins in a decentralized manner as well as motivating people to provide security for the system

Mining Difficulty

Mining difficulty is a measure of how hard it is to record information onto the digital record known as the blockchain. With bitcoin, mining also also requires you solve a complicated math problem. Each computer that fulfills this process discovers a new block to add to the blockchain and earns a reward in cryptocurrency. The more computers there are competing to solve the math problem, the quicker blocks will be discovered.. So every 2,016 blocks, or every 2 weeks, mining difficulty is recalculated to keep the speed of discovery consistent. As the difficulty increases, the amount of work required for the reward increases while the reward stays the same.

Mining Pool

In a mining pool, different users organize together in order to provide computing power for the bitcoin network. If a Bitcoin block is newly created, each of the users in the mining pool receives its fair share proportionately to his mining power. To become a member of a mining pool, the user needs to run software provided by the mining pool. The advantage of the mining pools is that block rewards get distributed across the pool providing more stable income.

Mining Rig

Mining rigs are computers used to record information on the digital record known as the blockchain. People get their computers to do this work in return for money. Because mining often requires a lot of computer power, special computers have been designed just for mining

Mixing Service

A mixing service, also known as a “tumbler”, lets you send in your cryptocurrency and get the same amount back, minus fees, from other people. The purpose of a mixing service is to improve the privacy and anonymity of digital money by making it harder to track what the cryptocurrency was used for and who it belongs to.

Mnemonic Phrase

A mnemonic phrase (also mnemonic seed or seed phrase) is a secret list of words used in sequence to gain access to your cryptocurrencies.

Money

Money is a system and its units for exchanging value. The value of each unit is agreed to be worth something. Money is used to pay for things and services as well as debts. The history of the word money comes from mint, meaning to make coins, medals and tokens out of raw metal. Usually money is made out of paper and cheap metals, but sometimes it can be found made out of gold or silver. Which is to say, some money is made out of things that are already valuable.

Mooning

Mooning is the action of the price of a cryptocurrency going way up, sky high, and to the moon.

Moore's Law

Moore’s Law is an observation that computer technology becomes quicker and smaller with time. This observation was first made by Gordon Moore in 1965. Gordon, a co-founder of the computer company Intel, found that the number of transistors (an electronic device that controls the flow of electricity) in one square inch doubles every year.

Mtgox.com

Mtgox or Mt. Gox was one of the first websites where bitcoin could be exchanged for regular government issued money like US dollars. In 2014, Mt. Gox closed after roughly 850,000 bitcoin was declared lost or stolen. Mt. Gox was created in 2006 by Jed McCaleb who named it after Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange where users could cards like stocks. Jed later sold Mt. Gox to Mark Karpelès in 2011.

Multisignature

Multisignature means more than one signature or approval is required before a transaction can take place. Multisignature increases the security for cryptocurrencies so that one person cannot take all of the money for himself without approval from the others.

N

Node

A node is any device (computer, phone, etc) that is part of a digital network. Cryptocurrencies are supported by a network of computers each keeping a digital record of the data known as a blockchain. So, a computer is a node in the network, so is a phone or any other device that may receive, transmit, and/or contribute to the blockchain.

Node (Full Node)

Any computer that connects to the blockchain network is called a node. Nodes that fully enforce all of the rules of the blockchain (i.e., Bitcoin) are called full nodes. Most nodes on the network are lightweight nodes instead of full nodes, but full nodes form the backbone of the network

Nonce

Nonce comes from an old phrase which meant “only once”. A nonce is a number used once while mining cryptocurrency with the hope that it will solve a math problem and earn money.

O

Open Source

Open source describes any type of technology that is made public and can be seen, changed, and shared. The term is usually used for computer technology that has been made available to anyone and is not protected.

Oracles

Smart contracts on the blockchain cannot access the outside network on their own. Therefore oracles sit between a smart contract and the external world, providing the data needed by the smart contract to prove performance while sending its commands to external systems

Orphan

Orphan describes a block that has been abandoned and will not be built upon. Blockchain is technology for creating permanent, secure digital recordings. If you imagine the blockchain as a book of records, then each page in that book is what is known as a “block”. A block is simply a recording of information. Blocks are attached to each other making what is known as the blockchain. Because many computers are maintaining the blockchain, occasionally two blocks are created at the same time. Since only one block can be created at a time, only one will be continued and built upon, the other block will be abandoned and is known as an orphan.

Over the Counter (OTC)

Over The Counter is defined as a transaction made outside of an exchange. Often abbreviated as OTC, these transactions are slower and cannot be programmed like transactions on an exchange.

Output

Output describes digital money going out of your digital wallet. Digital money coming into your digital wallet is known as an “input”. When you want to spend your money, your inputs are later used as proof to show that you have X amount of money. That is known as an “output”.

Over The Counter

Over The Counter is defined as a transaction made outside of an exchange. Often abbreviated as OTC, these transactions are slower and cannot be programmed like transactions on an exchange.

P

Peer to Peer (P2P)

Peer to peer or P2p is a connection between two or more computers that allow them to share information, files or other data directly.

Paper Wallet

A paper wallet is simply a piece of paper containing the information needed to access and spend your cryptocurrency. A wallet is software that interacts with the network of recordings (blockchain) and lets users receive, store, and send their digital money. Paper wallets are often used to backup the information to access your money or as the only recording to prevent someone like hackers from stealing it from your computer.

Payee

A payee is defined as the person who is receiving money, he is being paid. Compare this with payer, the person who is giving out money.

Permissioned blockchains

Provide highly-verifiable data sets because the consensus process creates a digital signature, which can be seen by all parties.

Permissioned ledger

A ledger where actors must have permission to access the ledger. Permissioned ledgers may have one or many owners. When a new record is added, the ledger’s integrity is checked by a limited consensus process. This is carried out by trusted actors — government departments or banks, for example — which makes maintaining a shared record much simpler that the consensus process used by unpermissioned ledgers.

Permissionless

Permisionless is a positive quality, where anyone is permitted to join and participate in an activity. Permissionless is oftne used when describing blockchain technologies because anyone can download the digital record known as the blockchain and participate in recording and verifying information.

Proof of Developer (PoD)

Proof of Developer or PoD is any verification that provides evidence of a real, living software developer who created a cryptocurrency. PoD are used when launching new cryptocurrencies to prevent an anonymous developer from collecting and stealing money without actually providing a workable cryptocurrency.

Ponzi Scheme

A Ponzi scheme is named after Charles Ponzi was a man who built a fake business where he promised investors 50% of their money back in 45 days or 100% in 90 days. Instead of using their money to build a business, he distributed it so that income from the new investors was used to pay back original investors. And he focused his attention on finding new investors to continue paying back old investors. All the while, Charles was pocketing a portion of the invested money. This dishonest arrangement where new investors money is used to pay back original investors without actually building a business is known as a Ponzi Scheme and it is illegal.

Proof of Stake (PoS)

Proof of stake or PoS, is a form of mining which is the computer process of recording and verifying information on the digital record known as the blockchain.

Proof of Work (PoW)

Proof of work or PoW, is a form of mining which is the computer process of recording and verifying information on the digital record known as the blockchain.

Premine

Premine is a condition of some new cryptocurrencies, where the max supply has already been created before being made publicly available. This means, no new coins will be creating during the mining process. Mining is a computer process of recording and verifying information on the digital record known as the blockchain. Each computer that fulfills this process can earn a reward in digital money and with cryptocurrencyes that have not been premined, a reward of brand new coins.

Private Blockchains

a fully private blockchain is a blockchain where write permissions are kept centralized to one organization. Read permissions may be public or restricted to an arbitrary extent. Likely applications include database management, auditing, etc. internal to a single company, and so public readability may not be necessary in many cases at all, though in other cases public auditability is desired

Private Key

The private key is a string of letters and numbers known only by you that allows you to spend cryptocurrency. NEVER SHARE your private key unless you want someone else to be able to take all of your money! Compare this with public key and address. While your public key lets you receive cryptocurrency, it is less secure than your address which is what you should use to receive money.

Proof of Authority(PoA)

A Proof of authority is a consensus mechanism in a private blockchain which essentially gives one client(or a specific number of clients) with one particular private key the right to make all of the blocks in the blockchain

Proof of Burn (POB)

Proof of Burn is a method of investing in brand new cryptocurrencies where, in order to get 1 of the new currency, you must burn/destroy another currency like bitcoin. That would in theory make, make each new cryptocurrency worth the value of the destroyed coin. Because you can’t actually destroy digital coins, the systems requires you to send it to a location where it can never be spent reducing the total supply of that coin.

Proof of Developer (PoD)

Proof of Developer or PoD is any verification that provides evidence of a real, living software developer who created a cryptocurrency. PoD are used when launching new cryptocurrencies to prevent an anonymous developer from collecting and stealing money without actually providing a workable cryptocurrency.

Protocols

Sets of formal rules describing how to transmit or exchange data, especially across a network.

Pseudonymous

Pseudonymous means acting or done under a false name. Pseudo comes from the Greek word meaning “false”. Bitcoin is pseudonymous because you and your account are recognized by a string of letters and numbers known as your address. Under some circumstances your address can be linked with your identity making bitcoin not 100% anonymous.

Public Blockchains

A public blockchain is a blockchain that anyone in the world can read, anyone in the world can send transactions to and expect to see them included if they are valid, and anyone in the world can participate in the consensus process – the process for determining what blocks get added to the chain and what the current state is. As a substitute for centralized or quasi-centralized trust, public blockchains are secured by crypto economics – the combination of economic incentives and cryptographic verification using mechanisms such as proof of work or proof of stake, following a general principle that the degree to which someone can have an influence in the consensus process is proportional to the quantity of economic resources that they can bring to bear. These blockchains are generally considered to be “fully decentralized”

Public Key

The public key is a string of letters and numbers that allows cryptocurrency to be received. Though it’s called a “public key”, it isn’t publicly visible until you’ve shared it or sent money out. And while it can be used to receive money, it usually isn’t able to spend money. To make sure your money can never be spent without your authorization, a safer and more secure way to receive money is to use your public address. Compare this with a private key which is known only by you and is used to spend your cryptocurrency.

Pump and Dump

An illegal manipulation tactic where people increase the price of a stock (the pump) so that they can sell it at those high prices for a profit (the dump). The person creating the pump and dump must first own some of the asset. Then they convince others to buy the asset with exaggerated or fake news causing the price to rise. At that point, they sell what they own. With no one promoting the asset, prices drop and many people are left with worthless assets and wasted money. “Pump and dump” is often used in the crypto space to mean sharing news in forums and chat groups to encourage people to buy a crypto. As more people begin buying, the price rises and sellers can get rid of their coins to these new buyers at a profit. Because the US Securities and Exchange Commission is not regulating the crypto space, pump and dumps are not yet illegal.

Pumping

Pumping means to promote an investment for the purpose of increasing prices, usually so it can be sold at a profit.

Q

QR Code

A QR code is a barcode in the shape of a square that contains information. For cryptocurrencies, QR codes are used to tell others where money can be sent to.

R

Regulated

Regulated describes something that is controlled and managed according to rules. Car companies must follow pollution regulations when designing and building cars.

Rekt

Rekt is a mispelling of “wrecked”, it means completely destroyed and ruined. Rekt is typically used when a person loses all of his money with cryptocurrency.

Return on Investment (ROI)

Return on Investment or ROI is a percentage used to measure how profitable an investment is. ROI measures the profit on an investment in relation to the amount put in.

Ring Signature

Ring signature is a cryptographic technology that could provide a decent level of anonymisation on a blockchain. Ring signatures make sure individual transaction outputs on the blockchain can’t be traced. A message signed with a ring signature is endorsed by someone in a particular group of people. One of the security properties of a ring signature is that it should be computationally infeasible to determine which of the group members’ keys was used to produce the signature

Roadmap

A roadmap is a plan with estimated completion dates that show what an organization wants to achieve in the long term. Looking at a roadmap gives you an understanding of what the organization wants to provide to its customers and what it wants to become.

S

Satoshi

A Satoshi is the smallest amount of bitcoin at one-billionth of a bitcoin or 0.000000001 bitcoin. That’s 8 zeros before the number 1! This tiny amount of bitcoin is named after the creator of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. Satoshi Nakamoto is an unknown person or group of people who created bitcoin in 2009.

Satoshi Nakamoto

A person or group of people who created the bitcoin protocol and reference software, Bitcoin Core (formerly known as Bitcoin-Qt). In 2008, Nakamoto published a paper on The Cryptography Mailing list at metzdowd.com describing the bitcoin digital currency. In 2009, they released the first bitcoin software that launched the network and the first units of the bitcoin cryptocurrency, called bitcoins

Scamcoin

Scamcoin is a fake cryptocurrency created to make money for the creator while stealing it from those who supported and invested in the coin.

Scrypt

An alternative proof of work system to SHA-256, designed to be particularly friendly to CPU and GPU miners, while offering little advantage to ASIC miners.

Secret Key

See private key.

Secure Hash Algorithm 256

The Secure Hash Algorithm 256 or SHA 256, is one of the most secure ways to protect digital information. A hash is a mathematical computer program that takes any set of information and turns it into letters and numbers of a certain length. Hashing is used to make storing and finding information quicker because hashes are usually shorter and easier to find. Hashes also make information unreadable and so they become a secret. The number of possible combinations of letters and numbers produced by SHA 256 exceeds the number grains of sand on Earth! That makes guessing the data hidden within the hash virtually impossible.

Segregated Witness

Segregated witness is a technology that moves some information recorded into the bitcoin system known as the blockchain into a separate recording. When someone sends bitcoin to another, the technology must verify that the sender has enough in his account. Once the technology verifies this, it “signs” the recording (block) as a witness. Each bitcoin recording is limited to 1 megabyte (MB) in size and new recordings are made every 10 minutes. Because the signature takes up a lot of space in the recording, relocating it to a different recording, also known as segregating, will allow many more transactions to be recorded every 10 minutes.

SHA 256

The Secure Hash Algorithm 256 or SHA 256, is one of the most secure ways to protect digital information. A hash is a mathematical computer program that takes any set of information and turns it into letters and numbers of a certain length. Hashing is used to make storing and finding information quicker because hashes are usually shorter and easier to find. Hashes also make information unreadable and so they become a secret. The number of possible combinations of letters and numbers produced by SHA 256 exceeds the number grains of sand on Earth! That makes guessing the data hidden within the hash virtually impossible.

Sharding

Shard comes from an Old English word that meant, “to cut” and in present time, a shard is a small piece of a bigger whole. In terms of technology, sharding is the process of breaking down a big chunk of digital information into smaller pieces so it runs quicker and is more manageable. By sharding a massive digital book of records known as the blockchain, every computer won’t have to store a complete copy of the blockchain. Instead, they will store and manage a shard.

Shilling

Shilling means tricking as many people as possible into thinking a cryptocurrency is valuable so that the price will rise and it can be sold for a profit.

Shorting

Shorting is the process of borrowing an asset and selling it, in the hopes of later buying it back at a lower cost and keeping the difference in money as a profit.

Sidechains

Blockchains that are interoperable with each other and with Bitcoin, avoiding liquidity shortages, market fluctuations, fragmentation, security breaches and outright fraud associated with alternative crypto-currencies. “Sidechains are new blockchains which are backed by Bitcoins, via Bitcoin contracts, just as dollars and pounds used to be backed by cold hard gold. You could in principle have thousands of sidechains “pegged” to Bitcoin, all with different characteristics and purposes … and all of them taking advantage of the scarcity and resilience guaranteed by the main Bitcoin blockchain, which in turn could iterate to implement experimental sidechain features once they have been tried and tested…” more

Silk Road

Silk Road was an illegal website that was open from 2011 through October 2013 and allowed people to buy and sell illegal products and services like drugs, weapons, body parts and assassins using cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

Simplified Payment Verification (SPV)

Simplified Payment Verification or SPV, describes software that allows you to confirm your own cryptocurrency transaction has been recorded and is official without having to download and manage the entire digital recording that is the blockchain.

Smart contracts

Computer protocols that facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract, or that obviate the need for a contractual clause. Smart contracts usually also have a user interface and often emulate the logic of contractual clauses. Proponents of smart contracts claim that many kinds of contractual clauses may thus be made partially or fully self-executing, self-enforcing, or both. Smart contracts aim to provide security superior to traditional contract law and to reduce other transaction costs associated with contracting

Soft Cap

Soft cap is the minimum amount of money a cryptocurrency can receive from investors in its Initial Coin Offering (ICO). An ICO is the limited-time process by which new cryptocurrencies make their coins publicly known and begin selling them directly to people. People invest their money in these coins in the hopes that they will later be worth many times more that what was paid. If the soft cap is not met, the money is returned to investors. Usually there is a much larger financial goal known as a hard cap.

Softfork

A softfork is a change to the bitcoin protocol wherein only previously valid blocks/transactions are made invalid. Since old nodes will recognize the new blocks as valid, a softfork is backward-compatible. This kind of fork requires only a majority of the miners upgrading to enforce the new rules

Software Fork

A software fork is the action of taking the technology from one group, and changing it to create an entirely new technology. This was done with bitcoin technology to create other cryptocurrencies like litecoin.

Software Wallet

A software wallet is a computer program designed device to secure your cryptocurrency while allowing only you to access it. A wallet is software that interacts with the network of recordings (blockchain) and lets users receive, store, and send their digital money.

Solidity

Solidity is a computer programming language used for creating smart contracts. There is technology known as blockchain that is made up of publicly available digital recordings managed simultaneously by a network of computers. When you use that technology with contracts and program them to take action on a date, you have a smart contract.

Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) client

SPV clients are Bitcoin lightweight clients which do not download and store the whole blockchain locally. These wallets provide a way to verify payments without having to download the complete blockchain. An SPV client only downloads the block headers by connecting to a full node

Stale Block

A stale block is a digital recording that is complete with information and no longer needs to be recorded or worked on. Because a blockchain is a digital recording and each block is like a page in that recording, new pages are added any time more information needs recorded. If everyone were to record new info at the same time, the blockchain wouldn’t work. So the system lets one person record info at a time. A stale block is a block that has already had info recorded onto it. There is no need for people maintaining the blockchain to try to record more information on it.

State Channel

State channels are interactions which get conducted off the blockchain without significantly increasing the risk of any participant. Moving these interactions off of the chain without requiring any additional trust can lead to significant improvements in cost and speed. State channels work by locking part of the blockchain state so that a specific set of participants must completely agree with each other to update it

Stream ciphers

A method of encrypting text (cyphertext) in which a cryptographic key and algorithm are applied to each binary digit in a data stream, one bit at a time.

Swarm

Swarm is a distributed storage platform and content distribution service, a native base layer service of the Ethereum web three stack. The primary objective of Swarm is to provide a decentralized and redundant store of Ethereum’s public record, in particular, to store and distribute dApp code and data as well as blockchain data

T

Tangle

The tangle is a technology created by Iota, a cryptocurrency to record its transactions instead of the blockchain. The tangle is created using directed acyclic graphs or DAG which is a structure built out in one single direction and in such a way that it never repeats.

Terahashes per Second (TPS)

A hash is a mathematical computer program that takes any set of information and turns it into letters and numbers of a certain length. Hashing is used to make storing and finding information quicker because hashes are usually shorter and easier to find. Commonly known as the abbreviation TH/s, it is one trillion (1,000,000,000,000) hashes. And so TH/s is a measurement of the number of hashes per second measured in trillions.

Test Netowork (TestNet)

Test Network also known as “testnet” is software that is identical to the software used by a cryptocurrency. Because testnets are built to experiment with new ideas without disturbing or breaking the main cryptocurrency software, its digital currency is worthless. Bitcoin’s testnet has been reset several times to stop people who began trading its coins as digital money.

TH/s

A hash is a mathematical computer program that takes any set of information and turns it into letters and numbers of a certain length. Hashing is used to make storing and finding information quicker because hashes are usually shorter and easier to find. Commonly known as the abbreviation TH/s, it is one trillion (1,000,000,000,000) hashes. And so TH/s is a measurement of the number of hashes per second measured in trillions.

The DAO

(yes, there’s a difference) was a venture capital fund built on Ethereum that caused a soft and hark fork. It was kinda a big deal.

Think Long Term (TLT)

TLT is short for Think Long Term. TLT is a mindset where you aren’t looking to make money in the next few hours or days but instead are thinking in terms of expansion and development over months or even years.

Token

A token is a unit of digital value and in cryptocurrencies, it is money with programmable potential built into it. Unlike coins, tokens have value beyond money, because software can be built using it. OMG and EOS are cryptocurrencies built on the token, ethereum. There are games and productivity apps also built using ethereum’s token.

Tokenize

Tokenize is the process of converting valuables in the real world into something of digital value called a token. By tokenizing a house worth $500K, the homeowner can sell half the value of his house ($250K) to two hundred and fifty people for $1,000 each. Without tokenization, that deal would not be possible. Because these tokens are exchanged on the blockchain, the data is publicly available and virtually impossible to cheat on.

Tokenless ledger

A distributed ledger that doesn’t require a native currency to operate.

Total Supply

Total supply is the complete amount of coins currently available for a cryptocurrency not including any coins that were burnt. Burning coins is the action of sending cryptocurrency to an address which is unspendable.

Transaction (TX)

Transaction or TX, is the transfer of money from one person to another for a business deal.

Transaction block

A collection of transactions on the bitcoin network, gathered into a block that can then be hashed and added to the blockchain.

Transaction fees (TX Fee)

Small fees imposed on some transactions sent across the bitcoin network. The transaction fee is awarded to the miner that successfully hashes the block containing the relevant transaction.

Trustless

Trustless is a positive quality where you are not required to trust the person you’re doing the transaction with. A trustless system or technology is so secure and smooth in handling your transactions, that both people in a transaction can safely hand over money and other valuables without the risk of being cheated.

Turing completeness

A machine is Turing complete if it can perform any calculation that any other programmable computer is capable of. All modern computers are Turing-complete in this sense. The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) which runs on the Ethereum blockchain is Turing complete. Thus it can process any “computable function”. It is, in short, able to do what you could do with any conventional computer and programming language

U

Unpermissioned ledgers

Have no single owner (Ex. Bitcoin) — indeed, they cannot be owned. The purpose of an unpermissioned ledger is to allow anyone to contribute data to the ledger and for everyone in possession of the ledger to have identical copies.

Unregulated

Unregualted describes something that is not managed and controlled according to rules. Cryptocurrencies remain unregulated by many governments.

Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO)

Unspent Transaction Output or UTXO, is a list of money received that has not yet been spent. In other words, if you were to total up the UTXO, you would get the user’s available balance. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies based on its technology use UTXO in their blockchain technology to verify that a person has unspent crypto available for spending.

V

Vanity Address

A vanity address starts is a string of letters and numbers that is publicly available and starts with a customized set of letters and numbers. Your address allows cryptocurrency to be received, held and sent.

Venture

A venture is a business that has a large risk of failure.

Venture Capital

Venture capital is money provided to new companies that hold a promise of long-term growth. In exchange for the money, the companies will share ownership. Because they are new companies and have no history of success, they usually have a higher risk of failure.

Volatility

Volatility is the measurement of how much the price of an asset is likely to change over a period of time. Stocks for established companies like Apple and Google have a much lower volatility than cryptocurrencies which may change a lot in one day.

W

Wallet

A wallet is software that interacts with the network of recordings (blockchain) and lets users receive, store, and send their digital money. The wallet doesn’t actually store the money, instead it locks away access to the money. The only way to get access to it is by providing a key, a string of letters and numbers like a password.

Weak Hands

Weak hands describes an investor who doesn’t have the confidence in his investment to continue holding while the price falls so he sells it.

Wei

Wei is the smallest amount of ethereum coin. One ethereum coin is worth 1 quintillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000) wei.

Whales

Whales are people or organizations that hold large quantities of cryptocurrency or stocks in a company. Because they can move buy and sell large quantities, they can greatly affect the price based on whether they buy or sell.

Whisper

Whisper is a part of the Ethereum p2p protocol suite that allows for messaging between users via the same network that the blockchain runs on. The main task of whisper will be the provision of a communication protocol between dapps

White Paper

A white paper is a document that explains the purpose and technology used in a cryptocurrency. Usually a white paper is used when a cryptocurrency is just starting to help people understand what it has to offer. A clear, simple white paper is a good sign for a new cryptocurrency.

X

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Z

Zero Confirmation Transaction

A zero confirmation transaction, means a seller who is receiving cryptocurrency as part of a deal doesn’t wait for verification that the money was sent and instead immediately delivers what was sold.