August 6th, 2020 | Updated on June 30th, 2022
Terminology on Blockchain, Bitcoin, and other digital coins are very hard to fathom out, especially, if you are someone who has just explored this technology. Blockchain Terminology has expanded recently as the technology has gained more popularity. This Blockchain Glossary is a simple beginner’s guide and includes all the latest terms that you need to know when you’re new to this industry.
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘A‘
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘B’
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘C‘
| Candidate Blocks | Candlesticks | Capitulation |
| Censorship Resistance | Central Bank | CPU |
| Cipher | Circulating Supply | Cloud |
| Collateral | Colocation | CFTC |
| Confirmation Time | Cryptocurrency | Cryptography |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘D‘
| Daemon | Dead Cat Bounce | Decentralized Applications |
| DAOs | Decentralized Exchange | Decryption |
| Deep Web | Delisting | Difficulty |
| Diversification | Dollar-Cost Averaging | Double-Spending |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘E‘
| Eclipse Attack | EMH | Encryption |
| Enterprise Ethereum Alliance | ERC-20 | Exchanges |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘F‘
| Falling Knife | Fiat | Fill Or Kill Order |
| First Mover Advantage | Fiscal Policy | Forced Liquidation |
| Forced Liquidation |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘G‘
| Gas | Gas Limit | General Public License |
| Genesis Block | GitHub | Gossip Protocols |
| Gwei |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘H‘
| Hacker | Halving | Hard Cap |
| Hash | Hash Rate | Hashed TimeLock Contract (HTLC) |
| HODL | Honeypot |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘I‘
| Iceberg Orders | Immutability | Index |
| ICO | Initial Exchange Offering | Initial Public Offering |
| Initial Public Offering | Integrated Circuit | Interoperability |
| InterPlanetary File System | Isolated Margin | Issuance |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘J‘
| Jager |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘K‘
| Know Your Customer (KYC) |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘L‘
| Latency | Law Of Demand | Layer 2 |
| Ledger | Lightning Network | Liquidity |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘M‘
| Mainnet | Mainnet Swap | Malware |
| ‘Margin Trading’ | Market Capitalization | Market Momentum |
| Market Order | Masternode | Mempool |
| Merged Mining | Merkle Tree | Metadata |
| Mining | Monetary Policy | Moon |
| Multisignature |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘N‘
| Node | Non-Fungible Tokens | Nonce |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘O‘
| Off-Chain | Offshore Account | One Cancels The Other (OCO) |
| Open Source Software | Order Blocks | Orphan Blocks |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘P‘
| Paper Wallet | Passive Management | P2P |
| Pegged Exchange Rate | Phishing | Plasma |
| Ponzi Scheme | Price Action | Private Key |
| Progressive Web Application | Proof Of Stake (POS) | Pseudorandom |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘Q‘
| Quantum Computer |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘R‘
| Race Attack | Ransomware | Rekt |
| Relative Strength Index | Return On Investment |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘S‘
| Satoshi | SAFU | SEC |
| Security Audit | Seed Phrase | Segregated Witness |
| Selfish Mining Attack | Sell Walls | Sharpe Ratio |
| Snapshot | Source Code | StableCoin |
| Staking Pool | State Channels | Store Of Value |
| Supercomputer |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘T‘
| Taker | Ticker | Tokens |
| Token Lockup | Token Sale | Transaction ID (TXID) |
| Trustless |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘U‘
| Unit Of Account | UTXOs | User Interface |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘V‘
| Verification Code | Virtual Machine (VM) | Vladimir Club |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘W‘
| Wallet | Weak Subjectivity | Whale |
| Whitelisting | WINk | Wick |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘Z‘
| Zero-Knowledge Proof | zk-SNARK |
Blockchain Glossary For Beginners From ‘#‘
| 51% Attack |
A
Absolute Advantage
Absolute advantage is when a producer can produce a good or service in greater quantity for the same cost, or the same quantity at lower cost, than other producers.
Absolute advantage can be the basis for large gains from trade between producers of different goods with different absolute advantages.
Specifically, it refers to the ability to produce a certain good or service at lower cost (i.e., more efficiently) than another party. (A “party” may be a company, a person, a country, or anything else that creates goods or services.)
Active Management
Active management is the use of human capital to manage a portfolio of funds. Active managers rely on analytical research, personal judgment, and forecasts to make decisions on what securities to buy, hold, or sell.
Investors who do not follow the Efficient Markets Hypothesis believe in active management. They hold the belief that there are some inefficiencies in the market that allow for market prices to be incorrect.
Therefore, it is possible to profit in the stock market by identifying mispriced securities and employing a strategy to take advantage of the price correction.
Active management aims to generate better returns than a benchmark, usually some sort of a market index.
Unfortunately, a majority of active managers are unable able to consistently outperform passively managed funds. In addition, actively managed funds charge higher fees than passively managed funds.
Ad Hoc
The term “ad hoc” is a Latin phrase that literally means “to this” and commonly understood as meaning “for this purpose.”
It can also be used to mean “as needed.” It is commonly used in both business and government. settings.
Airdrops
Cryptocurrency airdrops are basically free coins that are dropped directly into your wallet. It is literally free money handed over to you.
Airdrops are calculated marketing maneuvers which actually saves companies a lot of money in the long run.
Airdrops are basically a process by which a company distributes its tokens to the wallets of certain users, completely free of charge.
Algorithm
Cryptocurrency is a digital currency in which encryption is used for the regulation and generation of units of currency.
Cryptocurrency uses cryptography for security and blockchain technology to record transactions.
This mechanism from adding to the chain of records to validating transactions in its entirety is referenced as a blockchain algorithm.
Blockchain developers are working on ensuring that each individual controls their own algorithms and personal data related to identity.
Allocation
Allocation is an allotment of tokens or equity, that may be earned, purchased, or set aside for a certain investor, team, group, organization, or other related entity. … For example, a team may sell allocations of a set “ticket size”, or maximum amount, to early investors in a private sale round.
All Or None Order (AON)
Used in context of general equities. A limited price order that is to be executed in its entirety or not at all (no partial transaction), and thus is testing the strength/conviction of the counterparty.
Unlike an FOK order, an AON order is not to be treated as cancelled if not executed as soon as it is represented in the trading crowd but instead remains alive until executed or cancelled.
Altcoin
“altcoin” refers to any of the thousands of prevalent cryptocurrencies that aim to work alongside bitcoin and each other, or are competing for ultimate domination. Altcoins may differ from Bitcoin in every possible way, such as mining mechanisms, coin-distribution methods or the ability to create decentralized applications.
Although Bitcoin is innovative and massively influential, it has some problems that developers are trying to fix with their own products. There is an altcoin that makes faster transactions, there is an altcoin that is less volatile, there is an altcoin that is more private and so on.
Angel Investor
Originally a term used to describe investors in Broadway shows, “angel” now refers to anyone who invests his or her money in an entrepreneurial company (unlike institutional venture capitalists, who invest other people’s money).
Angel investing has soared in recent years as a growing number of individuals seek better returns on their money than they can get from traditional investment vehicles. Angels come in two varieties: those you know and those you don’t know.
Anti-Money Laundering
The term “anti-money laundering” specifically refers to all policies and pieces of legislation that force financial institutions to proactively monitor their clients in order to prevent money laundering and corruption. These laws also require both that financial institutions report any financial crimes they find and that they do everything possible to stop them.
Anti-money laundering laws entered the global arena soon after the Financial Action Task Force was created.
Application Programming Interface (API)
API is the acronym for Application Programming Interface, which is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. Each time you use an app like Facebook, send an instant message, or check the weather on your phone, you’re using an API.
ASIC-Resistance
ASICs, or “Application Specific Integrated Circuit” are computers that are created to serve a specific use case and task. For Cryptocurrencies, ASIC devices are designed to participate in the process of mining Bitcoin (or other cryptocurrencies). Bitcoin, being the largest cryptocurrency by hashrate and having true decentralized consensus (through worldwide mining operations), is an example of a cryptocurrency that cannot be considered ASIC-resistant.
Arbitrage
Arbitrage is the process of simultaneous buying and selling of an asset from different platforms, exchanges or locations to cash in on the price difference (usually small in percentage terms). While getting into an arbitrage trade, the quantity of the underlying asset bought and sold should be the same.
Only the price difference is captured as the net pay-off from the trade. The pay-off should be large enough to cover the costs involved in executing the trades (i.e. transaction costs). Else, it won’t make sense for the trader to initiate the trade in the first place.
Ask Price
The ask price represents the minimum price that a seller is willing to take for that same security. The ask price represents the minimum price that a seller is willing to take for that same security.
Asset Management
Asset management is the process of developing, operating, maintaining, and selling assets in a cost-effective manner. Most commonly used in finance, the term is used in reference to individuals or firms that manage assets on behalf of individuals or other entities.
Asynchronous
Asynchronous describes the relationship between two or more events/objects that do interact within the same system but do not occur at predetermined intervals and do not necessarily rely on each other’s existence to function. They are not coordinated with each other, meaning they could occur simultaneously or not because they have their own separate agenda.
Atomic Swap
Atomic swap is a peer-to-peer exchange of cryptocurrencies from one party to another, without going through a third party service like a crypto exchange. During this entire process, the users have full control and ownership of their private keys. On September 20, 2017, Decred and Litecoin did the first known successful implementation of the atomic swap.
Attack Surface
An attack surface refers to all the ways your apps can possibly be exploited by attackers. This includes not only software, operating systems, network services, and protocols but also domain names and SSL certificates.
Auction
Common name for several types of sales where the price is neither set nor arrived at by negotiation but is discovered through the process of competitive and open bidding. The two major types of auction are (1) Forward auction in which several buyers bid for one seller’s good(s) and (2) Reverse auction in which several sellers bid for one buyer’s order. An auction is complete (and a binding contract is created) when a bid is accepted by the seller or the buyer (as the case may be).
B
Bag
A significant quantity of a specific cryptocurrency is considered a “bag.” How many depends on the definition of the person using the expression.
Bear markets
Bear markets are cyclical, and typically shorter than an average bull market. However, this is quite different from a market correction. Actually, a bear market is when prices fall 20 per cent or more from recent highs, signalling pessimism and a negative outlook among most market participants. It is widely used in both cryptocurrency market and traditional market.
Benchmarking
Benchmarking is a process where you measure your company’s success against other similar companies to discover if there is a gap in performance that can be closed by improving your performance. Studying other companies can highlight what it takes to enhance your company’s efficiency and become a bigger player in your industry.
Beta Coefficient
The Beta coefficient is a measure of sensitivity or correlation of a security or an investment portfolio to movements in the overall market. We can derive a statistical measure of risk by comparing the returns of an individual security/portfolio to the returns of the overall market and identify the proportion of risk that can be attributed to the market.
Bid Price
The term “bid” refers to the highest price a buyer will pay to buy a specified number of shares of a stock at any given time. The term ask refers to the lowest price at which a seller will sell the stock.
The bid price will almost always be lower than the ask or “offer,” price. The difference between the bid price and the ask price is called the “spread.”
Bid-Ask
The bid-ask on stocks, also known as the “spread” is the difference between a stock’s bid price and its ask price. Individual stock exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ work with stock specialists and brokers to set a security’s bid and ask.
The bid-ask spread is also the key in buying a security for the best possible price. Normally, the ask price is higher than the bid price, and the spread is what the broker or market maker earns in profit from managing a stock trade execution.
In essence, the bid is the price that an investor is willing to pay to buy a particular stock, at a given time, and the ask is the price for which an investor is willing to sell a stock at a specific point in time.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin is a type of digital cryptocurrency. Functionally, it serves the same purpose as U.S. dollars or Japanese yen, except that it’s not tied to a central bank and isn’t regulated by a government body such as a treasury. Bitcoin transactions take place entirely online and offer a degree of anonymity to users, and they are securely recorded in a public ledger called a blockchain. Users purchase bitcoins in an exchange and have the option of “storing” them in a digital cryptocurrency wallet.
Bitcoin Address
A Bitcoin address is a unique identifier that serves as a virtual location where the cryptocurrency can be sent. People can send the cryptocurrency to Bitcoin addresses similarly to the way fiat currencies can often be sent to email addresses.
However, the Bitcoin address is not i