Glossary (41)

A blockchain is a digital record book maintained by multiple participants. New records are organized into blocks, and the blocks are connected in orde

Explore key crypto, blockchain, and trading terms through concise definitions, organized alphabetically for quick reference. [A](#a) · [B](#b) · [C](#

Decentralized finance (DeFi) is a class of application that provides financial functions such as asset swapping and lending mainly through blockchains

A decentralized exchange (DEX) is a class of trading system that lets users swap digital assets through blockchain protocols or smart contracts. A sma

A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is a way of organizing in which several people make decisions, manage funds or maintain a project togeth

A decentralized application (DApp) is an application that hands some of its core rules or state — balances, ownership and approval records, for exampl

A crypto token is a digital unit defined by a blockchain protocol or an onchain program, which can be recorded and transferred through a blockchain. A

The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is a set of shared rules for executing smart contracts. Ethereum nodes implement those rules in their own software,

A smart contract is a program deployed on a blockchain network that runs according to its code once a transaction or another program calls it. It can

Proof of stake (PoS) is a category of consensus mechanism that protects a blockchain through staked assets and protocol rules. Participants place the

Proof of work (PoW) is a category of consensus mechanism that protects a blockchain through computational cost. Participants have to compute repeatedl

Decentralization means spreading a system's significant operational, validation or decision-making capability across multiple participants that can ac

Delegated proof of stake (DPoS) is a category of blockchain consensus mechanism in which token holders vote to elect a group of block producers, and t

DYOR is short for "do your own research". In a crypto asset context it means not treating promotion, posts or other people's conclusions as facts outr

A digital asset is a resource that exists as electronic data or in binary form and has value or use for a person or an organization. It can be a docum

ERC-20 is an interface standard for fungible tokens on Ethereum. It addresses a kind of onchain program responsible for recording balances and handlin

ERC-721 is a set of interface standards used on Ethereum to track individually numbered tokens. Tokens of this kind are usually called non-fungible to

Portfolio diversification is spreading a portfolio's assets or sources of risk across several objects, instead of letting the outcome depend mainly on

A cryptographic hash is a method of computation that turns data into a fixed-length digest. Whether the input is a single sentence or a large file, th

An exchange-traded fund (ETF) is a product that pools money from many investors, holds a set of assets according to a stated objective, and at the sam

Ethereum is a public blockchain network. It does more than record transfers of a native asset: it also lets developers deploy programs onto the blockc

Expiry futures, also called dated futures, are futures contracts with an expiry time written in advance. What a trader holds is not the spot asset its

Tokenized stocks use tokens on a blockchain to represent a particular stock itself, an interest related to that stock, or a contract that follows the

A token standard is a technical specification that sets out which functions a token program should provide, what inputs it accepts, and how it reports