The crypto glossary, in plain English

An altcoin is any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin. The name is a contraction of "alternative coin," grouping together the thousands of assets built as alternatives to the original blockchain network. Read more →

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that runs on a public, peer-to-peer network, letting people send value directly to one another without a bank or central authority. Read more →

A blockchain is a shared digital ledger that records transactions in linked "blocks," maintained across many computers so the history is transparent and difficult to alter. Read more →

Cold storage is a way of holding crypto assets with their private keys kept completely offline, disconnected from the internet to reduce the risk of remote theft. It trades everyday convenience for stronger long-term security. Read more →

DeFi, short for decentralized finance, is a set of financial services — such as lending, borrowing, trading, and saving — built on public blockchains and run by open code rather than by banks or brokers. Anyone with a compatible wallet can use it without asking a central institution for permission. Read more →

Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain platform that runs programmable applications through smart contracts, with its native cryptocurrency called Ether (ETH). It extends the idea of a blockchain beyond simple payments into a shared, global computing environment. Read more →

A sentiment gauge that scores overall crypto market mood on a scale from extreme fear to extreme greed, distilling several market signals into a single number. It is meant as a snapshot of emotion, not a price forecast. Read more →

Fiat is government-issued currency that is not backed by a physical commodity like gold, deriving its value instead from public trust and the authority of the state that issues it. National currencies such as the dollar, euro, and yen are all forms of fiat money. Read more →

Gas is the fee paid to a blockchain network to process a transaction or run a smart contract, compensating the validators who perform the computation and secure the network. Read more →

Gwei is a small denomination of Ether, the native currency of the Ethereum network, commonly used to express the cost of transaction fees. One Gwei equals one-billionth of one Ether. Read more →

A halving is a scheduled event in certain cryptocurrencies where the reward paid to miners for adding a new block is cut in half, slowing the pace at which new coins enter circulation. Read more →

Market capitalization is the total value of a cryptocurrency's circulating supply, found by multiplying its current price by the number of coins in circulation. It is a common way to gauge and rank the relative size of one crypto asset against another. Read more →

Mining is the process by which computers compete to add new blocks of transactions to a proof-of-work blockchain, securing the network and, in return, earning newly issued coins and transaction fees. Read more →

A private key is a secret number that lets its holder authorize transactions and prove ownership of the assets tied to a blockchain address. Anyone who has it controls those funds, so it must never be shared. Read more →

Proof of Stake (PoS) is a method blockchains use to agree on their shared record, where participants lock up the network's own cryptocurrency as collateral for the right to validate transactions and add new blocks. Instead of racing to solve puzzles, validators are chosen to propose blocks based partly on the stake they commit. Read more →

Proof of Work is a method for securing a blockchain in which participants called miners compete to solve a hard computational puzzle, and the winner earns the right to add the next block of transactions. The work is costly to perform but easy for everyone else to verify. Read more →

A public key is a shareable cryptographic value derived from a private key that lets others verify signatures and, in practice, send funds to the address associated with it. It can be published openly without exposing the secret key it came from. Read more →

A seed phrase is an ordered list of common words that encodes the master secret behind a crypto wallet. Anyone who has it can restore the wallet and control the funds inside. Read more →

A smart contract is a program stored on a blockchain that runs automatically when its predefined conditions are met. It lets parties transact by trusting shared code and network rules rather than an intermediary. Read more →

A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency designed to hold a steady value by tracking an external reference, most commonly a national currency such as the US dollar. It aims to combine the speed and programmability of crypto with the price stability of the asset it mirrors. Read more →

Staking is the practice of locking up cryptocurrency to help secure a proof-of-stake blockchain, and in return receiving newly issued rewards for supporting the network. It turns holdings into an active part of a network's consensus rather than a passive balance. Read more →

A token is a unit of value or utility recorded on a blockchain, typically issued and managed by a smart contract rather than by the network's own base protocol. Tokens can represent many things, from access rights to ownership stakes, and are distinct from a chain's native coin. Read more →

Total Value Locked (TVL) is the combined worth of all crypto assets deposited into a decentralized finance protocol at a given moment. It is a common gauge of how much capital a platform is holding and putting to work. Read more →

A crypto wallet is a tool that stores the private keys needed to access and control digital assets on a blockchain. It does not hold coins directly — it holds the keys that prove ownership and authorize transactions. Read more →