Crypto Glossary

A glossary of crypto acronyms, crypto terms, and crypto definitions.

Financial terms

CEX	Centralized Exchange
DEX	Decentralized Exchange
OTC	Over the Counter
ICO	Initial Coin Offering
IEO	Initial Exchange Offering
STO	Security Token Offering
MCAP	Market Capitalization
FIAT	Conventional government-issued currency, like the US Dollar and Euro
MVP	Minimum viable product
ETA	Estimated time of arrival
ATH	All-time high price for a cryptocurrency
ATL	All-time low price for a cryptocurrency
APR	Annual Percentage Rate

Blockchain terms

PoW	Proof of Work
PoS	Proof of Stake
PoA	Proof of Authority
SC	Smart Contract
ERC	Ethereum Request for Comments, it’s the preceding acronym for Ethereum based tokens like the ERC20 standard
DAO	Decentralized Autonomous Organization
DApp	Decentralized Application
SegWit	Segregated Witness
LN	Lightning Network
SoV	Store of value
MoE	Medium of Exchange
UoA	Unit of Account
Soft Fork	A protocol upgrade where only previously valid transactions are made invalid, with most soft forks requiring miners to upgrade their mining software in order to enforce it
Hard Fork	A type of protocol change that validates all previously invalid transactions, and invalidates all previously valid transactions. This type of fork requires all nodes and users to upgrade to the latest version of the forked protocol software. In a hard fork, a single cryptocurrency permanently splits into two, resulting in one blockchain that follows the old protocol and the other that follows the newest protocol. Some examples are Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, or Ethereum and Ethereum Classic
CeFi	Centralized Finance (CeFi) is used to describe Centralized Exchanges and Cross-Chain Services
DeFi	Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is the movement that leverages decentralized networks to transform old financial products into open and transparent protocols that run without intermediaries

Regulatory terms

SEC	Securities and Exchange Commission
FTC	Federal Trade Commission
CFTC	Commodity Futures Trading Commission
FDIC	Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
DOJ	Department of Justice
AML	Anti Money Laundering
KYC	Know Your Customer, It’s a procedure that’s required by law to verify the client identity as part of the due diligence process

Miscellaneous terms

Tx	Transaction
TxID	Transaction Identification
TPS	Transactions Per Second
P2P	Peer-to-Peer
ALT or Altcoin	Alternative Cryptocurrency
WP	Whitepaper
2FA	Two Factor Authentication
API	Application Programming Interface
NONCE	Number Used Only Once
SATS	Satoshis. A Satoshi is the smallest denomination of a Bitcoin, it’s a hundredth of a millionth or 0.00000001 BTC. Each Bitcoin has 100 million Satoshis
Bitcoin Halving	Every 210,000 blocks mined, or approximately every four years, the reward given to Bitcoin miners for processing transactions is cut in half. This cuts in half the rate at which new Bitcoin is released into circulation until all Bitcoins are released and in circulation. Bitcoin’s total circulation supply is 21 million and the last Bitcoin estimated to be mined around the year 2140
FUD	Fear, uncertainty, and doubt
FOMO	Fear of Missing Out
HODL	A meme that followed from a simple mistype of hold
ZK	Zero-Knowledge
DYOR	Do Your Own Research
Pump	This is a term that’s used to refer to an upward price movement, usually driven by whales investing large sums of money in a cryptocurrency
Dump	This is a term that’s used when a lot of people dump at once, causing a sharp downward movement in a cryptocurrency’s price
PnD	Pump-and-Dump, The frowned-upon practice of buying a lot of one cryptocurrency to drive up its price and encourage others to invest, then selling the lot when there is a suitable margin