Glossary (41)

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

A blockchain node is a running piece of software connected to a blockchain network that receives and processes data. Technically it is one actual run