Crypto Terms
Address
Cryptocurrency addresses are used to send or receive transactions on the network. An address usually presents itself as a string of alphanumeric characters.
ASIC
Short form for ‘Application Specific Integrated Circuit’. Often compared to GPUs, ASICs are specially made for mining and may offer significant power savings.
Mining cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrency mining, or cryptomining, is a process in which transactions for various forms of cryptocurrency are verified and added to the blockchain digital ledger.
ATH
ATH signifies all-time high, as in “all-time price high.” In the context of cryptocurrencies, it refers to the highest price milestone that any given coin or token has ever achieved.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin is the first decentralised, open source cryptocurrency that runs on a global peer to peer network, without the need for middlemen and a centralised issuer.
Block
Blocks are packages of data that carry permanently recorded data on the blockchain network.
Blockchain
A blockchain is a shared ledger where transactions are permanently recorded by appending blocks. The blockchain serves as a historical record of all transactions that ever occurred, from the genesis block to the latest block, hence the name blockchain.
Block Explorer
Block explorer is an online tool to view all transactions, past and current, on the blockchain. They provide useful information such as network hash rate and transaction growth.
Block Height
The number of blocks connected on the blockchain.
Block Reward
A form of incentive for the miner who successfully calculated the hash in a block during mining. Verification of transactions on the blockchain generates new coins in the process, and the miner is rewarded a portion of those.
Confirmation
The successful act of hashing a transaction and adding it to the blockchain.
Consensus
Consensus is achieved when all participants of the network agree on the validity of the transactions, ensuring that the ledgers are exact copies of each other.
Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrencies are representations of digital value.
DAICO
The idea was suggested by Vitalik Buterin in January 2018 and is aimed at making ICO’s more secure by involving investors in the initial project development process.
It will further enable token holders to vote for the refund of the contributed funds if they are not happy with the progress being made by developers.
For projects that implement the DAICO concept, it will force a level of accountability on developers and give token holders additional peace of mind that they are guaranteed to either see at least a minimum viable product or get their money back.
DAO
Decentralised Autonomous Organizations (DAO) can be thought of as corporations that run without any human intervention and gives all forms of control to an incorruptible set of business rules.
DAPP
A decentralised application (Dapp) is an application that is open source, operates autonomously, has its data stored on a blockchain, incentivised in the form of cryptographic tokens and operates on a protocol that shows proof of value.
Distributed Ledger
Distributed ledgers are ledgers in which data is stored across a network of decentralized nodes. Blockchain is based on distributed ledger technology, backed by miners who are keeping decentralized network working.
Double Spending
Double spending occurs when a sum of money is spent more than once.
Ethereum
Ethereum is a blockchain-based decentralised platform that can runs smart contracts.
Fiat money
Fiat money is currency that a government has declared to be legal tender, for example US dollar.
FOMO
FOMO stands for “Fear of Missing Out”. It’s the fear of missing out on something that others are enjoying, for example the fear of missing out on Bitcoin gains while others are picking out their lambos. FOMO is that feeling you get that drives you to buy into a coin, not take profits on a coin, or not to set stops on a coin that has already gone up considerably. It is the idea you get in your head that any sort of rational profit taking or waiting for a re-entry point now will result in you missing out. This fear of missing out is what causes people to buy at the top or hold during a dip after making profits.
Fork
Forks create an alternate version of the blockchain, leaving two blockchains to run simultaneously on different parts of the network. Example would be bitcoin (BTC) and its hard fork bitcoin cash (BCH).
FUD
FUD is Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (often spread on social media or mass media). FUD can cause the price of a coin to drop, not based on fundamentals or charts, but based on bad news that spreads around social media. Many times the bad news isn’t substantiated or grounded in reality, and instead ends up being something silly like a popular talking head’s opinion that Bitcoin is a bubble.
HODL
“Hodl” is simply a misspelling of “Hold” which was taken as “better”, funnier alternative to “Hold”.
ICO
ICO stands for Initial Coin Offering. It’s an event, sometimes referred to as ‘crowdsale’, when a company releases its own cryptocurrency with a purpose of funding. It usually releases a certain number of crypto-tokens and then sells those tokens to its intended audience, most commonly in exchange for , but it can be fiat money as well. As a result, the company gets the capital to fund the product development and the audience members get their crypto tokens’ shares. Plus, they have complete ownership of these shares.