A crypto glossary: 20 words to know

Address: a public string of characters that receives crypto, like an account number you can share.

Airdrop: free tokens sent to wallets, often as promotion. Unexpected airdrops are a common scam tool.

Altcoin: any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin.

Block: a batch of transactions added to a blockchain together.

Cold wallet: a wallet kept offline, usually a hardware device, for safer long-term storage.

Custody: who holds the keys to an asset. Custodial means a company holds them for you.

DeFi: decentralized finance, financial services run by smart contracts.

Gas fee: the fee paid to have a transaction processed on a network such as Ethereum.

Hash: a fixed-length digital fingerprint of data. Change the data and the hash changes completely.

KYC: know your customer, the identity checks licensed platforms must carry out.

Liquidity: how easily an asset can be bought or sold without moving its price.

Market cap: price per coin multiplied by the number of coins in circulation.

Mining: using computers to add blocks under proof of work, in return for new coins.

NFT: a non-fungible token, a unique token that records ownership of a specific item.

Private key: the secret that controls a wallet. Whoever has it controls the funds.

Seed phrase: 12 or 24 words that can restore a wallet. Never share it with anyone.

Stablecoin: a token designed to hold a steady value, usually one US dollar.

Staking: locking up tokens to help run a proof-of-stake network, in return for rewards.

Token: a digital asset created on an existing blockchain, often by a smart contract.

Volatility: how sharply a price moves up and down.