- Address
- A public string that can receive crypto on a particular blockchain. Safe to share; always check every character before sending.
- Address poisoning
- A scam where tiny transfers from a look-alike address are sent to you, hoping you later copy the wrong address from your history.
- Airdrop
- Free tokens sent to wallets, often for promotion. Many fake airdrops are traps that ask you to connect or sign something.
- Ask
- The lowest price a seller in the order book will accept.
- Bid
- The highest price a buyer in the order book will pay.
- Block
- A batch of transactions added to a blockchain.
- Cold wallet
- A wallet whose keys are kept offline, such as a hardware device.
- Custody
- Who controls the keys to an asset. On an exchange, the exchange does.
- De-peg
- When a stablecoin trades noticeably away from the price it targets. See stablecoins.
- Fiat
- Government-issued money such as the US dollar or euro.
- Funding rate
- A periodic payment between long and short traders of perpetual futures. See spot vs futures.
- Gas
- The fee paid to process a transaction on Ethereum and similar networks.
- Halving
- The cut in Bitcoin's mining reward roughly every four years. See halving explained.
- Hot wallet
- A wallet connected to the internet; convenient but more exposed to hacking.
- KYC
- Know your customer: identity checks regulated platforms must carry out.
- Leverage
- Borrowing to hold a larger position than your deposit alone allows.
- Limit order
- An order to trade only at your chosen price or better.
- Liquidation
- The automatic closing of a leveraged position when margin runs too low.
- Lot
- A standard forex position size; one standard lot is 100,000 units of the base currency.
- Maker
- An order that waits in the order book and adds liquidity.
- Market order
- An order that fills immediately at the best available prices.
- Network
- The blockchain a token moves on, such as Tron or Ethereum. Sending and receiving networks must match.
- Order book
- The live list of buy and sell orders on an exchange.
- Perpetual future
- A futures contract with no expiry date, kept close to spot price by funding payments.
- Pip
- The standard unit of movement in forex: 0.0001 for most pairs. See the pip calculator.
- Private key
- The secret that controls a crypto balance. Never share it.
- Proof of reserves
- A report showing the assets an exchange holds for customers.
- Recovery phrase
- 12 or 24 words that back up a wallet's keys. Anyone with them can take the funds.
- Slippage
- The gap between the price you expected and the price you got.
- Spot
- Buying or selling the actual asset for immediate delivery.
- Spread
- The difference between the best bid and best ask.
- Stablecoin
- A token designed to hold a steady value, usually one US dollar. See USDT.
- Taker
- An order that fills immediately against the order book, removing liquidity.
- TRC20
- The token standard on the Tron blockchain, widely used for USDT transfers.
- Two-factor authentication
- A second login check, ideally from an authenticator app, that protects accounts if a password leaks.
- Volatility
- How much and how fast a price moves.