A
Airdrop: In the crypto world airdrops consist of the free distribution of tokens to a community with the objective of gaining exposure and/or educating users about the project
Algorithm: It is a set of rules and steps to be followed to solve a problem, be it a calculation operation or of any other nature. In the crypto world, algorithms are used to verify transactions in mining.
Altcoin: It is a term used to refer to any cryptocurrency or token other than Bitcoin. Example ETH, BNB, XRP, MATIC
Arbitration: It is an investment technique that consists of buying on an exchange at a low price and selling them on another exchange at a higher price.
APR: Annual Percentage Rate (APR), refers to the interest rate applied to a financial transaction over a one-year period.
APY: Annual Percentage Yield (APY) is a method of calculating the amount of rewards earned on an investment over the course of a year.
ASIC: These are computer hardware specialized in specific computational calculations, many specialized ASICs are used for cryptocurrency mining.
B
Bagholder: Refers to an investor who still holds some cryptoasset after a Pump and Dump scheme.
Bearish: Refers to the bear market
Bear Trap: Refers to a situation in which the price of a cryptoasset is falling, but suddenly has a sharp rise that "catches" the "bear investors" who panic-sold their positions.
Blockchain: It is a type of digital structure organized in "blocks" that allows the development of technologies such as cryptocurrencies, these blocks record the valid transactions made with them.
Bullish: Refers to the bull market
Bull Trap: It is a situation where the price of a cryptocurrency goes up, inviting "bull investors" to buy, but then suffers a sharp drop and the bulls fall into the trap.
C
Cold wallet: Wallet that works offline (without internet connection), but the cryptocurrencies are inside the blockchain. It usually has to be connected through software to be able to mobilize the funds that are hosted at an address.
Consensus: Agreement reached by the majority of participants in a network as to the status of its blockchain and the rules of its protocol.
CBDC: They are a type of digital fiat currency that is issued by a country's central bank and therefore has legal tender value in that nation.
Cryptography: It is a set of information encryption techniques that work to protect sensitive data. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain are built with advanced cryptography.
Cryptocurrency: It is a cryptocurrency based exclusively on cryptography and acts as a monetary asset since it allows the transfer and reservation of value.
D
DAO: It refers to a revolutionary way of organizing and running organizations, making use of smart contracts and blockchain technology to offer transparency, immutability, autonomy, and security to them.
DoS: Denial of Service is a computer attack that consists of making mass requests to a server until it is saturated.
DAPP: They are decentralized applications that run autonomously, storing data within the blockchain and operating according to established parameters.
DeFi: It is an ecosystem of smart contracts and decentralized applications that aim to build a series of financial services based on blockchain technology.
Dex: Decentralized digital exchange house based on the blockchain and open source.
Double expense: Fraudulent operation based on making two payments with the same cryptocurrency unit.
Dumping: Refers to a situation of large sales of tokens causing a sharp drop in price.
E
Early bird: Refers to those investors who bought bitcoins in the early years of its history and are now enjoying the benefits.
Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM): It is a Turing complete virtual machine, whose mission is to execute the programming code of Ethereum operations.
ERC-20: It is a smart contract that has a pre-established data structure, ERC-20 tokens are one of the most widely used tokens in the crypto world.
ERC-721: Unlike ERC 20 tokens, their appeal lies in leveraging digital scarcity to take advantage of the effect that limited edition products create.
ETF: It is a financial tool that facilitates the adoption of securities within different markets so that they can be managed by investors and companies in a more convenient way.
Exchange: Digital exchange house that allows exchanging fiat money for cryptocurrencies and/or cryptocurrencies with each other.
F
Faucet: These are websites that give you a small fraction of a cryptocurrency for performing a simple action (e.g. filling in a captcha). Nowadays there are Faucets for many cryptocurrencies.
Fee: Commission charged when any transaction is performed within a blockchain.
Fiat: Fiduciary money in common use. The money issued by the different states or group of states. Examples: Euro, Dollar, Yuan, Ruble, Pound, etc.
FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out, a term used to define a state of mind of people in a market when faced with the possibility of missing out on an investment with potential gains.
FUD: “Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt”, term to define a state of mind of people within a market in the face of a possible price decrease.
G
Gas (Ethereum): Gas is the unit that measures the computational work required to carry out transactions and smart contracts.
Genesis block: It is the first block created and verified on a blockchain.
GitHub: Collaborative platform where programmers can host and jointly modify computer code for the development of various programs and applications.
H
Halving: Refers to the halving of the reward miners receive for confirming single transaction blocks in a cryptocurrency. In Bitcoin it occurs every 210,000 blocks mined, approximately every 4 years.
Hard fork: Forced forking of a blockchain, which usually occurs when a fairly major change is implemented in the software code of one network
Hash: It is an output code (unique and alphanumeric) that we obtain by applying an algorithm (hash function) on an input string (plain text, an image, a video...) which allows us to know if the original string has been altered.
Hash rate: This rate measures the processing power in a cryptocurrency, or, put another way, it is the number of hash operations performed in a certain amount of time.
HODL: It was born from a user's typo and is commonly used as an acronym for 'Hold on to dear life'.
Hot Wallet: They are a type of wallet that always remain connected to the Internet and the blockchain for which they are created.
I
ICO: “Initial Coin Offering”, It is a way to obtain financing to make large projects a reality, quickly and easily through the issuance of a currency on Blockchain technology.
IPFS: InterPlanetary File System is a decentralized file system that seeks to guarantee the security, privacy and resistance to censorship of your data.
Inflation: A process in the economy where the cost of products increases, causing the value of fiat money to decrease.
K
KYC (Know Your Customer): Process by which an entity or company identifies and verifies the identity of its users.
L
Lightning Network: Decentralized micropayment system that uses the Bitcoin blockchain and generates a channel for transactions, which aims to streamline transactions and reduce fees.
Liquidity: Market characteristic that allows us to recognize whether it is possible to buy or sell an asset quickly and smoothly in that market.
Long: It is interpreted as the purchase of a financial asset with the expectation that it may increase in value in the future.
M
Masternodo: Type of complete node in certain blockchains in charge of validating transactions in a Proof of Stake (PoS) system.
Mainnet: It is the main network of a blockchain, where the transactions of this cryptocurrency are registered and take place.
Market Cap: It is the result of multiplying the price of a cryptoasset or token by the total number of cryptoassets or tokens circulating in the market, indicating their overall value at a given time.
Margin Trading: It is a form of trading where the positions you take are leveraged by the broker or platforms you use to participate in the markets.
Mempool: Within a blockchain, it is a temporary memory where transactions pending confirmation are stored.
Mining: Is the process by which complex mathematical problems are solved to validate transactions on a blockchain and issue new coins.
N
NFT (Non-Fungible Token): It is a cryptographic token that has the ability to be a unique and unrepeatable token created to allow us to represent objects with unique, unrepeatable and indivisible qualities within a blockchain.
Nodo: Nodes are computers that connect to the network and have an up-to-date copy of the blockchain. Together with the miners, they are the guarantors of the network's proper functioning.
O
Oracle: These are automated systems that obtain information from different media or users to introduce them into the blockchain to be used in smart contracts.
OTC (Over-The-Counter): These types of transactions do not leave a public record and do not alter the market price; we are referring to transactions that do not operate or are not listed on a formal stock exchange.
P
P2P: Peer-to-Peer is a type of decentralized network where there is no central point of connection or control, and where the parties act autonomously, responding to a common communications protocol and consensus.
Phishing: It consists of the online impersonation of an authority, company, website or even a person, in order to trick the victim into revealing confidential information.
Proof of Stake (PoS): It is a transaction validation system for a network based on a series of masternodes that store cryptocurrencies in a wallet.
Proof of Work (PoW): It is a system for validating transactions on a network by solving mathematical operations using specialized computer equipment.
Protocol: Refers primarily to the consensual and formal rules under which participants in a decentralized network interact, connect with each other and validate transactions.
Private Key: A set of randomly generated characters of any type that serve as a unique and non-transferable password.
Public Key: Personal identifier based on our private key that we can share without fear with other people. In cryptocurrencies they are used to generate the addresses to which other people can send cryptocurrencies.
Pump: A term that expresses a notable and sudden rise in the value of a cryptocurrency.
R
Ransomware: It consists of a malicious program that, after being installed without permission on the computer or mobile device, encrypts most of the files or the entire hard disk, making it inaccessible to the user.
Roadmap: It is the plan that a project describes to include all the objectives to be achieved in the future. It is structured in goals accompanied by specific dates.
S
Satoshi: It is the minimum unit into which a bitcoin can be divided and is equivalent to 0.00000001 BTC
Scam: Refers to scams that are carried out specifically by electronic means to steal your cryptocurrencies.
Scammer: Refers to a person or entity that practices scam
Security Token: They are cryptographic tokens similar to any other, but linked to traditional securities.
Sidechain: It is an alternative blockchain that aims to improve the performance of an existing blockchain.
Solidity: It is a programming language based on JavaScript, Python and C++, specially designed to create smart contracts.
Seed Phrase: Refers to a set of 12 to 24 words, which are intended to provide us with an easy and simple way to back up our cryptocurrency wallet.
Shitcoin: It is formed by the words shit and coin, it refers to an altcoin that has no value.
Short: Means betting/investing on the fall in the price of a cryptocurrency or token.
Stablecoin: It is a cryptocurrency created so that its value remains stable with respect to a specific currency, such as the dollar.
Staking: Refers to the process by which a user acquires and locks a certain number of tokens in a PoS network to validate transactions and receive rewards.
Smarts contracts: It is an electronic algorithm that is configured on a blockchain to fulfill a previously established agreement between two or more parties.
T
Testnet: It is a secondary network of a blockchain for testing with cryptocurrencies that have no real value. Very useful for developers or people who want to test the network.
To The Moon: Expression originally used to say that the price of a cryptocurrency will going to rise significantly in value.
Token: It is a digital currency built with cryptography that relies on the blockchain of another currency to exist
Tokenization: It is a process of transformation and representation of an asset or object within a blockchain.
Tokenomics: It is a document that explains the characteristics, operation and usefulness of a token in order to create an economic ecosystem supported by such token.
U
Utility Token: Unlike the security token, which represents a future value, the utility token is a cryptoasset that grants the right to use certain services on a platform.
W
Wallet: It is software or hardware designed exclusively to store and manage our cryptocurrencies.
Whitepaper: Technical document describing the main characteristics or properties of a project based on blockchain technology and its corresponding cryptocurrency.
Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC): It is an ERC-20 token whose value is backed 1:1 with Bitcoin, and which aims to facilitate the migration of value from Bitcoin to Ethereum's DeFi ecosystem.
Y
Yield Farming: It is a strategy by which investors seek to establish the best form of investment to maximize their profits, leveraging their positions while using one or several DeFi platforms.