Glossary
51% Attack
A type of cyberattack in which an attacker gains control of more than 50% of the nodes of a blockchain network. This allows the attacker to manipulate transactions, prevent new blocks from being added to the blockchain, or to reverse existing transactions.
51% Attack
A type of cyberattack in which an attacker gains control of more than 50% of the nodes of a blockchain network. This allows the attacker to manipulate transactions, prevent new blocks from being added to the blockchain, or to reverse existing transactions.
A
ABI
Application Binary Interface (ABI) is an interface used to connect between operating systems and user applications. In EVM-compatible networks, it translates smart contract bytecode so that it can be read on EVM.
ABI is very similar to Application Program Interface (API) in allowing two programs to communicate but on a lower level. Upon searching in the library, you need to locate the code and resources you need inside the library file when using the API. However, with ABI, you can define how the contents from the library are stored in your file.
Smart contracts are written in a high-level language and ABI helps indicate the function caller to encode the information in a format that the EVM can understand. Essentially, a smart contract is just a sequence of bytecodes. They need to be translated into byte representation and converted to EVM readable value. Since EVM is strict in its conversion, the naming and functions need to be precise for the codes to go through. ABI helps in documenting these names and functions precisely and in parseable format.
Account
An object containing an address, balance, nonce and optional storage and code. An account can be a contract account or an EOA (externally owned account).
Address
Most generally, this represents an EOA or contract that can receive (destination address) or send (source address) transactions on the blockchain. More specifically, it is the right-most 160 bits of a Keccak hash of an ECDSA public key. More on Address here.
Airdrop
A token distribution mechanism or marketing campaign that distributes a specific cryptocurrency or token to a group of users, who typically have met certain qualifying criteria.
Algorithmic Stablecoin
A decentralized stablecoin that uses an algorithm to maintain its value and adjust its supply in response to demand. Unlike traditional stablecoins that are backed by a central reserve, algorithmic stablecoins rely on mathematical formulas to achieve stability. One popular example of an algorithmic stablecoin is DAI, which is built on the Ethereum blockchain and pegged to the US dollar.
Alpha
Information that is new or relatively unknown that can be used for potential gain, inclusive of token listings, airdrops, or major news events that could impact the price of a cryptocurrency.
All-Time-High (ATH)
Referring to the highest recorded price for a particular cryptocurrency, the term 'All-Time High' represents the peak point that the cryptocurrency has reached in its trading history.
Apeing
When a crypto trader buys a token immediately after its launch without conducting proper research or analysis, it involves impulsive and uninformed investment decisions based on FOMO or speculative hype. This approach carries risks due to the lack of due diligence and can lead to potential scams or poor investment outcomes.
API (Application Programming Interface)
A mechanism enabling communication between software systems through defined protocols, facilitating data exchange and integration.
Arbitrage
Making buy and sell transactions of the same asset at the same time and profiting from a difference in prices. Typically done across different markets, it is also possible to do by manipulating transaction ordering within the same block. More on this here.
ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit)
An integrated circuit chip that is customized for a very specific use instead of general-purpose functionality. The term is commonly used when discussing the hardware aspect of Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining. These ASIC miners are specifically designed and optimized to perform the complex calculations required for mining, providing significantly higher mining power and energy efficiency compared to general-purpose computer hardware.
Assert
In Solidity, assert(false) compiles to 0xfe, an invalid opcode, which uses up all remaining gas and reverts all changes. When an assert() statement fails, something very wrong and unexpected should be happening, and you will need to fix your code. You should use assert to avoid conditions which should never, ever occur.
B
Back running
The act of monitoring the transaction pool for a particular type of transaction (such as an oracle updating token price), then submitting a new transaction to take advantage of the previous one immediately afterwards (such as executing a liquidation of an on-chain loan after the oracle price update). More on this here.
Base Fee
A protocol-reserved price in each block which represents the minimum gas fee required for a user to include a transaction in the next block.
Beacon Block Hash
Blockroot hash of an assigned slot on the Beacon Chain.
Beacon Chain
The consensus layer, as part of the Ethereum network upgrade, introduces Proof-of-Stake to replace the initial Proof-of-Work consensus model. While it does not handle transactions or smart contracts, it is responsible for creating & validating new blocks, and rewarding validators with ETH for maintaining network security.
Beacon Committee Indices
Validators assigned to a Beacon Chain slot committee.
Block
A block is a collection of required information (a block header) about the comprised transactions, and a set of other block headers known as ommers. It is added to the Ethereum network by miners.
Block Explorer
A blockchain search engine providing analytics and details of a blockchain network since its genesis. Read more on Block Explorer here.
Block Height
The number of blocks produced in a network. The count starts from 0, with the very first block in a network commonly referred to as the Genesis Block. Block Height 99 indicates the position at which the 100th block has been produced.
Block Proposers
Validators chosen at random to propose blocks for validation/attestation.
Block Reward
The amount of Ether rewarded to the producer of a new valid block.
Blockchain
In Ethereum, a sequence of blocks validated by the proof-of-work system, each linking to its predecessor all the way to the genesis block. This varies from the Bitcoin protocol in that it does not have a block size limit; it instead uses varying gas limits.
Bridge
An interoperability protocol or software that allows users to move their tokens between different blockchain networks. More on this here.
BTD
Buy The Dip.
Buidl
A play on the root word 'build' (similar to hodl vs hold). The word describes the act of building and contributing to the growth of the decentralized industry rather than just investing in it.
Bytecode
Abstract instruction set designed for efficient execution by a software interpreter or a virtual machine. Unlike human readable source code, bytecode is expressed in numeric format.
Byzantium fork
Byzantium is the first of two hard forks for the Metropolis development stage. It included EIP-649: Metropolis Difficulty Bomb Delay and Block Reward Reduction, where the Ice Age (see below) was delayed by 1 year, and the block reward was reduced from 5 to 3 ether.
C
Canonical Chain
The main or longest chain of valid blocks in a blockchain network represents the agreed-upon version of the blockchain that is accepted by the majority of network participants as the legitimate and valid history of transactions.
Compiling
Converting code written in a high-level programming language (e.g. Solidity) into a lower level language (e.g. EVM bytecode).
Consensus
When numerous nodes, usually most nodes on the network, all have the same blocks in their locally validated best block chain. Not to be confused with "consensus rules".
Consensus rules
The block validation rules that full nodes follow to stay in consensus with other nodes. Not to be confused with "consensus".
Constantinople
The second part of the Metropolis stage, planned for mid-2018. Expected to include a switch to hybrid Proof-of-Work/Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm, among other changes.
Contract account
An account containing code that executes whenever it receives a transaction from another account (EOA or contract).
Contract creation transaction
A special transaction, with the "zero address" as the recipient, that is used to register a contract and record it on the Ethereum blockchain (see "zero address").
Convexity
Convexity, in simpler terms, describes how gains or losses from investments can be amplified by changes in collateral value, affecting risk and potential liquidation.
As coin-margined futures contracts regain visibility via popular twitter accounts such as Smartestmoney.eth, it’s important to understand the concept of nonlinear payout structures a.k.a. “convexity”.
Coin-margined futures contracts differ from stablecoin-margined contracts in that they are denominated and settled in the underlying crypto asset, rather than a USD equivalent. The advantage of this is being able to “long your longs”, e.g. using ETH as collateral to long ETH-USD. In this example, if ETH appreciates against USD, the trader will benefit from both a positive PnL on their position, but also in the increase in value of their collateral. Conversely, if ETH depreciates against USD, the trader will incur losses from both a negative PnL on their position as well as the decreased value of their collateral. This is an important consideration as it relates to liquidation levels and risk management - if ETH falls 20%, their position PNL falls by 20% and their collateral value falls by 20%, increasing their effective leverage and thus liquidation price by 20%. For a deeper dive, refer to these articles by Arthur Hayes and Binance.
D
DAO
Decentralized Autonomous Organization, or Dao, is an organization(s) that has no hierarchical management with its members sharing a common goal and participating in the decision-making process. More on DAO here.
DApp
Decentralized Application. At a minimum, it is a smart contract and a web user-interface. More broadly, a DApp is a web application that is built on top of open, decentralized, peer-to-peer infrastructure services. In addition, many DApps include decentralized storage and/or message protocol and platform. More on Dapp here.
Data Availability Sampling
A process by which a light node can download small chunks of block data several times to verify with high probability that the block is valid. Read more about it here.
Deed
Non-fungible token (NFT) standard introduced by the ERC-721 proposal. Unlike ERC-20 tokens, deeds prove ownership and are not interchangeable, though they are not recognized as legal documents in any jurisdiction, at least not currently (see also "NFT").
DeFi
A pun on the word "defy", it stands for "Decentralized Finance". The term is referring to financial smart contracts, protocols, and decentralized applications built on Ethereum. More on DeFi here.
Deposit Contract
The contract address that an Ethereum validator deposits ETH into on the Execution Layer before they can start running a validator.
DEX
The decentralized exchange (DEX) allows users to exchange or swap cryptocurrencies while maintaining ownership of their own crypto assets without intermediaries. Although, some technical skills and understanding are required for the process to go through properly compared to its centralized counterparty.
DEX functions by using smart contracts to execute any transaction that happens on the exchange. Users need to connect their wallet to the DEX’s smart contract for them to read the token balance. If the balance is not enough, the transaction will not be able to go through. Depending on the transaction made, a trading fee might also be added on top of the regular transaction fee incurred by the platform.
With the absence of intermediaries, it is important for a DEX to have a good amount of liquidity. Some of the DEXs incentivize users with a percentage yield when they stake their tokens on the platform. This will allow the platform to have more liquidity for other transactions. Some of the DEXs lend from other platforms to ensure that they have enough liquidity at a given time.
Diamond Hands
Risk-tolerant traders who hold onto assets regardless of market conditions or short-term fluctuations, in contrast to 'Paper Hands' who make quick exits.
Difficulty
A network-wide setting that controls how much computation is required to produce a proof of work.
Digital signature
A digital signing algorithm is a process by which a user can produce a short string of data called a "signature" of a document using a private key such that anyone with the corresponding public key, the signature, and the document can verify that (1) the document was "signed" by the owner of that particular private key, and (2) the document was not changed after it was signed.
Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAG)
A different data structure that is similar to blockchain, but uses vertices and edges instead of blocks. The transactions are built on top of another instead of being gathered into blocks. More on DAG here.
Dispersion
Dispersion is a measure of variance in the performance of assets that can help identify trending or consolidation periods. A simple approach to determining dispersion is the range between the best and worst performing assets in a portfolio. For example, in May 2024 PEPE is up 118% while WIF is up only 37% showing a relatively high degree of dispersion in the memecoin asset class. This is typical of difficult PvP (zero-sum-game) trading conditions where capital is being rotated rapidly. Conversely, periods of low dispersion, where an asset class is trending up at a similar rate suggest easier PvE conditions.
Distributed Hash Table (DHT)
A decentralized storage system that looks up data through key-value pairs across a network of nodes. It evenly distributes the data using a hash function, allowing efficient retrieval and fault tolerance. It is commonly used in peer-to-peer networks.
Doxx
The art of digital forensics on using information found on the web such as social media accounts, addresses, web comments and more to identify a person in real life.
Drop
The public release of an NFT collection, including details such as time, date, minting platform, and minting price.
E
ECDSA
Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm, or ECDSA, is a cryptographic algorithm used by Ethereum to ensure that funds can only be spent by their owners.
The algorithm is based on a digital signature authentication method that requires a public key pair and a digital certificate. These two components will be used as a means to verify the sender and recipient information.
The ECDSA uses smaller keys compared to the other digital signing signatures that makes it more efficient without sacrificing security. Although it is relatively simple to compute the key in one direction, it is very difficult to reverse the process. The ECDSA certificate produced by the ECDSA contains information about the certificate owner, signature of the certificate issuer and the key used to create the certificate. The complexity of the ECDSA key-creation process is the reason why cryptography is implemented in the Ethereum blockchain network.
EIP
Ethereum Improvement Proposals describe proposed standards for the Ethereum platform. An EIP is a design document providing information to the Ethereum community, describing a new feature or its processes or environment. For more information, see https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs (see also "ERC").
Entropy
In the context of cryptography, lack of predictability, or level of randomness. When generating secret information, such as private keys, algorithms usually rely on a source of high entropy to ensure the output is unpredictable.
ENS
Ethereum Name Service. For more information, see https://github.com/ethereum/ens/.
EOA
Externally Owned Account. Accounts created by or for human users of the Ethereum network.
Epoch
In Ethereum, an epoch is a period of 32 slots where the validators propose and attest for blocks. The validators are reshuffled into committees at the start of each epoch for security purposes. Since the time allocated for each slot is 12 seconds, the whole epoch will spend approximately 6.4 minutes in total time. More on Epoch here.
Erasure Coding
A way to scale data storage in a cost-efficient manner compared to simple replication. More on Erasure Coding here.
ERC
Ethereum Request for Comments, a label given to some EIPs which attempt to define a specific standard of Ethereum usage.
Ethash
A Proof-of-Work algorithm for Ethereum 1.0. For more information, see https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Ethash.
Ether
Ether is the native cryptocurrency used by the Ethereum ecosystem, which covers gas costs when executing Smart Contracts. Its symbol is Ξ, the Greek uppercase Xi character.
Event
An event allows the use of EVM logging facilities. DApps can listen for events and use them to trigger JavaScript callbacks in the user interface. For more information, see http://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/develop/contracts.html#events.
EVM
Ethereum Virtual Machine, a stack-based virtual machine which executes bytecode. In Ethereum, the execution model specifies how the system state is altered given a series of bytecode instructions and a small tuple of environmental data. This is specified through a formal model of a virtual state machine.
EVM assembly language
A human-readable form of EVM bytecode.
F
Factory Contract
A smart contract designed to create and deploy other smart contracts. It serves as a blueprint or template, generating specific instances like Uniswap pools for users to interact with.
Fallback function
A default function called in the absence of data or a declared function name. Read more details here.
Faucet
A service that dispenses funds in the form of free test ether that can be used on a testnet.
Fiat
A type of currency that a government declares to be legal tender, meaning it must be accepted as a form of payment within the country. Unlike commodity money (such as gold or silver), which has intrinsic value, or representative money (like a gold certificate), which can be exchanged for a commodity.
Finality
A block is declared final and can never be changed after a small period of time (2 epochs i.e. 64 slots at time of writing). All the transactions in that block and all previous transactions are permanent and immutable.
Finney
A denomination of ether. 10 ** 15 finney = 1 ether.
Flash loan
A loan that is borrowed and repaid in the same transaction. Flash loans allow users to borrow tokens without any collateral and use them for DeFi activities such as arbitrage and liquidation. More on Flash Loan here.
Flashbots
A research and development organization that aims to mitigate the negative externalities posed by Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) to Ethereum.
Flip
Buying an asset and quickly reselling it for profit by taking advantage of short-term price changes.
Floor price
The lowest current asking price for an NFT in a particular collection.
FOMO
Fear Of Missing Out.
Fork
A change in protocol causing the creation of an alternative chain. Read more on fork here.
Fraud Proofs
Succinct proofs that a proposed block is invalid which can be easily verified by light (i.e. low-cost) nodes.
Frontier
The initial test development stage of Ethereum, which lasted from July 2015 to March 2016.
Front running
The act of monitoring the transaction pool for a particular type of transaction (such as purchasing an Ethereum domain name), then submitting the same transaction with a higher gas fee to ensure it goes through instead of the targeted transaction. More on this here.
FUD
Stands for "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt". May be evoked intentionally to put a competitor at a disadvantage.
Futures
Derivative financial contracts which require transacting parties to transact at a predetermined future date and price. Upon expiration of the contract, both buyer and seller must exchange the underlying asset at the set price regardless of its market price.
G
Ganache
Personal Ethereum blockchain which you can use to run tests, execute commands, and inspect state while controlling how the chain operates. Read more here.
Gas
It represents the unit of computational resource consumed when executing a transaction on Ethereum. The amount of gas required for a transaction varies depending on the complexity of the transaction.
Gas limit
The maximum amount of gas a transaction or block may consume.
Generative Art
The fusion of art and code, utilizing randomization and algorithms to create a collection of distinct designs. These designs are generated based on a shared set of initial designs or design layers, often resulting in unique variations and varying levels of rarity.
Genesis block
The first block in a blockchain, used to initialize a particular network and its cryptocurrency.
Geth
Go Ethereum. One of the most prominent implementations of the Ethereum protocol, written in Go.
GM
Good Morning.
Goerli
An Ethereum testnet. Check out the block explorer here
H
Hard fork
A hard fork, also known as a Hard-Forking Change, is a permanent divergence in the blockchain; one commonly occurs when non-upgraded nodes can’t validate blocks created by upgraded nodes that follow newer consensus rules. Not to be confused with fork, soft fork, software fork or Git fork. Read more on hard fork here.
Hardhat
A comprehensive development environment and testing framework for Ethereum smart contracts. It provides tools for compiling contracts, running tests & debugging, and managing contract deployments on Ethereum networks.
Hash
fixed-length fingerprint of variable-size input, produced by a hash function.
Hash Rate
A unit of measurement for the amount of computing power consumed during mining for POW blockchains.
HD wallet
A wallet using the Hierarchical Deterministic (HD Protocol) key creation and transfer protocol (BIP32).
HD wallet seed
An HD wallet seed, or seed, is a value used to generate the master private key and master chain code for an HD wallet. The wallet seed can be represented by mnemonic words, making it easier for humans to copy, backup and restore private keys.
Homestead
The second development stage of Ethereum, launched in March 2016 at block #1,150,000.
Honeypot
A token contract that permits buying a token but restricts or limits selling it to certain addresses only.
I
Ice Age
A hard fork of Ethereum at block #200,000 to introduce an exponential difficulty increase (aka Difficulty Bomb), motivating a transition to Proof-of-Stake.
IDE
Short for Integrated Development Environment, an integrated user interface that typically combines a code editor, compiler, runtime, and debugger.
Immutable Deployed Code Problem
Once a contract’s (or library’s) code is deployed it becomes immutable. Standard software development practices rely on being able to fix possible bugs and add new features, so this represents a challenge for smart contract development.
Impermanent Loss
A situation where a liquidity provider (LP) to a trading pair on a DEX experiences unrealized financial loss by providing liquidity compared to simply holding the two tokens. This happens as the value of one of the tokens in the pair has dropped significantly compared to the other while the LP returns have not sufficiently accumulated.
Internal transaction (also "message")
A transaction sent from a contract account to another contract account or an EOA.
Invalidation
In order for a trade setup to have defined risk parameters, it should be composed of an entry, target and invalidation. This invalidation is a point at which your thesis no longer makes sense and can be either a price or fundamental trigger.
IPFS
The Inter Planetary File System is a protocol, a network and an open-source project designed to create a content-addressable, peer-to-peer method of storing and sharing hypermedia in a distributed file system.
Istanbul
The eight development stage of Ethereum, launched at block #9,069,000
J
Java Virtual Machine (JVM)
A virtual machine that enables the execution of Java programs. It transforms Java bytecode into computer code, allowing the system software to interpret it. The JVM manages storage and ensures operating system independence for Java applications.
K
Keccak256
Cryptographic hash function used in Ethereum. Keccak256 was standardized as SHA-3.
Keylogger
Surveillance software used by hackers to capture user input on a computer keyboard, including keystrokes, for unauthorized access to sensitive information.
Keystore File
A JSON-encoded file that contains a single (randomly generated) private key, encrypted by a passphrase for extra security.
Kovan
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
KYC
Know Your Customer; It is a user identification process instated by businesses and regulators in order to substantiate and understand the risk of a potential user.
L
Layer 2 (L2)
Layer 2 refers to several approaches to handle transactions off the main Ethereum chain. These allow for higher scalability of the network and reduced transaction fees. Some examples include Optimistic and Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Rollups, Validium, Plasma and State Channels.
Leverage
The ratio of borrowed funds to the trader's own capital, allowing control of larger trading positions compared to available capital.
Library
A library in Ethereum is a special type of contract that has no payable functions, no fallback function, and no data storage. Therefore, it cannot receive or hold ether, or store data. A library serves as previously deployed code that other contracts can call for read-only computation.
Lightweight client
A lightweight client is an Ethereum client that does not store a local copy of the blockchain, or validate blocks and transactions. It offers the functions of a wallet and can create and broadcast transactions.
Liquid Staking
A staking mechanism where a staking pool or exchange provides users with derivative tokens when they stake the original tokens with the staking pool or exchange. The derivative tokens may then be used in other DeFi activities instead of being locked. Read more here.
Liquidation
In Defi, it refers to the process of selling assets off from an under-collateralized loan. More on Liquidation here.
Liquidity
The degree to which an asset, such as Ethereum, can be bought or sold quickly in the market without causing a significant impact on its price. It measures the ease of converting the asset into cash or other assets. Liquidity can be influenced by various factors, including trading volume, the number of market participants, the presence of market makers, and the availability of trading pairs on different exchanges.
M
Margin
The collateral or initial investment in cryptocurrency trading required to open and maintain a leveraged position. It involves the use of borrowed funds to amplify trading positions in crypto, enabling the potential for larger profits but also increasing the risk of larger losses.
Merkle Patricia Tree
A data structure used in Ethereum to efficiently store key-value pairs.
Message
An internal transaction that is never serialized and only sent within the EVM.
Message Call
The act of passing a message from one Account to another. If the destination account is associated with EVM Code, then the VM will be started with the state of said Object and the Message acted upon.
Metaverse
A simulated digital environment that uses AR, VR and blockchain along with concepts from social media to create spaces for rich user interaction mimicking the real world.
Method ID
The first 4 bytes in hex (8 characters) of the Keccak hash result of the ASCII form of a function signature e.g. functioname(uint32,bool), also called a function selector.
Metropolis
Metropolis is the third development stage of Ethereum, launched in October 2017.
MEV
Short for Maximal Extractable Value (previously Miner Extractable Value), it refers to the value that a miner or validator are able to obtain from reordering transactions within the blocks they produce, on top of the block reward and transaction fees they normally benefit from. Transactions leading to MEV include arbitrage and liquidations. More on this here.
MEV Relay
A trusted mediator connecting Ethereum validators and block builders, allowing validators to offer their block space to maximize extractable value (MEV).
Miner
A network node that finds valid proof of work for new blocks, by repeated hashing.
Mint
In general, coin minting refers to the process of generating a country's currency with government approval. In crypto, it refers to creating new tokens on a blockchain.
Mist
The first Ethereum-enabled browser, built by the Ethereum Foundation. It contains a browser based wallet that was the first implementation of the ERC-20 token standard (Fabian Vogelsteller, author of ERC-20, was also the main developer of Mist). Mist was also the first wallet to introduce the camelCase checksum (EIP-55). Mist runs a full node, and offers a full DApp browser with support for Swarm-based storage and ENS addresses.
N
NatSpec
Ethereum Natural Language Specification Format. A standard format of comments to provide smart contract documentation for end-users and developers.
Network
Referring to the Ethereum network, a peer-to-peer network that propagates transactions and blocks to every Ethereum node (network participant).
NFT
A non-fungible token (also known as a "deed"). This is a token standard introduced by the ERC-721 proposal. NFTs can be tracked and traded, but each token is unique and distinct; they are not interchangeable like ERC-20 tokens. NFTs can represent ownership of digital or physical assets.
NGMI
Not Gonna Make It.
Node
A software client that participates in the network.
Nonce
In cryptography, a value that can only be used once. There are two types of nonce used in Ethereum. (1) An account nonce: A transaction counter in each account, which is used to prevent replay attacks. (2) Proof of work nonce: The random value in a block that was used to satisfy the proof of work.
O
Off-Chain
Any activity or transaction that occurs outside the Ethereum blockchain network involves conducting operations or storing data without directly involving the blockchain’s decentralized consensus mechanism. Off-chain transactions are typically faster and less expensive than on-chain transactions.
On-Chain Governance
A voting system where participating nodes can vote to approve or reject changes to a blockchain protocol.
On-Ramp
A gateway facilitating the purchase of crypto assets for new users, allowing them to convert fiat currency into cryptocurrencies using familiar payment methods like cash, card, or bank transfers.
OpSec
Short for Operations Security, OPSEC refers to a set of practices and principles aimed at identifying risks, implementing countermeasures to prevent them, and safeguarding information and systems.
Optimistic Rollups
Layer 2 scaling solutions that bundle transactions together, assuming their validity, for faster and cheaper processing. Disputes are resolved on the main blockchain if any invalid transactions are detected. They enhance scalability and reduce fees in blockchain networks.
P
Paper Hands
Traders with low-risk tolerance who quickly exit positions at the first sign of disturbances, contrasting with Diamond Hands' resilience during market downturns.
Perpetual Trading
A type of derivative trading which allows traders to speculate on crypto prices without owning the assets, resembling futures contracts with no expiration. It allows leveraged exposure but also comes with high risk and requires a good understanding of the market and risk management.
Play-to-Earn
A business/tokenomics model commonly utilized in gaming projects where the gamers/users earn financial rewards from playing the game.
Ponzi Scheme
A fraudulent investment scheme that promises high returns to investors, typically in a short period, by using funds from new investors to pay returns to earlier investors. The scheme operates by creating the illusion of a legitimate investment opportunity, often with false claims of guaranteed profits or exclusive access to special investments.
PoS Staking
It involves participants, known as validators, locking up a certain amount of cryptocurrency as collateral (staking) to be eligible to validate transactions and create new blocks.
Pre-mine
The act of mining or creating and distributing a quantity of coins or blockchain-based assets before it is made available to the public.
Private key
The secret number that allows Ethereum users to prove ownership of an account or contracts, by producing a digital signature (see public key, address, ECDSA).
Private transaction
A transaction that bypassed the Ethereum transaction pool and was sent directly to miners.
Proof-of-Stake (PoS)
Proof-of-Stake is a method by which a cryptocurrency blockchain protocol aims to achieve distributed consensus. Proof-of-Stake asks users to prove ownership of a certain amount of cryptocurrency (their "stake" in the network) in order to be able to participate in the validation of transactions.
Proof-of-Work (PoW)
A piece of data (the proof) that requires significant computation to find. In Ethereum, miners must find a numeric solution to the Ethash algorithm that meets a network-wide difficulty target.
Public key
A number, derived via a one-way function from a private key, which can be shared publicly and used by anyone to verify a digital signature made with the corresponding private key.
R
Rebase
Feature of certain tokens where the token total supply changes automatically (increases or decreases) to meet its target price.
Rebase Token
An asset that automatically adjusts its supply in response to crypto price fluctuations, providing stability and mitigating volatility.
Receipt
Data returned by an Ethereum client to represent the result of a particular transaction, including a hash of the transaction, its block number, the amount of gas used and, in case of deployment of a Smart Contract, the address of the Contract.
Re-entrancy attack
An attack that consists of an Attacker contract calling a Victim contract function in such a way that during execution the Victim calls the Attacker contract again, recursively. This can result, for example, in the theft of funds by skipping parts of the Victim contract that update balances or count withdrawal amounts. Read more about it here.
Rekt
Deriving from the original word 'wrecked', it is usually used as an expression by a person who has just suffered a significant loss in cryptocurrency.
Reward
An amount of ether included in each new block as a reward by the network to the miner who found the Proof-of-Work solution.
Rinkeby
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
Ropsten
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
S
Safu
An intentional misspelling of the word "safe", originally by a content creator named Bizonacci. It is now popularly used to inform users that funds are, in fact, safe.
Sandwich attack
The act of monitoring the transaction pool for a sufficiently valuable transaction (such as a large trade on a decentralized exchange), then submitting two transactions 'sandwiching' the target transaction. The first one immediately before the target pushes price in one direction, while the second one immediately after the target does the opposite. The attacker profits from the arbitrage between their two transactions. More on this here.
Satoshi Nakamoto
The name used by the person or people who designed Bitcoin, created its original reference implementation, and were the first to solve the double-spend problem for digital currency. Their real identity remains unknown.
Sepolia
An Ethereum testnet. Check out the block explorer here.
Serenity
The fourth and final development stage of Ethereum. Serenity does not yet have a planned release date.
SHA
The Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) is a family of cryptographic hash functions published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Sidechain
A blockchain that is connected to another via a two-way peg.
Sign Message
The act of digitally signing a message as proof of ownership or control over a specific Ethereum wallet address.
Slashing
Slashing involves the deduction of validator’s stake if a validator is found guilty in breaking the rules in consensus mechanism of the network.
Slot
Slot the beacon committee is assigned to attest.
Smart contract
A program which executes on the Ethereum computing infrastructure.
Solidity
A procedural (imperative) programming language with syntax that is similar to JavaScript, C++ or Java. The most popular and most frequently used language for Ethereum smart contracts. Created by Gavin Wood (co-author of this book).
Solidity inline assembly
EVM assembly language in a Solidity program. Solidity’s support for inline assembly makes it easier to write certain operations.
Soulbound Token
A non-transferable token permanently tied to the holder's wallet and identity, unable to be sold or given to others. SBTs are designed to represent digital assets that cannot be acquired by purchasing, such as certificates of competence, reputation, medical records, etc.
Source epoch
Last justified checkpoint during the assigned slot.
Spurious Dragon
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,675,000 to address more denial of service attack vectors, and another state clearing; see "Tangerine Whistle". Also, a replay attack protection mechanism.
Stablecoin
Tokens that are pegged to the price of a separate stable asset, most commonly with the US Dollar. Stablecoins are backed by one of these four collateral structures: crypto-backed, fiat-backed, commodity-backed, or algorithmic. More on Stablecoin here.
Staking
A deposit of funds to receive returns. It can be applied to consensus layer (Proof-Of-Stake), Dapps for yield or DAOs for governance and many others.
Swarm
A decentralized (P2P) storage network, used along with Web3 and Whisper to build DApps.
Szabo
A denomination of ether. 10^12 szabo = 1 ether.
T
Tangerine Whistle
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,463,000 to change the gas calculation for certain I/O-intensive operations and to clear the accumulated state from a denial of service attack, which exploited the low gas cost of those operations.
Target epoch
The checkpoint being justified to be the chain tip.
Testnet
Short for "test network", a network used to simulate the behavior of the main Ethereum network.
The Merge
When the Ethereum protocol transitioned from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.
Ticker
A short, unique identifier used to represent a particular token. Tickers are typically three to five letters long, and they are often derived from the name of the token. For example, the ticker for Ethereum is ETH, and the ticker for Tether USD is USDT.
Timelock
A condition for a transaction to only be processed at a certain time or block on the blockchain.
Token Allowance
Permitting another address to spend tokens on your behalf. Check your allowances using our Token Approvals tool.
Token Spamming
Token spamming on Etherscan is when an address sends an unwanted token to one or more addresses multiple times. Read in more detail in our blog article.
Token Spoofing
A situation where an address is impersonating another address to transfer token(s). From the transaction hash, it may look like address A is transferring a certain token to address B, but it is actually being transferred from address C. Read in more detail in our blog article.
TradFi
Short for Traditional Finance, referring to the mainstream non-blockchain finance industry.
Transaction
Data committed to the Ethereum Blockchain signed by an originating account, targeting a specific address. The transaction contains metadata such as the gas limit for the transaction.
Transaction Fee
The total cost incurred by users for their transactions to be included in the blockchain. It comprises the base fee, which covers computational resources, and an optional tip to prioritize the inclusion of their transaction in a block.
Transaction Pool
Also known as Mempool, the transaction pool refers to the collection of pending transactions that have been created by users and are pending confirmation by miners.
Truffle
A development framework that focuses on smart contract development and utilizes EVM. Read more here.
Turing complete
A system of data-manipulation rules (such as a computer’s instruction set, a programming language, or a cellular automaton) is said to be "Turing complete" or "computationally universal" if it can be used to simulate any Turing machine. The concept is named after English mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing.
TVL
Total Value Locked refers to the amount of value that is locked inside a DeFi application or ecosystem.
U
Uncle Block
A non-canonical block created when multiple miners simultaneously mine on Ethereum before The Merge. Only one block becomes part of the canonical chain, while the others are uncle blocks. Miners of uncle blocks receive reduced rewards.
V
Validator
Validators propose and attest new blocks on the Beacon Chain and participate in securing the network. A validator stakes 32 ETH into the validator deposit contract on the Execution Layer and is rewarded in ETH as a percentage of their stake when successfully proposing or attesting to a block.
Validity Proof
Cryptographic evidence that verifies the correctness or integrity of a claim or statement within a system or context (with no real information shared between two parties). These are commonly used in cryptographic protocols and verification processes to ensure security and compliance.
Vitalik Buterin
Vitalik Buterin is a Russian–Canadian programmer and writer primarily known as the co-founder of Ethereum and as the co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine.
Volatility
The degree of price fluctuations or variability in the value of Ethereum or any other asset over a specific period. In the context of Ethereum, volatility represents the rapid and significant changes in its price or market value.
Vyper
A high-level programming language, similar to Serpent, with Python-like syntax. Intended to get closer to a pure-functional language. Created by Vitalik Buterin.
W
WAGMI
We’re All Gonna Make It.
Wallet
Software that holds private keys. Used to access and control Ethereum accounts and interact with Smart Contracts. Keys need not be stored in a wallet, and can instead be retrieved from an offline storage (e.g. a memory card or paper) for improved security. Despite the name, wallets never store the actual coins or tokens.
Web3
The third version of the web. First proposed by Gavin Wood, Web3 represents a new vision and focus for web applications: from centrally owned and managed applications, to applications built on decentralized protocols.
Wei
The smallest denomination of ether. 10^18 wei = 1 ether.
WGMI
We Gonna Make It.
Whisper
A decentralized (P2P) messaging service. It is used along with Web3 and Swarm to build DApps.
White Hat Hacker
A hacker that exposes security vulnerabilities to help protect projects/protocols/users from malicious hackers.
Whitelist
A Presale list that guarantees you an allocation to mint an NFT or buy tokens in an ICO or IDO.
Z
Zero address
A special Ethereum address, composed entirely of zeros, that is specified as the destination address of a contract creation transaction.
Zero-Knowledge Proof
A cryptographic method that allows an individual to prove that a statement is true without conveying any additional information apart from the fact that the statement is indeed true.
Zero-Knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups)
ZK-rollups is a type of layer 2 scaling solution that bundles transactions into batches and shares the validity proof on a Layer 1 protocol such as the Ethereum mainnet.
zk-SNARK
Zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive Argument of Knowledge. A cryptographic process that allows one entity to prove it possesses certain information without having to disclose that specific information.
Back running
The act of monitoring the transaction pool for a particular type of transaction (such as an oracle updating token price), then submitting a new transaction to take advantage of the previous one immediately afterwards (such as executing a liquidation of an on-chain loan after the oracle price update). More on this here.
Base Fee
A protocol-reserved price in each block which represents the minimum gas fee required for a user to include a transaction in the next block.
Beacon Block Hash
Blockroot hash of an assigned slot on the Beacon Chain.
Beacon Chain
The consensus layer, as part of the Ethereum network upgrade, introduces Proof-of-Stake to replace the initial Proof-of-Work consensus model. While it does not handle transactions or smart contracts, it is responsible for creating & validating new blocks, and rewarding validators with ETH for maintaining network security.
Beacon Committee Indices
Validators assigned to a Beacon Chain slot committee.
Block
A block is a collection of required information (a block header) about the comprised transactions, and a set of other block headers known as ommers. It is added to the Ethereum network by miners.
Block Explorer
A blockchain search engine providing analytics and details of a blockchain network since its genesis. Read more on Block Explorer here.
Block Height
The number of blocks produced in a network. The count starts from 0, with the very first block in a network commonly referred to as the Genesis Block. Block Height 99 indicates the position at which the 100th block has been produced.
Block Proposers
Validators chosen at random to propose blocks for validation/attestation.
Block Reward
The amount of Ether rewarded to the producer of a new valid block.
Blockchain
In Ethereum, a sequence of blocks validated by the proof-of-work system, each linking to its predecessor all the way to the genesis block. This varies from the Bitcoin protocol in that it does not have a block size limit; it instead uses varying gas limits.
Bridge
An interoperability protocol or software that allows users to move their tokens between different blockchain networks. More on this here.
BTD
Buy The Dip.
Buidl
A play on the root word 'build' (similar to hodl vs hold). The word describes the act of building and contributing to the growth of the decentralized industry rather than just investing in it.
Bytecode
Abstract instruction set designed for efficient execution by a software interpreter or a virtual machine. Unlike human readable source code, bytecode is expressed in numeric format.
Byzantium fork
Byzantium is the first of two hard forks for the Metropolis development stage. It included EIP-649: Metropolis Difficulty Bomb Delay and Block Reward Reduction, where the Ice Age (see below) was delayed by 1 year, and the block reward was reduced from 5 to 3 ether.
Canonical Chain
The main or longest chain of valid blocks in a blockchain network represents the agreed-upon version of the blockchain that is accepted by the majority of network participants as the legitimate and valid history of transactions.
Compiling
Converting code written in a high-level programming language (e.g. Solidity) into a lower level language (e.g. EVM bytecode).
Consensus
When numerous nodes, usually most nodes on the network, all have the same blocks in their locally validated best block chain. Not to be confused with "consensus rules".
Consensus rules
The block validation rules that full nodes follow to stay in consensus with other nodes. Not to be confused with "consensus".
Constantinople
The second part of the Metropolis stage, planned for mid-2018. Expected to include a switch to hybrid Proof-of-Work/Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm, among other changes.
Contract account
An account containing code that executes whenever it receives a transaction from another account (EOA or contract).
Contract creation transaction
A special transaction, with the "zero address" as the recipient, that is used to register a contract and record it on the Ethereum blockchain (see "zero address").
Convexity
Convexity, in simpler terms, describes how gains or losses from investments can be amplified by changes in collateral value, affecting risk and potential liquidation.
As coin-margined futures contracts regain visibility via popular twitter accounts such as Smartestmoney.eth, it’s important to understand the concept of nonlinear payout structures a.k.a. “convexity”.
Coin-margined futures contracts differ from stablecoin-margined contracts in that they are denominated and settled in the underlying crypto asset, rather than a USD equivalent. The advantage of this is being able to “long your longs”, e.g. using ETH as collateral to long ETH-USD. In this example, if ETH appreciates against USD, the trader will benefit from both a positive PnL on their position, but also in the increase in value of their collateral. Conversely, if ETH depreciates against USD, the trader will incur losses from both a negative PnL on their position as well as the decreased value of their collateral. This is an important consideration as it relates to liquidation levels and risk management - if ETH falls 20%, their position PNL falls by 20% and their collateral value falls by 20%, increasing their effective leverage and thus liquidation price by 20%. For a deeper dive, refer to these articles by Arthur Hayes and Binance.
D
DAO
Decentralized Autonomous Organization, or Dao, is an organization(s) that has no hierarchical management with its members sharing a common goal and participating in the decision-making process. More on DAO here.
DApp
Decentralized Application. At a minimum, it is a smart contract and a web user-interface. More broadly, a DApp is a web application that is built on top of open, decentralized, peer-to-peer infrastructure services. In addition, many DApps include decentralized storage and/or message protocol and platform. More on Dapp here.
Data Availability Sampling
A process by which a light node can download small chunks of block data several times to verify with high probability that the block is valid. Read more about it here.
Deed
Non-fungible token (NFT) standard introduced by the ERC-721 proposal. Unlike ERC-20 tokens, deeds prove ownership and are not interchangeable, though they are not recognized as legal documents in any jurisdiction, at least not currently (see also "NFT").
DeFi
A pun on the word "defy", it stands for "Decentralized Finance". The term is referring to financial smart contracts, protocols, and decentralized applications built on Ethereum. More on DeFi here.
Deposit Contract
The contract address that an Ethereum validator deposits ETH into on the Execution Layer before they can start running a validator.
DEX
The decentralized exchange (DEX) allows users to exchange or swap cryptocurrencies while maintaining ownership of their own crypto assets without intermediaries. Although, some technical skills and understanding are required for the process to go through properly compared to its centralized counterparty.
DEX functions by using smart contracts to execute any transaction that happens on the exchange. Users need to connect their wallet to the DEX’s smart contract for them to read the token balance. If the balance is not enough, the transaction will not be able to go through. Depending on the transaction made, a trading fee might also be added on top of the regular transaction fee incurred by the platform.
With the absence of intermediaries, it is important for a DEX to have a good amount of liquidity. Some of the DEXs incentivize users with a percentage yield when they stake their tokens on the platform. This will allow the platform to have more liquidity for other transactions. Some of the DEXs lend from other platforms to ensure that they have enough liquidity at a given time.
Diamond Hands
Risk-tolerant traders who hold onto assets regardless of market conditions or short-term fluctuations, in contrast to 'Paper Hands' who make quick exits.
Difficulty
A network-wide setting that controls how much computation is required to produce a proof of work.
Digital signature
A digital signing algorithm is a process by which a user can produce a short string of data called a "signature" of a document using a private key such that anyone with the corresponding public key, the signature, and the document can verify that (1) the document was "signed" by the owner of that particular private key, and (2) the document was not changed after it was signed.
Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAG)
A different data structure that is similar to blockchain, but uses vertices and edges instead of blocks. The transactions are built on top of another instead of being gathered into blocks. More on DAG here.
Dispersion
Dispersion is a measure of variance in the performance of assets that can help identify trending or consolidation periods. A simple approach to determining dispersion is the range between the best and worst performing assets in a portfolio. For example, in May 2024 PEPE is up 118% while WIF is up only 37% showing a relatively high degree of dispersion in the memecoin asset class. This is typical of difficult PvP (zero-sum-game) trading conditions where capital is being rotated rapidly. Conversely, periods of low dispersion, where an asset class is trending up at a similar rate suggest easier PvE conditions.
Distributed Hash Table (DHT)
A decentralized storage system that looks up data through key-value pairs across a network of nodes. It evenly distributes the data using a hash function, allowing efficient retrieval and fault tolerance. It is commonly used in peer-to-peer networks.
Doxx
The art of digital forensics on using information found on the web such as social media accounts, addresses, web comments and more to identify a person in real life.
Drop
The public release of an NFT collection, including details such as time, date, minting platform, and minting price.
E
ECDSA
Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm, or ECDSA, is a cryptographic algorithm used by Ethereum to ensure that funds can only be spent by their owners.
The algorithm is based on a digital signature authentication method that requires a public key pair and a digital certificate. These two components will be used as a means to verify the sender and recipient information.
The ECDSA uses smaller keys compared to the other digital signing signatures that makes it more efficient without sacrificing security. Although it is relatively simple to compute the key in one direction, it is very difficult to reverse the process. The ECDSA certificate produced by the ECDSA contains information about the certificate owner, signature of the certificate issuer and the key used to create the certificate. The complexity of the ECDSA key-creation process is the reason why cryptography is implemented in the Ethereum blockchain network.
EIP
Ethereum Improvement Proposals describe proposed standards for the Ethereum platform. An EIP is a design document providing information to the Ethereum community, describing a new feature or its processes or environment. For more information, see https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs (see also "ERC").
Entropy
In the context of cryptography, lack of predictability, or level of randomness. When generating secret information, such as private keys, algorithms usually rely on a source of high entropy to ensure the output is unpredictable.
ENS
Ethereum Name Service. For more information, see https://github.com/ethereum/ens/.
EOA
Externally Owned Account. Accounts created by or for human users of the Ethereum network.
Epoch
In Ethereum, an epoch is a period of 32 slots where the validators propose and attest for blocks. The validators are reshuffled into committees at the start of each epoch for security purposes. Since the time allocated for each slot is 12 seconds, the whole epoch will spend approximately 6.4 minutes in total time. More on Epoch here.
Erasure Coding
A way to scale data storage in a cost-efficient manner compared to simple replication. More on Erasure Coding here.
ERC
Ethereum Request for Comments, a label given to some EIPs which attempt to define a specific standard of Ethereum usage.
Ethash
A Proof-of-Work algorithm for Ethereum 1.0. For more information, see https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Ethash.
Ether
Ether is the native cryptocurrency used by the Ethereum ecosystem, which covers gas costs when executing Smart Contracts. Its symbol is Ξ, the Greek uppercase Xi character.
Event
An event allows the use of EVM logging facilities. DApps can listen for events and use them to trigger JavaScript callbacks in the user interface. For more information, see http://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/develop/contracts.html#events.
EVM
Ethereum Virtual Machine, a stack-based virtual machine which executes bytecode. In Ethereum, the execution model specifies how the system state is altered given a series of bytecode instructions and a small tuple of environmental data. This is specified through a formal model of a virtual state machine.
EVM assembly language
A human-readable form of EVM bytecode.
F
Factory Contract
A smart contract designed to create and deploy other smart contracts. It serves as a blueprint or template, generating specific instances like Uniswap pools for users to interact with.
Fallback function
A default function called in the absence of data or a declared function name. Read more details here.
Faucet
A service that dispenses funds in the form of free test ether that can be used on a testnet.
Fiat
A type of currency that a government declares to be legal tender, meaning it must be accepted as a form of payment within the country. Unlike commodity money (such as gold or silver), which has intrinsic value, or representative money (like a gold certificate), which can be exchanged for a commodity.
Finality
A block is declared final and can never be changed after a small period of time (2 epochs i.e. 64 slots at time of writing). All the transactions in that block and all previous transactions are permanent and immutable.
Finney
A denomination of ether. 10 ** 15 finney = 1 ether.
Flash loan
A loan that is borrowed and repaid in the same transaction. Flash loans allow users to borrow tokens without any collateral and use them for DeFi activities such as arbitrage and liquidation. More on Flash Loan here.
Flashbots
A research and development organization that aims to mitigate the negative externalities posed by Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) to Ethereum.
Flip
Buying an asset and quickly reselling it for profit by taking advantage of short-term price changes.
Floor price
The lowest current asking price for an NFT in a particular collection.
FOMO
Fear Of Missing Out.
Fork
A change in protocol causing the creation of an alternative chain. Read more on fork here.
Fraud Proofs
Succinct proofs that a proposed block is invalid which can be easily verified by light (i.e. low-cost) nodes.
Frontier
The initial test development stage of Ethereum, which lasted from July 2015 to March 2016.
Front running
The act of monitoring the transaction pool for a particular type of transaction (such as purchasing an Ethereum domain name), then submitting the same transaction with a higher gas fee to ensure it goes through instead of the targeted transaction. More on this here.
FUD
Stands for "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt". May be evoked intentionally to put a competitor at a disadvantage.
Futures
Derivative financial contracts which require transacting parties to transact at a predetermined future date and price. Upon expiration of the contract, both buyer and seller must exchange the underlying asset at the set price regardless of its market price.
G
Ganache
Personal Ethereum blockchain which you can use to run tests, execute commands, and inspect state while controlling how the chain operates. Read more here.
Gas
It represents the unit of computational resource consumed when executing a transaction on Ethereum. The amount of gas required for a transaction varies depending on the complexity of the transaction.
Gas limit
The maximum amount of gas a transaction or block may consume.
Generative Art
The fusion of art and code, utilizing randomization and algorithms to create a collection of distinct designs. These designs are generated based on a shared set of initial designs or design layers, often resulting in unique variations and varying levels of rarity.
Genesis block
The first block in a blockchain, used to initialize a particular network and its cryptocurrency.
Geth
Go Ethereum. One of the most prominent implementations of the Ethereum protocol, written in Go.
GM
Good Morning.
Goerli
An Ethereum testnet. Check out the block explorer here
H
Hard fork
A hard fork, also known as a Hard-Forking Change, is a permanent divergence in the blockchain; one commonly occurs when non-upgraded nodes can’t validate blocks created by upgraded nodes that follow newer consensus rules. Not to be confused with fork, soft fork, software fork or Git fork. Read more on hard fork here.
Hardhat
A comprehensive development environment and testing framework for Ethereum smart contracts. It provides tools for compiling contracts, running tests & debugging, and managing contract deployments on Ethereum networks.
Hash
fixed-length fingerprint of variable-size input, produced by a hash function.
Hash Rate
A unit of measurement for the amount of computing power consumed during mining for POW blockchains.
HD wallet
A wallet using the Hierarchical Deterministic (HD Protocol) key creation and transfer protocol (BIP32).
HD wallet seed
An HD wallet seed, or seed, is a value used to generate the master private key and master chain code for an HD wallet. The wallet seed can be represented by mnemonic words, making it easier for humans to copy, backup and restore private keys.
Homestead
The second development stage of Ethereum, launched in March 2016 at block #1,150,000.
Honeypot
A token contract that permits buying a token but restricts or limits selling it to certain addresses only.
I
Ice Age
A hard fork of Ethereum at block #200,000 to introduce an exponential difficulty increase (aka Difficulty Bomb), motivating a transition to Proof-of-Stake.
IDE
Short for Integrated Development Environment, an integrated user interface that typically combines a code editor, compiler, runtime, and debugger.
Immutable Deployed Code Problem
Once a contract’s (or library’s) code is deployed it becomes immutable. Standard software development practices rely on being able to fix possible bugs and add new features, so this represents a challenge for smart contract development.
Impermanent Loss
A situation where a liquidity provider (LP) to a trading pair on a DEX experiences unrealized financial loss by providing liquidity compared to simply holding the two tokens. This happens as the value of one of the tokens in the pair has dropped significantly compared to the other while the LP returns have not sufficiently accumulated.
Internal transaction (also "message")
A transaction sent from a contract account to another contract account or an EOA.
Invalidation
In order for a trade setup to have defined risk parameters, it should be composed of an entry, target and invalidation. This invalidation is a point at which your thesis no longer makes sense and can be either a price or fundamental trigger.
IPFS
The Inter Planetary File System is a protocol, a network and an open-source project designed to create a content-addressable, peer-to-peer method of storing and sharing hypermedia in a distributed file system.
Istanbul
The eight development stage of Ethereum, launched at block #9,069,000
J
Java Virtual Machine (JVM)
A virtual machine that enables the execution of Java programs. It transforms Java bytecode into computer code, allowing the system software to interpret it. The JVM manages storage and ensures operating system independence for Java applications.
K
Keccak256
Cryptographic hash function used in Ethereum. Keccak256 was standardized as SHA-3.
Keylogger
Surveillance software used by hackers to capture user input on a computer keyboard, including keystrokes, for unauthorized access to sensitive information.
Keystore File
A JSON-encoded file that contains a single (randomly generated) private key, encrypted by a passphrase for extra security.
Kovan
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
KYC
Know Your Customer; It is a user identification process instated by businesses and regulators in order to substantiate and understand the risk of a potential user.
L
Layer 2 (L2)
Layer 2 refers to several approaches to handle transactions off the main Ethereum chain. These allow for higher scalability of the network and reduced transaction fees. Some examples include Optimistic and Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Rollups, Validium, Plasma and State Channels.
Leverage
The ratio of borrowed funds to the trader's own capital, allowing control of larger trading positions compared to available capital.
Library
A library in Ethereum is a special type of contract that has no payable functions, no fallback function, and no data storage. Therefore, it cannot receive or hold ether, or store data. A library serves as previously deployed code that other contracts can call for read-only computation.
Lightweight client
A lightweight client is an Ethereum client that does not store a local copy of the blockchain, or validate blocks and transactions. It offers the functions of a wallet and can create and broadcast transactions.
Liquid Staking
A staking mechanism where a staking pool or exchange provides users with derivative tokens when they stake the original tokens with the staking pool or exchange. The derivative tokens may then be used in other DeFi activities instead of being locked. Read more here.
Liquidation
In Defi, it refers to the process of selling assets off from an under-collateralized loan. More on Liquidation here.
Liquidity
The degree to which an asset, such as Ethereum, can be bought or sold quickly in the market without causing a significant impact on its price. It measures the ease of converting the asset into cash or other assets. Liquidity can be influenced by various factors, including trading volume, the number of market participants, the presence of market makers, and the availability of trading pairs on different exchanges.
M
Margin
The collateral or initial investment in cryptocurrency trading required to open and maintain a leveraged position. It involves the use of borrowed funds to amplify trading positions in crypto, enabling the potential for larger profits but also increasing the risk of larger losses.
Merkle Patricia Tree
A data structure used in Ethereum to efficiently store key-value pairs.
Message
An internal transaction that is never serialized and only sent within the EVM.
Message Call
The act of passing a message from one Account to another. If the destination account is associated with EVM Code, then the VM will be started with the state of said Object and the Message acted upon.
Metaverse
A simulated digital environment that uses AR, VR and blockchain along with concepts from social media to create spaces for rich user interaction mimicking the real world.
Method ID
The first 4 bytes in hex (8 characters) of the Keccak hash result of the ASCII form of a function signature e.g. functioname(uint32,bool), also called a function selector.
Metropolis
Metropolis is the third development stage of Ethereum, launched in October 2017.
MEV
Short for Maximal Extractable Value (previously Miner Extractable Value), it refers to the value that a miner or validator are able to obtain from reordering transactions within the blocks they produce, on top of the block reward and transaction fees they normally benefit from. Transactions leading to MEV include arbitrage and liquidations. More on this here.
MEV Relay
A trusted mediator connecting Ethereum validators and block builders, allowing validators to offer their block space to maximize extractable value (MEV).
Miner
A network node that finds valid proof of work for new blocks, by repeated hashing.
Mint
In general, coin minting refers to the process of generating a country's currency with government approval. In crypto, it refers to creating new tokens on a blockchain.
Mist
The first Ethereum-enabled browser, built by the Ethereum Foundation. It contains a browser based wallet that was the first implementation of the ERC-20 token standard (Fabian Vogelsteller, author of ERC-20, was also the main developer of Mist). Mist was also the first wallet to introduce the camelCase checksum (EIP-55). Mist runs a full node, and offers a full DApp browser with support for Swarm-based storage and ENS addresses.
N
NatSpec
Ethereum Natural Language Specification Format. A standard format of comments to provide smart contract documentation for end-users and developers.
Network
Referring to the Ethereum network, a peer-to-peer network that propagates transactions and blocks to every Ethereum node (network participant).
NFT
A non-fungible token (also known as a "deed"). This is a token standard introduced by the ERC-721 proposal. NFTs can be tracked and traded, but each token is unique and distinct; they are not interchangeable like ERC-20 tokens. NFTs can represent ownership of digital or physical assets.
NGMI
Not Gonna Make It.
Node
A software client that participates in the network.
Nonce
In cryptography, a value that can only be used once. There are two types of nonce used in Ethereum. (1) An account nonce: A transaction counter in each account, which is used to prevent replay attacks. (2) Proof of work nonce: The random value in a block that was used to satisfy the proof of work.
O
Off-Chain
Any activity or transaction that occurs outside the Ethereum blockchain network involves conducting operations or storing data without directly involving the blockchain’s decentralized consensus mechanism. Off-chain transactions are typically faster and less expensive than on-chain transactions.
On-Chain Governance
A voting system where participating nodes can vote to approve or reject changes to a blockchain protocol.
On-Ramp
A gateway facilitating the purchase of crypto assets for new users, allowing them to convert fiat currency into cryptocurrencies using familiar payment methods like cash, card, or bank transfers.
OpSec
Short for Operations Security, OPSEC refers to a set of practices and principles aimed at identifying risks, implementing countermeasures to prevent them, and safeguarding information and systems.
Optimistic Rollups
Layer 2 scaling solutions that bundle transactions together, assuming their validity, for faster and cheaper processing. Disputes are resolved on the main blockchain if any invalid transactions are detected. They enhance scalability and reduce fees in blockchain networks.
P
Paper Hands
Traders with low-risk tolerance who quickly exit positions at the first sign of disturbances, contrasting with Diamond Hands' resilience during market downturns.
Perpetual Trading
A type of derivative trading which allows traders to speculate on crypto prices without owning the assets, resembling futures contracts with no expiration. It allows leveraged exposure but also comes with high risk and requires a good understanding of the market and risk management.
Play-to-Earn
A business/tokenomics model commonly utilized in gaming projects where the gamers/users earn financial rewards from playing the game.
Ponzi Scheme
A fraudulent investment scheme that promises high returns to investors, typically in a short period, by using funds from new investors to pay returns to earlier investors. The scheme operates by creating the illusion of a legitimate investment opportunity, often with false claims of guaranteed profits or exclusive access to special investments.
PoS Staking
It involves participants, known as validators, locking up a certain amount of cryptocurrency as collateral (staking) to be eligible to validate transactions and create new blocks.
Pre-mine
The act of mining or creating and distributing a quantity of coins or blockchain-based assets before it is made available to the public.
Private key
The secret number that allows Ethereum users to prove ownership of an account or contracts, by producing a digital signature (see public key, address, ECDSA).
Private transaction
A transaction that bypassed the Ethereum transaction pool and was sent directly to miners.
Proof-of-Stake (PoS)
Proof-of-Stake is a method by which a cryptocurrency blockchain protocol aims to achieve distributed consensus. Proof-of-Stake asks users to prove ownership of a certain amount of cryptocurrency (their "stake" in the network) in order to be able to participate in the validation of transactions.
Proof-of-Work (PoW)
A piece of data (the proof) that requires significant computation to find. In Ethereum, miners must find a numeric solution to the Ethash algorithm that meets a network-wide difficulty target.
Public key
A number, derived via a one-way function from a private key, which can be shared publicly and used by anyone to verify a digital signature made with the corresponding private key.
R
Rebase
Feature of certain tokens where the token total supply changes automatically (increases or decreases) to meet its target price.
Rebase Token
An asset that automatically adjusts its supply in response to crypto price fluctuations, providing stability and mitigating volatility.
Receipt
Data returned by an Ethereum client to represent the result of a particular transaction, including a hash of the transaction, its block number, the amount of gas used and, in case of deployment of a Smart Contract, the address of the Contract.
Re-entrancy attack
An attack that consists of an Attacker contract calling a Victim contract function in such a way that during execution the Victim calls the Attacker contract again, recursively. This can result, for example, in the theft of funds by skipping parts of the Victim contract that update balances or count withdrawal amounts. Read more about it here.
Rekt
Deriving from the original word 'wrecked', it is usually used as an expression by a person who has just suffered a significant loss in cryptocurrency.
Reward
An amount of ether included in each new block as a reward by the network to the miner who found the Proof-of-Work solution.
Rinkeby
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
Ropsten
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
S
Safu
An intentional misspelling of the word "safe", originally by a content creator named Bizonacci. It is now popularly used to inform users that funds are, in fact, safe.
Sandwich attack
The act of monitoring the transaction pool for a sufficiently valuable transaction (such as a large trade on a decentralized exchange), then submitting two transactions 'sandwiching' the target transaction. The first one immediately before the target pushes price in one direction, while the second one immediately after the target does the opposite. The attacker profits from the arbitrage between their two transactions. More on this here.
Satoshi Nakamoto
The name used by the person or people who designed Bitcoin, created its original reference implementation, and were the first to solve the double-spend problem for digital currency. Their real identity remains unknown.
Sepolia
An Ethereum testnet. Check out the block explorer here.
Serenity
The fourth and final development stage of Ethereum. Serenity does not yet have a planned release date.
SHA
The Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) is a family of cryptographic hash functions published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Sidechain
A blockchain that is connected to another via a two-way peg.
Sign Message
The act of digitally signing a message as proof of ownership or control over a specific Ethereum wallet address.
Slashing
Slashing involves the deduction of validator’s stake if a validator is found guilty in breaking the rules in consensus mechanism of the network.
Slot
Slot the beacon committee is assigned to attest.
Smart contract
A program which executes on the Ethereum computing infrastructure.
Solidity
A procedural (imperative) programming language with syntax that is similar to JavaScript, C++ or Java. The most popular and most frequently used language for Ethereum smart contracts. Created by Gavin Wood (co-author of this book).
Solidity inline assembly
EVM assembly language in a Solidity program. Solidity’s support for inline assembly makes it easier to write certain operations.
Soulbound Token
A non-transferable token permanently tied to the holder's wallet and identity, unable to be sold or given to others. SBTs are designed to represent digital assets that cannot be acquired by purchasing, such as certificates of competence, reputation, medical records, etc.
Source epoch
Last justified checkpoint during the assigned slot.
Spurious Dragon
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,675,000 to address more denial of service attack vectors, and another state clearing; see "Tangerine Whistle". Also, a replay attack protection mechanism.
Stablecoin
Tokens that are pegged to the price of a separate stable asset, most commonly with the US Dollar. Stablecoins are backed by one of these four collateral structures: crypto-backed, fiat-backed, commodity-backed, or algorithmic. More on Stablecoin here.
Staking
A deposit of funds to receive returns. It can be applied to consensus layer (Proof-Of-Stake), Dapps for yield or DAOs for governance and many others.
Swarm
A decentralized (P2P) storage network, used along with Web3 and Whisper to build DApps.
Szabo
A denomination of ether. 10^12 szabo = 1 ether.
T
Tangerine Whistle
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,463,000 to change the gas calculation for certain I/O-intensive operations and to clear the accumulated state from a denial of service attack, which exploited the low gas cost of those operations.
Target epoch
The checkpoint being justified to be the chain tip.
Testnet
Short for "test network", a network used to simulate the behavior of the main Ethereum network.
The Merge
When the Ethereum protocol transitioned from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.
Ticker
A short, unique identifier used to represent a particular token. Tickers are typically three to five letters long, and they are often derived from the name of the token. For example, the ticker for Ethereum is ETH, and the ticker for Tether USD is USDT.
Timelock
A condition for a transaction to only be processed at a certain time or block on the blockchain.
Token Allowance
Permitting another address to spend tokens on your behalf. Check your allowances using our Token Approvals tool.
Token Spamming
Token spamming on Etherscan is when an address sends an unwanted token to one or more addresses multiple times. Read in more detail in our blog article.
Token Spoofing
A situation where an address is impersonating another address to transfer token(s). From the transaction hash, it may look like address A is transferring a certain token to address B, but it is actually being transferred from address C. Read in more detail in our blog article.
TradFi
Short for Traditional Finance, referring to the mainstream non-blockchain finance industry.
Transaction
Data committed to the Ethereum Blockchain signed by an originating account, targeting a specific address. The transaction contains metadata such as the gas limit for the transaction.
Transaction Fee
The total cost incurred by users for their transactions to be included in the blockchain. It comprises the base fee, which covers computational resources, and an optional tip to prioritize the inclusion of their transaction in a block.
Transaction Pool
Also known as Mempool, the transaction pool refers to the collection of pending transactions that have been created by users and are pending confirmation by miners.
Truffle
A development framework that focuses on smart contract development and utilizes EVM. Read more here.
Turing complete
A system of data-manipulation rules (such as a computer’s instruction set, a programming language, or a cellular automaton) is said to be "Turing complete" or "computationally universal" if it can be used to simulate any Turing machine. The concept is named after English mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing.
TVL
Total Value Locked refers to the amount of value that is locked inside a DeFi application or ecosystem.
U
Uncle Block
A non-canonical block created when multiple miners simultaneously mine on Ethereum before The Merge. Only one block becomes part of the canonical chain, while the others are uncle blocks. Miners of uncle blocks receive reduced rewards.
V
Validator
Validators propose and attest new blocks on the Beacon Chain and participate in securing the network. A validator stakes 32 ETH into the validator deposit contract on the Execution Layer and is rewarded in ETH as a percentage of their stake when successfully proposing or attesting to a block.
Validity Proof
Cryptographic evidence that verifies the correctness or integrity of a claim or statement within a system or context (with no real information shared between two parties). These are commonly used in cryptographic protocols and verification processes to ensure security and compliance.
Vitalik Buterin
Vitalik Buterin is a Russian–Canadian programmer and writer primarily known as the co-founder of Ethereum and as the co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine.
Volatility
The degree of price fluctuations or variability in the value of Ethereum or any other asset over a specific period. In the context of Ethereum, volatility represents the rapid and significant changes in its price or market value.
Vyper
A high-level programming language, similar to Serpent, with Python-like syntax. Intended to get closer to a pure-functional language. Created by Vitalik Buterin.
W
WAGMI
We’re All Gonna Make It.
Wallet
Software that holds private keys. Used to access and control Ethereum accounts and interact with Smart Contracts. Keys need not be stored in a wallet, and can instead be retrieved from an offline storage (e.g. a memory card or paper) for improved security. Despite the name, wallets never store the actual coins or tokens.
Web3
The third version of the web. First proposed by Gavin Wood, Web3 represents a new vision and focus for web applications: from centrally owned and managed applications, to applications built on decentralized protocols.
Wei
The smallest denomination of ether. 10^18 wei = 1 ether.
WGMI
We Gonna Make It.
Whisper
A decentralized (P2P) messaging service. It is used along with Web3 and Swarm to build DApps.
White Hat Hacker
A hacker that exposes security vulnerabilities to help protect projects/protocols/users from malicious hackers.
Whitelist
A Presale list that guarantees you an allocation to mint an NFT or buy tokens in an ICO or IDO.
Z
Zero address
A special Ethereum address, composed entirely of zeros, that is specified as the destination address of a contract creation transaction.
Zero-Knowledge Proof
A cryptographic method that allows an individual to prove that a statement is true without conveying any additional information apart from the fact that the statement is indeed true.
Zero-Knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups)
ZK-rollups is a type of layer 2 scaling solution that bundles transactions into batches and shares the validity proof on a Layer 1 protocol such as the Ethereum mainnet.
zk-SNARK
Zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive Argument of Knowledge. A cryptographic process that allows one entity to prove it possesses certain information without having to disclose that specific information.
DAO
Decentralized Autonomous Organization, or Dao, is an organization(s) that has no hierarchical management with its members sharing a common goal and participating in the decision-making process. More on DAO here.
DApp
Decentralized Application. At a minimum, it is a smart contract and a web user-interface. More broadly, a DApp is a web application that is built on top of open, decentralized, peer-to-peer infrastructure services. In addition, many DApps include decentralized storage and/or message protocol and platform. More on Dapp here.
Data Availability Sampling
A process by which a light node can download small chunks of block data several times to verify with high probability that the block is valid. Read more about it here.
Deed
Non-fungible token (NFT) standard introduced by the ERC-721 proposal. Unlike ERC-20 tokens, deeds prove ownership and are not interchangeable, though they are not recognized as legal documents in any jurisdiction, at least not currently (see also "NFT").
DeFi
A pun on the word "defy", it stands for "Decentralized Finance". The term is referring to financial smart contracts, protocols, and decentralized applications built on Ethereum. More on DeFi here.
Deposit Contract
The contract address that an Ethereum validator deposits ETH into on the Execution Layer before they can start running a validator.
DEX
The decentralized exchange (DEX) allows users to exchange or swap cryptocurrencies while maintaining ownership of their own crypto assets without intermediaries. Although, some technical skills and understanding are required for the process to go through properly compared to its centralized counterparty.
DEX functions by using smart contracts to execute any transaction that happens on the exchange. Users need to connect their wallet to the DEX’s smart contract for them to read the token balance. If the balance is not enough, the transaction will not be able to go through. Depending on the transaction made, a trading fee might also be added on top of the regular transaction fee incurred by the platform.
With the absence of intermediaries, it is important for a DEX to have a good amount of liquidity. Some of the DEXs incentivize users with a percentage yield when they stake their tokens on the platform. This will allow the platform to have more liquidity for other transactions. Some of the DEXs lend from other platforms to ensure that they have enough liquidity at a given time.
Diamond Hands
Risk-tolerant traders who hold onto assets regardless of market conditions or short-term fluctuations, in contrast to 'Paper Hands' who make quick exits.
Difficulty
A network-wide setting that controls how much computation is required to produce a proof of work.
Digital signature
A digital signing algorithm is a process by which a user can produce a short string of data called a "signature" of a document using a private key such that anyone with the corresponding public key, the signature, and the document can verify that (1) the document was "signed" by the owner of that particular private key, and (2) the document was not changed after it was signed.
Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAG)
A different data structure that is similar to blockchain, but uses vertices and edges instead of blocks. The transactions are built on top of another instead of being gathered into blocks. More on DAG here.
Dispersion
Dispersion is a measure of variance in the performance of assets that can help identify trending or consolidation periods. A simple approach to determining dispersion is the range between the best and worst performing assets in a portfolio. For example, in May 2024 PEPE is up 118% while WIF is up only 37% showing a relatively high degree of dispersion in the memecoin asset class. This is typical of difficult PvP (zero-sum-game) trading conditions where capital is being rotated rapidly. Conversely, periods of low dispersion, where an asset class is trending up at a similar rate suggest easier PvE conditions.
Distributed Hash Table (DHT)
A decentralized storage system that looks up data through key-value pairs across a network of nodes. It evenly distributes the data using a hash function, allowing efficient retrieval and fault tolerance. It is commonly used in peer-to-peer networks.
Doxx
The art of digital forensics on using information found on the web such as social media accounts, addresses, web comments and more to identify a person in real life.
Drop
The public release of an NFT collection, including details such as time, date, minting platform, and minting price.
ECDSA
Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm, or ECDSA, is a cryptographic algorithm used by Ethereum to ensure that funds can only be spent by their owners.
The algorithm is based on a digital signature authentication method that requires a public key pair and a digital certificate. These two components will be used as a means to verify the sender and recipient information.
The ECDSA uses smaller keys compared to the other digital signing signatures that makes it more efficient without sacrificing security. Although it is relatively simple to compute the key in one direction, it is very difficult to reverse the process. The ECDSA certificate produced by the ECDSA contains information about the certificate owner, signature of the certificate issuer and the key used to create the certificate. The complexity of the ECDSA key-creation process is the reason why cryptography is implemented in the Ethereum blockchain network.
EIP
Ethereum Improvement Proposals describe proposed standards for the Ethereum platform. An EIP is a design document providing information to the Ethereum community, describing a new feature or its processes or environment. For more information, see https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs (see also "ERC").
Entropy
In the context of cryptography, lack of predictability, or level of randomness. When generating secret information, such as private keys, algorithms usually rely on a source of high entropy to ensure the output is unpredictable.
ENS
Ethereum Name Service. For more information, see https://github.com/ethereum/ens/.
EOA
Externally Owned Account. Accounts created by or for human users of the Ethereum network.
Epoch
In Ethereum, an epoch is a period of 32 slots where the validators propose and attest for blocks. The validators are reshuffled into committees at the start of each epoch for security purposes. Since the time allocated for each slot is 12 seconds, the whole epoch will spend approximately 6.4 minutes in total time. More on Epoch here.
Erasure Coding
A way to scale data storage in a cost-efficient manner compared to simple replication. More on Erasure Coding here.
ERC
Ethereum Request for Comments, a label given to some EIPs which attempt to define a specific standard of Ethereum usage.
Ethash
A Proof-of-Work algorithm for Ethereum 1.0. For more information, see https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Ethash.
Ether
Ether is the native cryptocurrency used by the Ethereum ecosystem, which covers gas costs when executing Smart Contracts. Its symbol is Ξ, the Greek uppercase Xi character.
Event
An event allows the use of EVM logging facilities. DApps can listen for events and use them to trigger JavaScript callbacks in the user interface. For more information, see http://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/develop/contracts.html#events.
EVM
Ethereum Virtual Machine, a stack-based virtual machine which executes bytecode. In Ethereum, the execution model specifies how the system state is altered given a series of bytecode instructions and a small tuple of environmental data. This is specified through a formal model of a virtual state machine.
EVM assembly language
A human-readable form of EVM bytecode.
F
Factory Contract
A smart contract designed to create and deploy other smart contracts. It serves as a blueprint or template, generating specific instances like Uniswap pools for users to interact with.
Fallback function
A default function called in the absence of data or a declared function name. Read more details here.
Faucet
A service that dispenses funds in the form of free test ether that can be used on a testnet.
Fiat
A type of currency that a government declares to be legal tender, meaning it must be accepted as a form of payment within the country. Unlike commodity money (such as gold or silver), which has intrinsic value, or representative money (like a gold certificate), which can be exchanged for a commodity.
Finality
A block is declared final and can never be changed after a small period of time (2 epochs i.e. 64 slots at time of writing). All the transactions in that block and all previous transactions are permanent and immutable.
Finney
A denomination of ether. 10 ** 15 finney = 1 ether.
Flash loan
A loan that is borrowed and repaid in the same transaction. Flash loans allow users to borrow tokens without any collateral and use them for DeFi activities such as arbitrage and liquidation. More on Flash Loan here.
Flashbots
A research and development organization that aims to mitigate the negative externalities posed by Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) to Ethereum.
Flip
Buying an asset and quickly reselling it for profit by taking advantage of short-term price changes.
Floor price
The lowest current asking price for an NFT in a particular collection.
FOMO
Fear Of Missing Out.
Fork
A change in protocol causing the creation of an alternative chain. Read more on fork here.
Fraud Proofs
Succinct proofs that a proposed block is invalid which can be easily verified by light (i.e. low-cost) nodes.
Frontier
The initial test development stage of Ethereum, which lasted from July 2015 to March 2016.
Front running
The act of monitoring the transaction pool for a particular type of transaction (such as purchasing an Ethereum domain name), then submitting the same transaction with a higher gas fee to ensure it goes through instead of the targeted transaction. More on this here.
FUD
Stands for "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt". May be evoked intentionally to put a competitor at a disadvantage.
Futures
Derivative financial contracts which require transacting parties to transact at a predetermined future date and price. Upon expiration of the contract, both buyer and seller must exchange the underlying asset at the set price regardless of its market price.
G
Ganache
Personal Ethereum blockchain which you can use to run tests, execute commands, and inspect state while controlling how the chain operates. Read more here.
Gas
It represents the unit of computational resource consumed when executing a transaction on Ethereum. The amount of gas required for a transaction varies depending on the complexity of the transaction.
Gas limit
The maximum amount of gas a transaction or block may consume.
Generative Art
The fusion of art and code, utilizing randomization and algorithms to create a collection of distinct designs. These designs are generated based on a shared set of initial designs or design layers, often resulting in unique variations and varying levels of rarity.
Genesis block
The first block in a blockchain, used to initialize a particular network and its cryptocurrency.
Geth
Go Ethereum. One of the most prominent implementations of the Ethereum protocol, written in Go.
GM
Good Morning.
Goerli
An Ethereum testnet. Check out the block explorer here
H
Hard fork
A hard fork, also known as a Hard-Forking Change, is a permanent divergence in the blockchain; one commonly occurs when non-upgraded nodes can’t validate blocks created by upgraded nodes that follow newer consensus rules. Not to be confused with fork, soft fork, software fork or Git fork. Read more on hard fork here.
Hardhat
A comprehensive development environment and testing framework for Ethereum smart contracts. It provides tools for compiling contracts, running tests & debugging, and managing contract deployments on Ethereum networks.
Hash
fixed-length fingerprint of variable-size input, produced by a hash function.
Hash Rate
A unit of measurement for the amount of computing power consumed during mining for POW blockchains.
HD wallet
A wallet using the Hierarchical Deterministic (HD Protocol) key creation and transfer protocol (BIP32).
HD wallet seed
An HD wallet seed, or seed, is a value used to generate the master private key and master chain code for an HD wallet. The wallet seed can be represented by mnemonic words, making it easier for humans to copy, backup and restore private keys.
Homestead
The second development stage of Ethereum, launched in March 2016 at block #1,150,000.
Honeypot
A token contract that permits buying a token but restricts or limits selling it to certain addresses only.
I
Ice Age
A hard fork of Ethereum at block #200,000 to introduce an exponential difficulty increase (aka Difficulty Bomb), motivating a transition to Proof-of-Stake.
IDE
Short for Integrated Development Environment, an integrated user interface that typically combines a code editor, compiler, runtime, and debugger.
Immutable Deployed Code Problem
Once a contract’s (or library’s) code is deployed it becomes immutable. Standard software development practices rely on being able to fix possible bugs and add new features, so this represents a challenge for smart contract development.
Impermanent Loss
A situation where a liquidity provider (LP) to a trading pair on a DEX experiences unrealized financial loss by providing liquidity compared to simply holding the two tokens. This happens as the value of one of the tokens in the pair has dropped significantly compared to the other while the LP returns have not sufficiently accumulated.
Internal transaction (also "message")
A transaction sent from a contract account to another contract account or an EOA.
Invalidation
In order for a trade setup to have defined risk parameters, it should be composed of an entry, target and invalidation. This invalidation is a point at which your thesis no longer makes sense and can be either a price or fundamental trigger.
IPFS
The Inter Planetary File System is a protocol, a network and an open-source project designed to create a content-addressable, peer-to-peer method of storing and sharing hypermedia in a distributed file system.
Istanbul
The eight development stage of Ethereum, launched at block #9,069,000
J
Java Virtual Machine (JVM)
A virtual machine that enables the execution of Java programs. It transforms Java bytecode into computer code, allowing the system software to interpret it. The JVM manages storage and ensures operating system independence for Java applications.
K
Keccak256
Cryptographic hash function used in Ethereum. Keccak256 was standardized as SHA-3.
Keylogger
Surveillance software used by hackers to capture user input on a computer keyboard, including keystrokes, for unauthorized access to sensitive information.
Keystore File
A JSON-encoded file that contains a single (randomly generated) private key, encrypted by a passphrase for extra security.
Kovan
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
KYC
Know Your Customer; It is a user identification process instated by businesses and regulators in order to substantiate and understand the risk of a potential user.
L
Layer 2 (L2)
Layer 2 refers to several approaches to handle transactions off the main Ethereum chain. These allow for higher scalability of the network and reduced transaction fees. Some examples include Optimistic and Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Rollups, Validium, Plasma and State Channels.
Leverage
The ratio of borrowed funds to the trader's own capital, allowing control of larger trading positions compared to available capital.
Library
A library in Ethereum is a special type of contract that has no payable functions, no fallback function, and no data storage. Therefore, it cannot receive or hold ether, or store data. A library serves as previously deployed code that other contracts can call for read-only computation.
Lightweight client
A lightweight client is an Ethereum client that does not store a local copy of the blockchain, or validate blocks and transactions. It offers the functions of a wallet and can create and broadcast transactions.
Liquid Staking
A staking mechanism where a staking pool or exchange provides users with derivative tokens when they stake the original tokens with the staking pool or exchange. The derivative tokens may then be used in other DeFi activities instead of being locked. Read more here.
Liquidation
In Defi, it refers to the process of selling assets off from an under-collateralized loan. More on Liquidation here.
Liquidity
The degree to which an asset, such as Ethereum, can be bought or sold quickly in the market without causing a significant impact on its price. It measures the ease of converting the asset into cash or other assets. Liquidity can be influenced by various factors, including trading volume, the number of market participants, the presence of market makers, and the availability of trading pairs on different exchanges.
M
Margin
The collateral or initial investment in cryptocurrency trading required to open and maintain a leveraged position. It involves the use of borrowed funds to amplify trading positions in crypto, enabling the potential for larger profits but also increasing the risk of larger losses.
Merkle Patricia Tree
A data structure used in Ethereum to efficiently store key-value pairs.
Message
An internal transaction that is never serialized and only sent within the EVM.
Message Call
The act of passing a message from one Account to another. If the destination account is associated with EVM Code, then the VM will be started with the state of said Object and the Message acted upon.
Metaverse
A simulated digital environment that uses AR, VR and blockchain along with concepts from social media to create spaces for rich user interaction mimicking the real world.
Method ID
The first 4 bytes in hex (8 characters) of the Keccak hash result of the ASCII form of a function signature e.g. functioname(uint32,bool), also called a function selector.
Metropolis
Metropolis is the third development stage of Ethereum, launched in October 2017.
MEV
Short for Maximal Extractable Value (previously Miner Extractable Value), it refers to the value that a miner or validator are able to obtain from reordering transactions within the blocks they produce, on top of the block reward and transaction fees they normally benefit from. Transactions leading to MEV include arbitrage and liquidations. More on this here.
MEV Relay
A trusted mediator connecting Ethereum validators and block builders, allowing validators to offer their block space to maximize extractable value (MEV).
Miner
A network node that finds valid proof of work for new blocks, by repeated hashing.
Mint
In general, coin minting refers to the process of generating a country's currency with government approval. In crypto, it refers to creating new tokens on a blockchain.
Mist
The first Ethereum-enabled browser, built by the Ethereum Foundation. It contains a browser based wallet that was the first implementation of the ERC-20 token standard (Fabian Vogelsteller, author of ERC-20, was also the main developer of Mist). Mist was also the first wallet to introduce the camelCase checksum (EIP-55). Mist runs a full node, and offers a full DApp browser with support for Swarm-based storage and ENS addresses.
N
NatSpec
Ethereum Natural Language Specification Format. A standard format of comments to provide smart contract documentation for end-users and developers.
Network
Referring to the Ethereum network, a peer-to-peer network that propagates transactions and blocks to every Ethereum node (network participant).
NFT
A non-fungible token (also known as a "deed"). This is a token standard introduced by the ERC-721 proposal. NFTs can be tracked and traded, but each token is unique and distinct; they are not interchangeable like ERC-20 tokens. NFTs can represent ownership of digital or physical assets.
NGMI
Not Gonna Make It.
Node
A software client that participates in the network.
Nonce
In cryptography, a value that can only be used once. There are two types of nonce used in Ethereum. (1) An account nonce: A transaction counter in each account, which is used to prevent replay attacks. (2) Proof of work nonce: The random value in a block that was used to satisfy the proof of work.
O
Off-Chain
Any activity or transaction that occurs outside the Ethereum blockchain network involves conducting operations or storing data without directly involving the blockchain’s decentralized consensus mechanism. Off-chain transactions are typically faster and less expensive than on-chain transactions.
On-Chain Governance
A voting system where participating nodes can vote to approve or reject changes to a blockchain protocol.
On-Ramp
A gateway facilitating the purchase of crypto assets for new users, allowing them to convert fiat currency into cryptocurrencies using familiar payment methods like cash, card, or bank transfers.
OpSec
Short for Operations Security, OPSEC refers to a set of practices and principles aimed at identifying risks, implementing countermeasures to prevent them, and safeguarding information and systems.
Optimistic Rollups
Layer 2 scaling solutions that bundle transactions together, assuming their validity, for faster and cheaper processing. Disputes are resolved on the main blockchain if any invalid transactions are detected. They enhance scalability and reduce fees in blockchain networks.
P
Paper Hands
Traders with low-risk tolerance who quickly exit positions at the first sign of disturbances, contrasting with Diamond Hands' resilience during market downturns.
Perpetual Trading
A type of derivative trading which allows traders to speculate on crypto prices without owning the assets, resembling futures contracts with no expiration. It allows leveraged exposure but also comes with high risk and requires a good understanding of the market and risk management.
Play-to-Earn
A business/tokenomics model commonly utilized in gaming projects where the gamers/users earn financial rewards from playing the game.
Ponzi Scheme
A fraudulent investment scheme that promises high returns to investors, typically in a short period, by using funds from new investors to pay returns to earlier investors. The scheme operates by creating the illusion of a legitimate investment opportunity, often with false claims of guaranteed profits or exclusive access to special investments.
PoS Staking
It involves participants, known as validators, locking up a certain amount of cryptocurrency as collateral (staking) to be eligible to validate transactions and create new blocks.
Pre-mine
The act of mining or creating and distributing a quantity of coins or blockchain-based assets before it is made available to the public.
Private key
The secret number that allows Ethereum users to prove ownership of an account or contracts, by producing a digital signature (see public key, address, ECDSA).
Private transaction
A transaction that bypassed the Ethereum transaction pool and was sent directly to miners.
Proof-of-Stake (PoS)
Proof-of-Stake is a method by which a cryptocurrency blockchain protocol aims to achieve distributed consensus. Proof-of-Stake asks users to prove ownership of a certain amount of cryptocurrency (their "stake" in the network) in order to be able to participate in the validation of transactions.
Proof-of-Work (PoW)
A piece of data (the proof) that requires significant computation to find. In Ethereum, miners must find a numeric solution to the Ethash algorithm that meets a network-wide difficulty target.
Public key
A number, derived via a one-way function from a private key, which can be shared publicly and used by anyone to verify a digital signature made with the corresponding private key.
R
Rebase
Feature of certain tokens where the token total supply changes automatically (increases or decreases) to meet its target price.
Rebase Token
An asset that automatically adjusts its supply in response to crypto price fluctuations, providing stability and mitigating volatility.
Receipt
Data returned by an Ethereum client to represent the result of a particular transaction, including a hash of the transaction, its block number, the amount of gas used and, in case of deployment of a Smart Contract, the address of the Contract.
Re-entrancy attack
An attack that consists of an Attacker contract calling a Victim contract function in such a way that during execution the Victim calls the Attacker contract again, recursively. This can result, for example, in the theft of funds by skipping parts of the Victim contract that update balances or count withdrawal amounts. Read more about it here.
Rekt
Deriving from the original word 'wrecked', it is usually used as an expression by a person who has just suffered a significant loss in cryptocurrency.
Reward
An amount of ether included in each new block as a reward by the network to the miner who found the Proof-of-Work solution.
Rinkeby
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
Ropsten
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
S
Safu
An intentional misspelling of the word "safe", originally by a content creator named Bizonacci. It is now popularly used to inform users that funds are, in fact, safe.
Sandwich attack
The act of monitoring the transaction pool for a sufficiently valuable transaction (such as a large trade on a decentralized exchange), then submitting two transactions 'sandwiching' the target transaction. The first one immediately before the target pushes price in one direction, while the second one immediately after the target does the opposite. The attacker profits from the arbitrage between their two transactions. More on this here.
Satoshi Nakamoto
The name used by the person or people who designed Bitcoin, created its original reference implementation, and were the first to solve the double-spend problem for digital currency. Their real identity remains unknown.
Sepolia
An Ethereum testnet. Check out the block explorer here.
Serenity
The fourth and final development stage of Ethereum. Serenity does not yet have a planned release date.
SHA
The Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) is a family of cryptographic hash functions published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Sidechain
A blockchain that is connected to another via a two-way peg.
Sign Message
The act of digitally signing a message as proof of ownership or control over a specific Ethereum wallet address.
Slashing
Slashing involves the deduction of validator’s stake if a validator is found guilty in breaking the rules in consensus mechanism of the network.
Slot
Slot the beacon committee is assigned to attest.
Smart contract
A program which executes on the Ethereum computing infrastructure.
Solidity
A procedural (imperative) programming language with syntax that is similar to JavaScript, C++ or Java. The most popular and most frequently used language for Ethereum smart contracts. Created by Gavin Wood (co-author of this book).
Solidity inline assembly
EVM assembly language in a Solidity program. Solidity’s support for inline assembly makes it easier to write certain operations.
Soulbound Token
A non-transferable token permanently tied to the holder's wallet and identity, unable to be sold or given to others. SBTs are designed to represent digital assets that cannot be acquired by purchasing, such as certificates of competence, reputation, medical records, etc.
Source epoch
Last justified checkpoint during the assigned slot.
Spurious Dragon
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,675,000 to address more denial of service attack vectors, and another state clearing; see "Tangerine Whistle". Also, a replay attack protection mechanism.
Stablecoin
Tokens that are pegged to the price of a separate stable asset, most commonly with the US Dollar. Stablecoins are backed by one of these four collateral structures: crypto-backed, fiat-backed, commodity-backed, or algorithmic. More on Stablecoin here.
Staking
A deposit of funds to receive returns. It can be applied to consensus layer (Proof-Of-Stake), Dapps for yield or DAOs for governance and many others.
Swarm
A decentralized (P2P) storage network, used along with Web3 and Whisper to build DApps.
Szabo
A denomination of ether. 10^12 szabo = 1 ether.
T
Tangerine Whistle
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,463,000 to change the gas calculation for certain I/O-intensive operations and to clear the accumulated state from a denial of service attack, which exploited the low gas cost of those operations.
Target epoch
The checkpoint being justified to be the chain tip.
Testnet
Short for "test network", a network used to simulate the behavior of the main Ethereum network.
The Merge
When the Ethereum protocol transitioned from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.
Ticker
A short, unique identifier used to represent a particular token. Tickers are typically three to five letters long, and they are often derived from the name of the token. For example, the ticker for Ethereum is ETH, and the ticker for Tether USD is USDT.
Timelock
A condition for a transaction to only be processed at a certain time or block on the blockchain.
Token Allowance
Permitting another address to spend tokens on your behalf. Check your allowances using our Token Approvals tool.
Token Spamming
Token spamming on Etherscan is when an address sends an unwanted token to one or more addresses multiple times. Read in more detail in our blog article.
Token Spoofing
A situation where an address is impersonating another address to transfer token(s). From the transaction hash, it may look like address A is transferring a certain token to address B, but it is actually being transferred from address C. Read in more detail in our blog article.
TradFi
Short for Traditional Finance, referring to the mainstream non-blockchain finance industry.
Transaction
Data committed to the Ethereum Blockchain signed by an originating account, targeting a specific address. The transaction contains metadata such as the gas limit for the transaction.
Transaction Fee
The total cost incurred by users for their transactions to be included in the blockchain. It comprises the base fee, which covers computational resources, and an optional tip to prioritize the inclusion of their transaction in a block.
Transaction Pool
Also known as Mempool, the transaction pool refers to the collection of pending transactions that have been created by users and are pending confirmation by miners.
Truffle
A development framework that focuses on smart contract development and utilizes EVM. Read more here.
Turing complete
A system of data-manipulation rules (such as a computer’s instruction set, a programming language, or a cellular automaton) is said to be "Turing complete" or "computationally universal" if it can be used to simulate any Turing machine. The concept is named after English mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing.
TVL
Total Value Locked refers to the amount of value that is locked inside a DeFi application or ecosystem.
U
Uncle Block
A non-canonical block created when multiple miners simultaneously mine on Ethereum before The Merge. Only one block becomes part of the canonical chain, while the others are uncle blocks. Miners of uncle blocks receive reduced rewards.
V
Validator
Validators propose and attest new blocks on the Beacon Chain and participate in securing the network. A validator stakes 32 ETH into the validator deposit contract on the Execution Layer and is rewarded in ETH as a percentage of their stake when successfully proposing or attesting to a block.
Validity Proof
Cryptographic evidence that verifies the correctness or integrity of a claim or statement within a system or context (with no real information shared between two parties). These are commonly used in cryptographic protocols and verification processes to ensure security and compliance.
Vitalik Buterin
Vitalik Buterin is a Russian–Canadian programmer and writer primarily known as the co-founder of Ethereum and as the co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine.
Volatility
The degree of price fluctuations or variability in the value of Ethereum or any other asset over a specific period. In the context of Ethereum, volatility represents the rapid and significant changes in its price or market value.
Vyper
A high-level programming language, similar to Serpent, with Python-like syntax. Intended to get closer to a pure-functional language. Created by Vitalik Buterin.
W
WAGMI
We’re All Gonna Make It.
Wallet
Software that holds private keys. Used to access and control Ethereum accounts and interact with Smart Contracts. Keys need not be stored in a wallet, and can instead be retrieved from an offline storage (e.g. a memory card or paper) for improved security. Despite the name, wallets never store the actual coins or tokens.
Web3
The third version of the web. First proposed by Gavin Wood, Web3 represents a new vision and focus for web applications: from centrally owned and managed applications, to applications built on decentralized protocols.
Wei
The smallest denomination of ether. 10^18 wei = 1 ether.
WGMI
We Gonna Make It.
Whisper
A decentralized (P2P) messaging service. It is used along with Web3 and Swarm to build DApps.
White Hat Hacker
A hacker that exposes security vulnerabilities to help protect projects/protocols/users from malicious hackers.
Whitelist
A Presale list that guarantees you an allocation to mint an NFT or buy tokens in an ICO or IDO.
Z
Zero address
A special Ethereum address, composed entirely of zeros, that is specified as the destination address of a contract creation transaction.
Zero-Knowledge Proof
A cryptographic method that allows an individual to prove that a statement is true without conveying any additional information apart from the fact that the statement is indeed true.
Zero-Knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups)
ZK-rollups is a type of layer 2 scaling solution that bundles transactions into batches and shares the validity proof on a Layer 1 protocol such as the Ethereum mainnet.
zk-SNARK
Zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive Argument of Knowledge. A cryptographic process that allows one entity to prove it possesses certain information without having to disclose that specific information.
Factory Contract
A smart contract designed to create and deploy other smart contracts. It serves as a blueprint or template, generating specific instances like Uniswap pools for users to interact with.
Fallback function
A default function called in the absence of data or a declared function name. Read more details here.
Faucet
A service that dispenses funds in the form of free test ether that can be used on a testnet.
Fiat
A type of currency that a government declares to be legal tender, meaning it must be accepted as a form of payment within the country. Unlike commodity money (such as gold or silver), which has intrinsic value, or representative money (like a gold certificate), which can be exchanged for a commodity.
Finality
A block is declared final and can never be changed after a small period of time (2 epochs i.e. 64 slots at time of writing). All the transactions in that block and all previous transactions are permanent and immutable.
Finney
A denomination of ether. 10 ** 15 finney = 1 ether.
Flash loan
A loan that is borrowed and repaid in the same transaction. Flash loans allow users to borrow tokens without any collateral and use them for DeFi activities such as arbitrage and liquidation. More on Flash Loan here.
Flashbots
A research and development organization that aims to mitigate the negative externalities posed by Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) to Ethereum.
Flip
Buying an asset and quickly reselling it for profit by taking advantage of short-term price changes.
Floor price
The lowest current asking price for an NFT in a particular collection.
FOMO
Fear Of Missing Out.
Fork
A change in protocol causing the creation of an alternative chain. Read more on fork here.
Fraud Proofs
Succinct proofs that a proposed block is invalid which can be easily verified by light (i.e. low-cost) nodes.
Frontier
The initial test development stage of Ethereum, which lasted from July 2015 to March 2016.
Front running
The act of monitoring the transaction pool for a particular type of transaction (such as purchasing an Ethereum domain name), then submitting the same transaction with a higher gas fee to ensure it goes through instead of the targeted transaction. More on this here.
FUD
Stands for "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt". May be evoked intentionally to put a competitor at a disadvantage.
Futures
Derivative financial contracts which require transacting parties to transact at a predetermined future date and price. Upon expiration of the contract, both buyer and seller must exchange the underlying asset at the set price regardless of its market price.
Ganache
Personal Ethereum blockchain which you can use to run tests, execute commands, and inspect state while controlling how the chain operates. Read more here.
Gas
It represents the unit of computational resource consumed when executing a transaction on Ethereum. The amount of gas required for a transaction varies depending on the complexity of the transaction.
Gas limit
The maximum amount of gas a transaction or block may consume.
Generative Art
The fusion of art and code, utilizing randomization and algorithms to create a collection of distinct designs. These designs are generated based on a shared set of initial designs or design layers, often resulting in unique variations and varying levels of rarity.
Genesis block
The first block in a blockchain, used to initialize a particular network and its cryptocurrency.
Geth
Go Ethereum. One of the most prominent implementations of the Ethereum protocol, written in Go.
GM
Good Morning.
Goerli
An Ethereum testnet. Check out the block explorer here
H
Hard fork
A hard fork, also known as a Hard-Forking Change, is a permanent divergence in the blockchain; one commonly occurs when non-upgraded nodes can’t validate blocks created by upgraded nodes that follow newer consensus rules. Not to be confused with fork, soft fork, software fork or Git fork. Read more on hard fork here.
Hardhat
A comprehensive development environment and testing framework for Ethereum smart contracts. It provides tools for compiling contracts, running tests & debugging, and managing contract deployments on Ethereum networks.
Hash
fixed-length fingerprint of variable-size input, produced by a hash function.
Hash Rate
A unit of measurement for the amount of computing power consumed during mining for POW blockchains.
HD wallet
A wallet using the Hierarchical Deterministic (HD Protocol) key creation and transfer protocol (BIP32).
HD wallet seed
An HD wallet seed, or seed, is a value used to generate the master private key and master chain code for an HD wallet. The wallet seed can be represented by mnemonic words, making it easier for humans to copy, backup and restore private keys.
Homestead
The second development stage of Ethereum, launched in March 2016 at block #1,150,000.
Honeypot
A token contract that permits buying a token but restricts or limits selling it to certain addresses only.
I
Ice Age
A hard fork of Ethereum at block #200,000 to introduce an exponential difficulty increase (aka Difficulty Bomb), motivating a transition to Proof-of-Stake.
IDE
Short for Integrated Development Environment, an integrated user interface that typically combines a code editor, compiler, runtime, and debugger.
Immutable Deployed Code Problem
Once a contract’s (or library’s) code is deployed it becomes immutable. Standard software development practices rely on being able to fix possible bugs and add new features, so this represents a challenge for smart contract development.
Impermanent Loss
A situation where a liquidity provider (LP) to a trading pair on a DEX experiences unrealized financial loss by providing liquidity compared to simply holding the two tokens. This happens as the value of one of the tokens in the pair has dropped significantly compared to the other while the LP returns have not sufficiently accumulated.
Internal transaction (also "message")
A transaction sent from a contract account to another contract account or an EOA.
Invalidation
In order for a trade setup to have defined risk parameters, it should be composed of an entry, target and invalidation. This invalidation is a point at which your thesis no longer makes sense and can be either a price or fundamental trigger.
IPFS
The Inter Planetary File System is a protocol, a network and an open-source project designed to create a content-addressable, peer-to-peer method of storing and sharing hypermedia in a distributed file system.
Istanbul
The eight development stage of Ethereum, launched at block #9,069,000
J
Java Virtual Machine (JVM)
A virtual machine that enables the execution of Java programs. It transforms Java bytecode into computer code, allowing the system software to interpret it. The JVM manages storage and ensures operating system independence for Java applications.
K
Keccak256
Cryptographic hash function used in Ethereum. Keccak256 was standardized as SHA-3.
Keylogger
Surveillance software used by hackers to capture user input on a computer keyboard, including keystrokes, for unauthorized access to sensitive information.
Keystore File
A JSON-encoded file that contains a single (randomly generated) private key, encrypted by a passphrase for extra security.
Kovan
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
KYC
Know Your Customer; It is a user identification process instated by businesses and regulators in order to substantiate and understand the risk of a potential user.
L
Layer 2 (L2)
Layer 2 refers to several approaches to handle transactions off the main Ethereum chain. These allow for higher scalability of the network and reduced transaction fees. Some examples include Optimistic and Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Rollups, Validium, Plasma and State Channels.
Leverage
The ratio of borrowed funds to the trader's own capital, allowing control of larger trading positions compared to available capital.
Library
A library in Ethereum is a special type of contract that has no payable functions, no fallback function, and no data storage. Therefore, it cannot receive or hold ether, or store data. A library serves as previously deployed code that other contracts can call for read-only computation.
Lightweight client
A lightweight client is an Ethereum client that does not store a local copy of the blockchain, or validate blocks and transactions. It offers the functions of a wallet and can create and broadcast transactions.
Liquid Staking
A staking mechanism where a staking pool or exchange provides users with derivative tokens when they stake the original tokens with the staking pool or exchange. The derivative tokens may then be used in other DeFi activities instead of being locked. Read more here.
Liquidation
In Defi, it refers to the process of selling assets off from an under-collateralized loan. More on Liquidation here.
Liquidity
The degree to which an asset, such as Ethereum, can be bought or sold quickly in the market without causing a significant impact on its price. It measures the ease of converting the asset into cash or other assets. Liquidity can be influenced by various factors, including trading volume, the number of market participants, the presence of market makers, and the availability of trading pairs on different exchanges.
M
Margin
The collateral or initial investment in cryptocurrency trading required to open and maintain a leveraged position. It involves the use of borrowed funds to amplify trading positions in crypto, enabling the potential for larger profits but also increasing the risk of larger losses.
Merkle Patricia Tree
A data structure used in Ethereum to efficiently store key-value pairs.
Message
An internal transaction that is never serialized and only sent within the EVM.
Message Call
The act of passing a message from one Account to another. If the destination account is associated with EVM Code, then the VM will be started with the state of said Object and the Message acted upon.
Metaverse
A simulated digital environment that uses AR, VR and blockchain along with concepts from social media to create spaces for rich user interaction mimicking the real world.
Method ID
The first 4 bytes in hex (8 characters) of the Keccak hash result of the ASCII form of a function signature e.g. functioname(uint32,bool), also called a function selector.
Metropolis
Metropolis is the third development stage of Ethereum, launched in October 2017.
MEV
Short for Maximal Extractable Value (previously Miner Extractable Value), it refers to the value that a miner or validator are able to obtain from reordering transactions within the blocks they produce, on top of the block reward and transaction fees they normally benefit from. Transactions leading to MEV include arbitrage and liquidations. More on this here.
MEV Relay
A trusted mediator connecting Ethereum validators and block builders, allowing validators to offer their block space to maximize extractable value (MEV).
Miner
A network node that finds valid proof of work for new blocks, by repeated hashing.
Mint
In general, coin minting refers to the process of generating a country's currency with government approval. In crypto, it refers to creating new tokens on a blockchain.
Mist
The first Ethereum-enabled browser, built by the Ethereum Foundation. It contains a browser based wallet that was the first implementation of the ERC-20 token standard (Fabian Vogelsteller, author of ERC-20, was also the main developer of Mist). Mist was also the first wallet to introduce the camelCase checksum (EIP-55). Mist runs a full node, and offers a full DApp browser with support for Swarm-based storage and ENS addresses.
N
NatSpec
Ethereum Natural Language Specification Format. A standard format of comments to provide smart contract documentation for end-users and developers.
Network
Referring to the Ethereum network, a peer-to-peer network that propagates transactions and blocks to every Ethereum node (network participant).
NFT
A non-fungible token (also known as a "deed"). This is a token standard introduced by the ERC-721 proposal. NFTs can be tracked and traded, but each token is unique and distinct; they are not interchangeable like ERC-20 tokens. NFTs can represent ownership of digital or physical assets.
NGMI
Not Gonna Make It.
Node
A software client that participates in the network.
Nonce
In cryptography, a value that can only be used once. There are two types of nonce used in Ethereum. (1) An account nonce: A transaction counter in each account, which is used to prevent replay attacks. (2) Proof of work nonce: The random value in a block that was used to satisfy the proof of work.
O
Off-Chain
Any activity or transaction that occurs outside the Ethereum blockchain network involves conducting operations or storing data without directly involving the blockchain’s decentralized consensus mechanism. Off-chain transactions are typically faster and less expensive than on-chain transactions.
On-Chain Governance
A voting system where participating nodes can vote to approve or reject changes to a blockchain protocol.
On-Ramp
A gateway facilitating the purchase of crypto assets for new users, allowing them to convert fiat currency into cryptocurrencies using familiar payment methods like cash, card, or bank transfers.
OpSec
Short for Operations Security, OPSEC refers to a set of practices and principles aimed at identifying risks, implementing countermeasures to prevent them, and safeguarding information and systems.
Optimistic Rollups
Layer 2 scaling solutions that bundle transactions together, assuming their validity, for faster and cheaper processing. Disputes are resolved on the main blockchain if any invalid transactions are detected. They enhance scalability and reduce fees in blockchain networks.
P
Paper Hands
Traders with low-risk tolerance who quickly exit positions at the first sign of disturbances, contrasting with Diamond Hands' resilience during market downturns.
Perpetual Trading
A type of derivative trading which allows traders to speculate on crypto prices without owning the assets, resembling futures contracts with no expiration. It allows leveraged exposure but also comes with high risk and requires a good understanding of the market and risk management.
Play-to-Earn
A business/tokenomics model commonly utilized in gaming projects where the gamers/users earn financial rewards from playing the game.
Ponzi Scheme
A fraudulent investment scheme that promises high returns to investors, typically in a short period, by using funds from new investors to pay returns to earlier investors. The scheme operates by creating the illusion of a legitimate investment opportunity, often with false claims of guaranteed profits or exclusive access to special investments.
PoS Staking
It involves participants, known as validators, locking up a certain amount of cryptocurrency as collateral (staking) to be eligible to validate transactions and create new blocks.
Pre-mine
The act of mining or creating and distributing a quantity of coins or blockchain-based assets before it is made available to the public.
Private key
The secret number that allows Ethereum users to prove ownership of an account or contracts, by producing a digital signature (see public key, address, ECDSA).
Private transaction
A transaction that bypassed the Ethereum transaction pool and was sent directly to miners.
Proof-of-Stake (PoS)
Proof-of-Stake is a method by which a cryptocurrency blockchain protocol aims to achieve distributed consensus. Proof-of-Stake asks users to prove ownership of a certain amount of cryptocurrency (their "stake" in the network) in order to be able to participate in the validation of transactions.
Proof-of-Work (PoW)
A piece of data (the proof) that requires significant computation to find. In Ethereum, miners must find a numeric solution to the Ethash algorithm that meets a network-wide difficulty target.
Public key
A number, derived via a one-way function from a private key, which can be shared publicly and used by anyone to verify a digital signature made with the corresponding private key.
R
Rebase
Feature of certain tokens where the token total supply changes automatically (increases or decreases) to meet its target price.
Rebase Token
An asset that automatically adjusts its supply in response to crypto price fluctuations, providing stability and mitigating volatility.
Receipt
Data returned by an Ethereum client to represent the result of a particular transaction, including a hash of the transaction, its block number, the amount of gas used and, in case of deployment of a Smart Contract, the address of the Contract.
Re-entrancy attack
An attack that consists of an Attacker contract calling a Victim contract function in such a way that during execution the Victim calls the Attacker contract again, recursively. This can result, for example, in the theft of funds by skipping parts of the Victim contract that update balances or count withdrawal amounts. Read more about it here.
Rekt
Deriving from the original word 'wrecked', it is usually used as an expression by a person who has just suffered a significant loss in cryptocurrency.
Reward
An amount of ether included in each new block as a reward by the network to the miner who found the Proof-of-Work solution.
Rinkeby
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
Ropsten
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
S
Safu
An intentional misspelling of the word "safe", originally by a content creator named Bizonacci. It is now popularly used to inform users that funds are, in fact, safe.
Sandwich attack
The act of monitoring the transaction pool for a sufficiently valuable transaction (such as a large trade on a decentralized exchange), then submitting two transactions 'sandwiching' the target transaction. The first one immediately before the target pushes price in one direction, while the second one immediately after the target does the opposite. The attacker profits from the arbitrage between their two transactions. More on this here.
Satoshi Nakamoto
The name used by the person or people who designed Bitcoin, created its original reference implementation, and were the first to solve the double-spend problem for digital currency. Their real identity remains unknown.
Sepolia
An Ethereum testnet. Check out the block explorer here.
Serenity
The fourth and final development stage of Ethereum. Serenity does not yet have a planned release date.
SHA
The Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) is a family of cryptographic hash functions published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Sidechain
A blockchain that is connected to another via a two-way peg.
Sign Message
The act of digitally signing a message as proof of ownership or control over a specific Ethereum wallet address.
Slashing
Slashing involves the deduction of validator’s stake if a validator is found guilty in breaking the rules in consensus mechanism of the network.
Slot
Slot the beacon committee is assigned to attest.
Smart contract
A program which executes on the Ethereum computing infrastructure.
Solidity
A procedural (imperative) programming language with syntax that is similar to JavaScript, C++ or Java. The most popular and most frequently used language for Ethereum smart contracts. Created by Gavin Wood (co-author of this book).
Solidity inline assembly
EVM assembly language in a Solidity program. Solidity’s support for inline assembly makes it easier to write certain operations.
Soulbound Token
A non-transferable token permanently tied to the holder's wallet and identity, unable to be sold or given to others. SBTs are designed to represent digital assets that cannot be acquired by purchasing, such as certificates of competence, reputation, medical records, etc.
Source epoch
Last justified checkpoint during the assigned slot.
Spurious Dragon
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,675,000 to address more denial of service attack vectors, and another state clearing; see "Tangerine Whistle". Also, a replay attack protection mechanism.
Stablecoin
Tokens that are pegged to the price of a separate stable asset, most commonly with the US Dollar. Stablecoins are backed by one of these four collateral structures: crypto-backed, fiat-backed, commodity-backed, or algorithmic. More on Stablecoin here.
Staking
A deposit of funds to receive returns. It can be applied to consensus layer (Proof-Of-Stake), Dapps for yield or DAOs for governance and many others.
Swarm
A decentralized (P2P) storage network, used along with Web3 and Whisper to build DApps.
Szabo
A denomination of ether. 10^12 szabo = 1 ether.
T
Tangerine Whistle
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,463,000 to change the gas calculation for certain I/O-intensive operations and to clear the accumulated state from a denial of service attack, which exploited the low gas cost of those operations.
Target epoch
The checkpoint being justified to be the chain tip.
Testnet
Short for "test network", a network used to simulate the behavior of the main Ethereum network.
The Merge
When the Ethereum protocol transitioned from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.
Ticker
A short, unique identifier used to represent a particular token. Tickers are typically three to five letters long, and they are often derived from the name of the token. For example, the ticker for Ethereum is ETH, and the ticker for Tether USD is USDT.
Timelock
A condition for a transaction to only be processed at a certain time or block on the blockchain.
Token Allowance
Permitting another address to spend tokens on your behalf. Check your allowances using our Token Approvals tool.
Token Spamming
Token spamming on Etherscan is when an address sends an unwanted token to one or more addresses multiple times. Read in more detail in our blog article.
Token Spoofing
A situation where an address is impersonating another address to transfer token(s). From the transaction hash, it may look like address A is transferring a certain token to address B, but it is actually being transferred from address C. Read in more detail in our blog article.
TradFi
Short for Traditional Finance, referring to the mainstream non-blockchain finance industry.
Transaction
Data committed to the Ethereum Blockchain signed by an originating account, targeting a specific address. The transaction contains metadata such as the gas limit for the transaction.
Transaction Fee
The total cost incurred by users for their transactions to be included in the blockchain. It comprises the base fee, which covers computational resources, and an optional tip to prioritize the inclusion of their transaction in a block.
Transaction Pool
Also known as Mempool, the transaction pool refers to the collection of pending transactions that have been created by users and are pending confirmation by miners.
Truffle
A development framework that focuses on smart contract development and utilizes EVM. Read more here.
Turing complete
A system of data-manipulation rules (such as a computer’s instruction set, a programming language, or a cellular automaton) is said to be "Turing complete" or "computationally universal" if it can be used to simulate any Turing machine. The concept is named after English mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing.
TVL
Total Value Locked refers to the amount of value that is locked inside a DeFi application or ecosystem.
U
Uncle Block
A non-canonical block created when multiple miners simultaneously mine on Ethereum before The Merge. Only one block becomes part of the canonical chain, while the others are uncle blocks. Miners of uncle blocks receive reduced rewards.
V
Validator
Validators propose and attest new blocks on the Beacon Chain and participate in securing the network. A validator stakes 32 ETH into the validator deposit contract on the Execution Layer and is rewarded in ETH as a percentage of their stake when successfully proposing or attesting to a block.
Validity Proof
Cryptographic evidence that verifies the correctness or integrity of a claim or statement within a system or context (with no real information shared between two parties). These are commonly used in cryptographic protocols and verification processes to ensure security and compliance.
Vitalik Buterin
Vitalik Buterin is a Russian–Canadian programmer and writer primarily known as the co-founder of Ethereum and as the co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine.
Volatility
The degree of price fluctuations or variability in the value of Ethereum or any other asset over a specific period. In the context of Ethereum, volatility represents the rapid and significant changes in its price or market value.
Vyper
A high-level programming language, similar to Serpent, with Python-like syntax. Intended to get closer to a pure-functional language. Created by Vitalik Buterin.
W
WAGMI
We’re All Gonna Make It.
Wallet
Software that holds private keys. Used to access and control Ethereum accounts and interact with Smart Contracts. Keys need not be stored in a wallet, and can instead be retrieved from an offline storage (e.g. a memory card or paper) for improved security. Despite the name, wallets never store the actual coins or tokens.
Web3
The third version of the web. First proposed by Gavin Wood, Web3 represents a new vision and focus for web applications: from centrally owned and managed applications, to applications built on decentralized protocols.
Wei
The smallest denomination of ether. 10^18 wei = 1 ether.
WGMI
We Gonna Make It.
Whisper
A decentralized (P2P) messaging service. It is used along with Web3 and Swarm to build DApps.
White Hat Hacker
A hacker that exposes security vulnerabilities to help protect projects/protocols/users from malicious hackers.
Whitelist
A Presale list that guarantees you an allocation to mint an NFT or buy tokens in an ICO or IDO.
Z
Zero address
A special Ethereum address, composed entirely of zeros, that is specified as the destination address of a contract creation transaction.
Zero-Knowledge Proof
A cryptographic method that allows an individual to prove that a statement is true without conveying any additional information apart from the fact that the statement is indeed true.
Zero-Knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups)
ZK-rollups is a type of layer 2 scaling solution that bundles transactions into batches and shares the validity proof on a Layer 1 protocol such as the Ethereum mainnet.
zk-SNARK
Zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive Argument of Knowledge. A cryptographic process that allows one entity to prove it possesses certain information without having to disclose that specific information.
Hard fork
A hard fork, also known as a Hard-Forking Change, is a permanent divergence in the blockchain; one commonly occurs when non-upgraded nodes can’t validate blocks created by upgraded nodes that follow newer consensus rules. Not to be confused with fork, soft fork, software fork or Git fork. Read more on hard fork here.
Hardhat
A comprehensive development environment and testing framework for Ethereum smart contracts. It provides tools for compiling contracts, running tests & debugging, and managing contract deployments on Ethereum networks.
Hash
fixed-length fingerprint of variable-size input, produced by a hash function.
Hash Rate
A unit of measurement for the amount of computing power consumed during mining for POW blockchains.
HD wallet
A wallet using the Hierarchical Deterministic (HD Protocol) key creation and transfer protocol (BIP32).
HD wallet seed
An HD wallet seed, or seed, is a value used to generate the master private key and master chain code for an HD wallet. The wallet seed can be represented by mnemonic words, making it easier for humans to copy, backup and restore private keys.
Homestead
The second development stage of Ethereum, launched in March 2016 at block #1,150,000.
Honeypot
A token contract that permits buying a token but restricts or limits selling it to certain addresses only.
Ice Age
A hard fork of Ethereum at block #200,000 to introduce an exponential difficulty increase (aka Difficulty Bomb), motivating a transition to Proof-of-Stake.
IDE
Short for Integrated Development Environment, an integrated user interface that typically combines a code editor, compiler, runtime, and debugger.
Immutable Deployed Code Problem
Once a contract’s (or library’s) code is deployed it becomes immutable. Standard software development practices rely on being able to fix possible bugs and add new features, so this represents a challenge for smart contract development.
Impermanent Loss
A situation where a liquidity provider (LP) to a trading pair on a DEX experiences unrealized financial loss by providing liquidity compared to simply holding the two tokens. This happens as the value of one of the tokens in the pair has dropped significantly compared to the other while the LP returns have not sufficiently accumulated.
Internal transaction (also "message")
A transaction sent from a contract account to another contract account or an EOA.
Invalidation
In order for a trade setup to have defined risk parameters, it should be composed of an entry, target and invalidation. This invalidation is a point at which your thesis no longer makes sense and can be either a price or fundamental trigger.
IPFS
The Inter Planetary File System is a protocol, a network and an open-source project designed to create a content-addressable, peer-to-peer method of storing and sharing hypermedia in a distributed file system.
Istanbul
The eight development stage of Ethereum, launched at block #9,069,000
J
Java Virtual Machine (JVM)
A virtual machine that enables the execution of Java programs. It transforms Java bytecode into computer code, allowing the system software to interpret it. The JVM manages storage and ensures operating system independence for Java applications.
K
Keccak256
Cryptographic hash function used in Ethereum. Keccak256 was standardized as SHA-3.
Keylogger
Surveillance software used by hackers to capture user input on a computer keyboard, including keystrokes, for unauthorized access to sensitive information.
Keystore File
A JSON-encoded file that contains a single (randomly generated) private key, encrypted by a passphrase for extra security.
Kovan
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
KYC
Know Your Customer; It is a user identification process instated by businesses and regulators in order to substantiate and understand the risk of a potential user.
L
Layer 2 (L2)
Layer 2 refers to several approaches to handle transactions off the main Ethereum chain. These allow for higher scalability of the network and reduced transaction fees. Some examples include Optimistic and Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Rollups, Validium, Plasma and State Channels.
Leverage
The ratio of borrowed funds to the trader's own capital, allowing control of larger trading positions compared to available capital.
Library
A library in Ethereum is a special type of contract that has no payable functions, no fallback function, and no data storage. Therefore, it cannot receive or hold ether, or store data. A library serves as previously deployed code that other contracts can call for read-only computation.
Lightweight client
A lightweight client is an Ethereum client that does not store a local copy of the blockchain, or validate blocks and transactions. It offers the functions of a wallet and can create and broadcast transactions.
Liquid Staking
A staking mechanism where a staking pool or exchange provides users with derivative tokens when they stake the original tokens with the staking pool or exchange. The derivative tokens may then be used in other DeFi activities instead of being locked. Read more here.
Liquidation
In Defi, it refers to the process of selling assets off from an under-collateralized loan. More on Liquidation here.
Liquidity
The degree to which an asset, such as Ethereum, can be bought or sold quickly in the market without causing a significant impact on its price. It measures the ease of converting the asset into cash or other assets. Liquidity can be influenced by various factors, including trading volume, the number of market participants, the presence of market makers, and the availability of trading pairs on different exchanges.
M
Margin
The collateral or initial investment in cryptocurrency trading required to open and maintain a leveraged position. It involves the use of borrowed funds to amplify trading positions in crypto, enabling the potential for larger profits but also increasing the risk of larger losses.
Merkle Patricia Tree
A data structure used in Ethereum to efficiently store key-value pairs.
Message
An internal transaction that is never serialized and only sent within the EVM.
Message Call
The act of passing a message from one Account to another. If the destination account is associated with EVM Code, then the VM will be started with the state of said Object and the Message acted upon.
Metaverse
A simulated digital environment that uses AR, VR and blockchain along with concepts from social media to create spaces for rich user interaction mimicking the real world.
Method ID
The first 4 bytes in hex (8 characters) of the Keccak hash result of the ASCII form of a function signature e.g. functioname(uint32,bool), also called a function selector.
Metropolis
Metropolis is the third development stage of Ethereum, launched in October 2017.
MEV
Short for Maximal Extractable Value (previously Miner Extractable Value), it refers to the value that a miner or validator are able to obtain from reordering transactions within the blocks they produce, on top of the block reward and transaction fees they normally benefit from. Transactions leading to MEV include arbitrage and liquidations. More on this here.
MEV Relay
A trusted mediator connecting Ethereum validators and block builders, allowing validators to offer their block space to maximize extractable value (MEV).
Miner
A network node that finds valid proof of work for new blocks, by repeated hashing.
Mint
In general, coin minting refers to the process of generating a country's currency with government approval. In crypto, it refers to creating new tokens on a blockchain.
Mist
The first Ethereum-enabled browser, built by the Ethereum Foundation. It contains a browser based wallet that was the first implementation of the ERC-20 token standard (Fabian Vogelsteller, author of ERC-20, was also the main developer of Mist). Mist was also the first wallet to introduce the camelCase checksum (EIP-55). Mist runs a full node, and offers a full DApp browser with support for Swarm-based storage and ENS addresses.
N
NatSpec
Ethereum Natural Language Specification Format. A standard format of comments to provide smart contract documentation for end-users and developers.
Network
Referring to the Ethereum network, a peer-to-peer network that propagates transactions and blocks to every Ethereum node (network participant).
NFT
A non-fungible token (also known as a "deed"). This is a token standard introduced by the ERC-721 proposal. NFTs can be tracked and traded, but each token is unique and distinct; they are not interchangeable like ERC-20 tokens. NFTs can represent ownership of digital or physical assets.
NGMI
Not Gonna Make It.
Node
A software client that participates in the network.
Nonce
In cryptography, a value that can only be used once. There are two types of nonce used in Ethereum. (1) An account nonce: A transaction counter in each account, which is used to prevent replay attacks. (2) Proof of work nonce: The random value in a block that was used to satisfy the proof of work.
O
Off-Chain
Any activity or transaction that occurs outside the Ethereum blockchain network involves conducting operations or storing data without directly involving the blockchain’s decentralized consensus mechanism. Off-chain transactions are typically faster and less expensive than on-chain transactions.
On-Chain Governance
A voting system where participating nodes can vote to approve or reject changes to a blockchain protocol.
On-Ramp
A gateway facilitating the purchase of crypto assets for new users, allowing them to convert fiat currency into cryptocurrencies using familiar payment methods like cash, card, or bank transfers.
OpSec
Short for Operations Security, OPSEC refers to a set of practices and principles aimed at identifying risks, implementing countermeasures to prevent them, and safeguarding information and systems.
Optimistic Rollups
Layer 2 scaling solutions that bundle transactions together, assuming their validity, for faster and cheaper processing. Disputes are resolved on the main blockchain if any invalid transactions are detected. They enhance scalability and reduce fees in blockchain networks.
P
Paper Hands
Traders with low-risk tolerance who quickly exit positions at the first sign of disturbances, contrasting with Diamond Hands' resilience during market downturns.
Perpetual Trading
A type of derivative trading which allows traders to speculate on crypto prices without owning the assets, resembling futures contracts with no expiration. It allows leveraged exposure but also comes with high risk and requires a good understanding of the market and risk management.
Play-to-Earn
A business/tokenomics model commonly utilized in gaming projects where the gamers/users earn financial rewards from playing the game.
Ponzi Scheme
A fraudulent investment scheme that promises high returns to investors, typically in a short period, by using funds from new investors to pay returns to earlier investors. The scheme operates by creating the illusion of a legitimate investment opportunity, often with false claims of guaranteed profits or exclusive access to special investments.
PoS Staking
It involves participants, known as validators, locking up a certain amount of cryptocurrency as collateral (staking) to be eligible to validate transactions and create new blocks.
Pre-mine
The act of mining or creating and distributing a quantity of coins or blockchain-based assets before it is made available to the public.
Private key
The secret number that allows Ethereum users to prove ownership of an account or contracts, by producing a digital signature (see public key, address, ECDSA).
Private transaction
A transaction that bypassed the Ethereum transaction pool and was sent directly to miners.
Proof-of-Stake (PoS)
Proof-of-Stake is a method by which a cryptocurrency blockchain protocol aims to achieve distributed consensus. Proof-of-Stake asks users to prove ownership of a certain amount of cryptocurrency (their "stake" in the network) in order to be able to participate in the validation of transactions.
Proof-of-Work (PoW)
A piece of data (the proof) that requires significant computation to find. In Ethereum, miners must find a numeric solution to the Ethash algorithm that meets a network-wide difficulty target.
Public key
A number, derived via a one-way function from a private key, which can be shared publicly and used by anyone to verify a digital signature made with the corresponding private key.
R
Rebase
Feature of certain tokens where the token total supply changes automatically (increases or decreases) to meet its target price.
Rebase Token
An asset that automatically adjusts its supply in response to crypto price fluctuations, providing stability and mitigating volatility.
Receipt
Data returned by an Ethereum client to represent the result of a particular transaction, including a hash of the transaction, its block number, the amount of gas used and, in case of deployment of a Smart Contract, the address of the Contract.
Re-entrancy attack
An attack that consists of an Attacker contract calling a Victim contract function in such a way that during execution the Victim calls the Attacker contract again, recursively. This can result, for example, in the theft of funds by skipping parts of the Victim contract that update balances or count withdrawal amounts. Read more about it here.
Rekt
Deriving from the original word 'wrecked', it is usually used as an expression by a person who has just suffered a significant loss in cryptocurrency.
Reward
An amount of ether included in each new block as a reward by the network to the miner who found the Proof-of-Work solution.
Rinkeby
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
Ropsten
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
S
Safu
An intentional misspelling of the word "safe", originally by a content creator named Bizonacci. It is now popularly used to inform users that funds are, in fact, safe.
Sandwich attack
The act of monitoring the transaction pool for a sufficiently valuable transaction (such as a large trade on a decentralized exchange), then submitting two transactions 'sandwiching' the target transaction. The first one immediately before the target pushes price in one direction, while the second one immediately after the target does the opposite. The attacker profits from the arbitrage between their two transactions. More on this here.
Satoshi Nakamoto
The name used by the person or people who designed Bitcoin, created its original reference implementation, and were the first to solve the double-spend problem for digital currency. Their real identity remains unknown.
Sepolia
An Ethereum testnet. Check out the block explorer here.
Serenity
The fourth and final development stage of Ethereum. Serenity does not yet have a planned release date.
SHA
The Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) is a family of cryptographic hash functions published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Sidechain
A blockchain that is connected to another via a two-way peg.
Sign Message
The act of digitally signing a message as proof of ownership or control over a specific Ethereum wallet address.
Slashing
Slashing involves the deduction of validator’s stake if a validator is found guilty in breaking the rules in consensus mechanism of the network.
Slot
Slot the beacon committee is assigned to attest.
Smart contract
A program which executes on the Ethereum computing infrastructure.
Solidity
A procedural (imperative) programming language with syntax that is similar to JavaScript, C++ or Java. The most popular and most frequently used language for Ethereum smart contracts. Created by Gavin Wood (co-author of this book).
Solidity inline assembly
EVM assembly language in a Solidity program. Solidity’s support for inline assembly makes it easier to write certain operations.
Soulbound Token
A non-transferable token permanently tied to the holder's wallet and identity, unable to be sold or given to others. SBTs are designed to represent digital assets that cannot be acquired by purchasing, such as certificates of competence, reputation, medical records, etc.
Source epoch
Last justified checkpoint during the assigned slot.
Spurious Dragon
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,675,000 to address more denial of service attack vectors, and another state clearing; see "Tangerine Whistle". Also, a replay attack protection mechanism.
Stablecoin
Tokens that are pegged to the price of a separate stable asset, most commonly with the US Dollar. Stablecoins are backed by one of these four collateral structures: crypto-backed, fiat-backed, commodity-backed, or algorithmic. More on Stablecoin here.
Staking
A deposit of funds to receive returns. It can be applied to consensus layer (Proof-Of-Stake), Dapps for yield or DAOs for governance and many others.
Swarm
A decentralized (P2P) storage network, used along with Web3 and Whisper to build DApps.
Szabo
A denomination of ether. 10^12 szabo = 1 ether.
T
Tangerine Whistle
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,463,000 to change the gas calculation for certain I/O-intensive operations and to clear the accumulated state from a denial of service attack, which exploited the low gas cost of those operations.
Target epoch
The checkpoint being justified to be the chain tip.
Testnet
Short for "test network", a network used to simulate the behavior of the main Ethereum network.
The Merge
When the Ethereum protocol transitioned from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.
Ticker
A short, unique identifier used to represent a particular token. Tickers are typically three to five letters long, and they are often derived from the name of the token. For example, the ticker for Ethereum is ETH, and the ticker for Tether USD is USDT.
Timelock
A condition for a transaction to only be processed at a certain time or block on the blockchain.
Token Allowance
Permitting another address to spend tokens on your behalf. Check your allowances using our Token Approvals tool.
Token Spamming
Token spamming on Etherscan is when an address sends an unwanted token to one or more addresses multiple times. Read in more detail in our blog article.
Token Spoofing
A situation where an address is impersonating another address to transfer token(s). From the transaction hash, it may look like address A is transferring a certain token to address B, but it is actually being transferred from address C. Read in more detail in our blog article.
TradFi
Short for Traditional Finance, referring to the mainstream non-blockchain finance industry.
Transaction
Data committed to the Ethereum Blockchain signed by an originating account, targeting a specific address. The transaction contains metadata such as the gas limit for the transaction.
Transaction Fee
The total cost incurred by users for their transactions to be included in the blockchain. It comprises the base fee, which covers computational resources, and an optional tip to prioritize the inclusion of their transaction in a block.
Transaction Pool
Also known as Mempool, the transaction pool refers to the collection of pending transactions that have been created by users and are pending confirmation by miners.
Truffle
A development framework that focuses on smart contract development and utilizes EVM. Read more here.
Turing complete
A system of data-manipulation rules (such as a computer’s instruction set, a programming language, or a cellular automaton) is said to be "Turing complete" or "computationally universal" if it can be used to simulate any Turing machine. The concept is named after English mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing.
TVL
Total Value Locked refers to the amount of value that is locked inside a DeFi application or ecosystem.
U
Uncle Block
A non-canonical block created when multiple miners simultaneously mine on Ethereum before The Merge. Only one block becomes part of the canonical chain, while the others are uncle blocks. Miners of uncle blocks receive reduced rewards.
V
Validator
Validators propose and attest new blocks on the Beacon Chain and participate in securing the network. A validator stakes 32 ETH into the validator deposit contract on the Execution Layer and is rewarded in ETH as a percentage of their stake when successfully proposing or attesting to a block.
Validity Proof
Cryptographic evidence that verifies the correctness or integrity of a claim or statement within a system or context (with no real information shared between two parties). These are commonly used in cryptographic protocols and verification processes to ensure security and compliance.
Vitalik Buterin
Vitalik Buterin is a Russian–Canadian programmer and writer primarily known as the co-founder of Ethereum and as the co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine.
Volatility
The degree of price fluctuations or variability in the value of Ethereum or any other asset over a specific period. In the context of Ethereum, volatility represents the rapid and significant changes in its price or market value.
Vyper
A high-level programming language, similar to Serpent, with Python-like syntax. Intended to get closer to a pure-functional language. Created by Vitalik Buterin.
W
WAGMI
We’re All Gonna Make It.
Wallet
Software that holds private keys. Used to access and control Ethereum accounts and interact with Smart Contracts. Keys need not be stored in a wallet, and can instead be retrieved from an offline storage (e.g. a memory card or paper) for improved security. Despite the name, wallets never store the actual coins or tokens.
Web3
The third version of the web. First proposed by Gavin Wood, Web3 represents a new vision and focus for web applications: from centrally owned and managed applications, to applications built on decentralized protocols.
Wei
The smallest denomination of ether. 10^18 wei = 1 ether.
WGMI
We Gonna Make It.
Whisper
A decentralized (P2P) messaging service. It is used along with Web3 and Swarm to build DApps.
White Hat Hacker
A hacker that exposes security vulnerabilities to help protect projects/protocols/users from malicious hackers.
Whitelist
A Presale list that guarantees you an allocation to mint an NFT or buy tokens in an ICO or IDO.
Z
Zero address
A special Ethereum address, composed entirely of zeros, that is specified as the destination address of a contract creation transaction.
Zero-Knowledge Proof
A cryptographic method that allows an individual to prove that a statement is true without conveying any additional information apart from the fact that the statement is indeed true.
Zero-Knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups)
ZK-rollups is a type of layer 2 scaling solution that bundles transactions into batches and shares the validity proof on a Layer 1 protocol such as the Ethereum mainnet.
zk-SNARK
Zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive Argument of Knowledge. A cryptographic process that allows one entity to prove it possesses certain information without having to disclose that specific information.
Java Virtual Machine (JVM)
A virtual machine that enables the execution of Java programs. It transforms Java bytecode into computer code, allowing the system software to interpret it. The JVM manages storage and ensures operating system independence for Java applications.
Keccak256
Cryptographic hash function used in Ethereum. Keccak256 was standardized as SHA-3.
Keylogger
Surveillance software used by hackers to capture user input on a computer keyboard, including keystrokes, for unauthorized access to sensitive information.
Keystore File
A JSON-encoded file that contains a single (randomly generated) private key, encrypted by a passphrase for extra security.
Kovan
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
KYC
Know Your Customer; It is a user identification process instated by businesses and regulators in order to substantiate and understand the risk of a potential user.
L
Layer 2 (L2)
Layer 2 refers to several approaches to handle transactions off the main Ethereum chain. These allow for higher scalability of the network and reduced transaction fees. Some examples include Optimistic and Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Rollups, Validium, Plasma and State Channels.
Leverage
The ratio of borrowed funds to the trader's own capital, allowing control of larger trading positions compared to available capital.
Library
A library in Ethereum is a special type of contract that has no payable functions, no fallback function, and no data storage. Therefore, it cannot receive or hold ether, or store data. A library serves as previously deployed code that other contracts can call for read-only computation.
Lightweight client
A lightweight client is an Ethereum client that does not store a local copy of the blockchain, or validate blocks and transactions. It offers the functions of a wallet and can create and broadcast transactions.
Liquid Staking
A staking mechanism where a staking pool or exchange provides users with derivative tokens when they stake the original tokens with the staking pool or exchange. The derivative tokens may then be used in other DeFi activities instead of being locked. Read more here.
Liquidation
In Defi, it refers to the process of selling assets off from an under-collateralized loan. More on Liquidation here.
Liquidity
The degree to which an asset, such as Ethereum, can be bought or sold quickly in the market without causing a significant impact on its price. It measures the ease of converting the asset into cash or other assets. Liquidity can be influenced by various factors, including trading volume, the number of market participants, the presence of market makers, and the availability of trading pairs on different exchanges.
M
Margin
The collateral or initial investment in cryptocurrency trading required to open and maintain a leveraged position. It involves the use of borrowed funds to amplify trading positions in crypto, enabling the potential for larger profits but also increasing the risk of larger losses.
Merkle Patricia Tree
A data structure used in Ethereum to efficiently store key-value pairs.
Message
An internal transaction that is never serialized and only sent within the EVM.
Message Call
The act of passing a message from one Account to another. If the destination account is associated with EVM Code, then the VM will be started with the state of said Object and the Message acted upon.
Metaverse
A simulated digital environment that uses AR, VR and blockchain along with concepts from social media to create spaces for rich user interaction mimicking the real world.
Method ID
The first 4 bytes in hex (8 characters) of the Keccak hash result of the ASCII form of a function signature e.g. functioname(uint32,bool), also called a function selector.
Metropolis
Metropolis is the third development stage of Ethereum, launched in October 2017.
MEV
Short for Maximal Extractable Value (previously Miner Extractable Value), it refers to the value that a miner or validator are able to obtain from reordering transactions within the blocks they produce, on top of the block reward and transaction fees they normally benefit from. Transactions leading to MEV include arbitrage and liquidations. More on this here.
MEV Relay
A trusted mediator connecting Ethereum validators and block builders, allowing validators to offer their block space to maximize extractable value (MEV).
Miner
A network node that finds valid proof of work for new blocks, by repeated hashing.
Mint
In general, coin minting refers to the process of generating a country's currency with government approval. In crypto, it refers to creating new tokens on a blockchain.
Mist
The first Ethereum-enabled browser, built by the Ethereum Foundation. It contains a browser based wallet that was the first implementation of the ERC-20 token standard (Fabian Vogelsteller, author of ERC-20, was also the main developer of Mist). Mist was also the first wallet to introduce the camelCase checksum (EIP-55). Mist runs a full node, and offers a full DApp browser with support for Swarm-based storage and ENS addresses.
N
NatSpec
Ethereum Natural Language Specification Format. A standard format of comments to provide smart contract documentation for end-users and developers.
Network
Referring to the Ethereum network, a peer-to-peer network that propagates transactions and blocks to every Ethereum node (network participant).
NFT
A non-fungible token (also known as a "deed"). This is a token standard introduced by the ERC-721 proposal. NFTs can be tracked and traded, but each token is unique and distinct; they are not interchangeable like ERC-20 tokens. NFTs can represent ownership of digital or physical assets.
NGMI
Not Gonna Make It.
Node
A software client that participates in the network.
Nonce
In cryptography, a value that can only be used once. There are two types of nonce used in Ethereum. (1) An account nonce: A transaction counter in each account, which is used to prevent replay attacks. (2) Proof of work nonce: The random value in a block that was used to satisfy the proof of work.
O
Off-Chain
Any activity or transaction that occurs outside the Ethereum blockchain network involves conducting operations or storing data without directly involving the blockchain’s decentralized consensus mechanism. Off-chain transactions are typically faster and less expensive than on-chain transactions.
On-Chain Governance
A voting system where participating nodes can vote to approve or reject changes to a blockchain protocol.
On-Ramp
A gateway facilitating the purchase of crypto assets for new users, allowing them to convert fiat currency into cryptocurrencies using familiar payment methods like cash, card, or bank transfers.
OpSec
Short for Operations Security, OPSEC refers to a set of practices and principles aimed at identifying risks, implementing countermeasures to prevent them, and safeguarding information and systems.
Optimistic Rollups
Layer 2 scaling solutions that bundle transactions together, assuming their validity, for faster and cheaper processing. Disputes are resolved on the main blockchain if any invalid transactions are detected. They enhance scalability and reduce fees in blockchain networks.
P
Paper Hands
Traders with low-risk tolerance who quickly exit positions at the first sign of disturbances, contrasting with Diamond Hands' resilience during market downturns.
Perpetual Trading
A type of derivative trading which allows traders to speculate on crypto prices without owning the assets, resembling futures contracts with no expiration. It allows leveraged exposure but also comes with high risk and requires a good understanding of the market and risk management.
Play-to-Earn
A business/tokenomics model commonly utilized in gaming projects where the gamers/users earn financial rewards from playing the game.
Ponzi Scheme
A fraudulent investment scheme that promises high returns to investors, typically in a short period, by using funds from new investors to pay returns to earlier investors. The scheme operates by creating the illusion of a legitimate investment opportunity, often with false claims of guaranteed profits or exclusive access to special investments.
PoS Staking
It involves participants, known as validators, locking up a certain amount of cryptocurrency as collateral (staking) to be eligible to validate transactions and create new blocks.
Pre-mine
The act of mining or creating and distributing a quantity of coins or blockchain-based assets before it is made available to the public.
Private key
The secret number that allows Ethereum users to prove ownership of an account or contracts, by producing a digital signature (see public key, address, ECDSA).
Private transaction
A transaction that bypassed the Ethereum transaction pool and was sent directly to miners.
Proof-of-Stake (PoS)
Proof-of-Stake is a method by which a cryptocurrency blockchain protocol aims to achieve distributed consensus. Proof-of-Stake asks users to prove ownership of a certain amount of cryptocurrency (their "stake" in the network) in order to be able to participate in the validation of transactions.
Proof-of-Work (PoW)
A piece of data (the proof) that requires significant computation to find. In Ethereum, miners must find a numeric solution to the Ethash algorithm that meets a network-wide difficulty target.
Public key
A number, derived via a one-way function from a private key, which can be shared publicly and used by anyone to verify a digital signature made with the corresponding private key.
R
Rebase
Feature of certain tokens where the token total supply changes automatically (increases or decreases) to meet its target price.
Rebase Token
An asset that automatically adjusts its supply in response to crypto price fluctuations, providing stability and mitigating volatility.
Receipt
Data returned by an Ethereum client to represent the result of a particular transaction, including a hash of the transaction, its block number, the amount of gas used and, in case of deployment of a Smart Contract, the address of the Contract.
Re-entrancy attack
An attack that consists of an Attacker contract calling a Victim contract function in such a way that during execution the Victim calls the Attacker contract again, recursively. This can result, for example, in the theft of funds by skipping parts of the Victim contract that update balances or count withdrawal amounts. Read more about it here.
Rekt
Deriving from the original word 'wrecked', it is usually used as an expression by a person who has just suffered a significant loss in cryptocurrency.
Reward
An amount of ether included in each new block as a reward by the network to the miner who found the Proof-of-Work solution.
Rinkeby
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
Ropsten
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
S
Safu
An intentional misspelling of the word "safe", originally by a content creator named Bizonacci. It is now popularly used to inform users that funds are, in fact, safe.
Sandwich attack
The act of monitoring the transaction pool for a sufficiently valuable transaction (such as a large trade on a decentralized exchange), then submitting two transactions 'sandwiching' the target transaction. The first one immediately before the target pushes price in one direction, while the second one immediately after the target does the opposite. The attacker profits from the arbitrage between their two transactions. More on this here.
Satoshi Nakamoto
The name used by the person or people who designed Bitcoin, created its original reference implementation, and were the first to solve the double-spend problem for digital currency. Their real identity remains unknown.
Sepolia
An Ethereum testnet. Check out the block explorer here.
Serenity
The fourth and final development stage of Ethereum. Serenity does not yet have a planned release date.
SHA
The Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) is a family of cryptographic hash functions published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Sidechain
A blockchain that is connected to another via a two-way peg.
Sign Message
The act of digitally signing a message as proof of ownership or control over a specific Ethereum wallet address.
Slashing
Slashing involves the deduction of validator’s stake if a validator is found guilty in breaking the rules in consensus mechanism of the network.
Slot
Slot the beacon committee is assigned to attest.
Smart contract
A program which executes on the Ethereum computing infrastructure.
Solidity
A procedural (imperative) programming language with syntax that is similar to JavaScript, C++ or Java. The most popular and most frequently used language for Ethereum smart contracts. Created by Gavin Wood (co-author of this book).
Solidity inline assembly
EVM assembly language in a Solidity program. Solidity’s support for inline assembly makes it easier to write certain operations.
Soulbound Token
A non-transferable token permanently tied to the holder's wallet and identity, unable to be sold or given to others. SBTs are designed to represent digital assets that cannot be acquired by purchasing, such as certificates of competence, reputation, medical records, etc.
Source epoch
Last justified checkpoint during the assigned slot.
Spurious Dragon
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,675,000 to address more denial of service attack vectors, and another state clearing; see "Tangerine Whistle". Also, a replay attack protection mechanism.
Stablecoin
Tokens that are pegged to the price of a separate stable asset, most commonly with the US Dollar. Stablecoins are backed by one of these four collateral structures: crypto-backed, fiat-backed, commodity-backed, or algorithmic. More on Stablecoin here.
Staking
A deposit of funds to receive returns. It can be applied to consensus layer (Proof-Of-Stake), Dapps for yield or DAOs for governance and many others.
Swarm
A decentralized (P2P) storage network, used along with Web3 and Whisper to build DApps.
Szabo
A denomination of ether. 10^12 szabo = 1 ether.
T
Tangerine Whistle
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,463,000 to change the gas calculation for certain I/O-intensive operations and to clear the accumulated state from a denial of service attack, which exploited the low gas cost of those operations.
Target epoch
The checkpoint being justified to be the chain tip.
Testnet
Short for "test network", a network used to simulate the behavior of the main Ethereum network.
The Merge
When the Ethereum protocol transitioned from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.
Ticker
A short, unique identifier used to represent a particular token. Tickers are typically three to five letters long, and they are often derived from the name of the token. For example, the ticker for Ethereum is ETH, and the ticker for Tether USD is USDT.
Timelock
A condition for a transaction to only be processed at a certain time or block on the blockchain.
Token Allowance
Permitting another address to spend tokens on your behalf. Check your allowances using our Token Approvals tool.
Token Spamming
Token spamming on Etherscan is when an address sends an unwanted token to one or more addresses multiple times. Read in more detail in our blog article.
Token Spoofing
A situation where an address is impersonating another address to transfer token(s). From the transaction hash, it may look like address A is transferring a certain token to address B, but it is actually being transferred from address C. Read in more detail in our blog article.
TradFi
Short for Traditional Finance, referring to the mainstream non-blockchain finance industry.
Transaction
Data committed to the Ethereum Blockchain signed by an originating account, targeting a specific address. The transaction contains metadata such as the gas limit for the transaction.
Transaction Fee
The total cost incurred by users for their transactions to be included in the blockchain. It comprises the base fee, which covers computational resources, and an optional tip to prioritize the inclusion of their transaction in a block.
Transaction Pool
Also known as Mempool, the transaction pool refers to the collection of pending transactions that have been created by users and are pending confirmation by miners.
Truffle
A development framework that focuses on smart contract development and utilizes EVM. Read more here.
Turing complete
A system of data-manipulation rules (such as a computer’s instruction set, a programming language, or a cellular automaton) is said to be "Turing complete" or "computationally universal" if it can be used to simulate any Turing machine. The concept is named after English mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing.
TVL
Total Value Locked refers to the amount of value that is locked inside a DeFi application or ecosystem.
U
Uncle Block
A non-canonical block created when multiple miners simultaneously mine on Ethereum before The Merge. Only one block becomes part of the canonical chain, while the others are uncle blocks. Miners of uncle blocks receive reduced rewards.
V
Validator
Validators propose and attest new blocks on the Beacon Chain and participate in securing the network. A validator stakes 32 ETH into the validator deposit contract on the Execution Layer and is rewarded in ETH as a percentage of their stake when successfully proposing or attesting to a block.
Validity Proof
Cryptographic evidence that verifies the correctness or integrity of a claim or statement within a system or context (with no real information shared between two parties). These are commonly used in cryptographic protocols and verification processes to ensure security and compliance.
Vitalik Buterin
Vitalik Buterin is a Russian–Canadian programmer and writer primarily known as the co-founder of Ethereum and as the co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine.
Volatility
The degree of price fluctuations or variability in the value of Ethereum or any other asset over a specific period. In the context of Ethereum, volatility represents the rapid and significant changes in its price or market value.
Vyper
A high-level programming language, similar to Serpent, with Python-like syntax. Intended to get closer to a pure-functional language. Created by Vitalik Buterin.
W
WAGMI
We’re All Gonna Make It.
Wallet
Software that holds private keys. Used to access and control Ethereum accounts and interact with Smart Contracts. Keys need not be stored in a wallet, and can instead be retrieved from an offline storage (e.g. a memory card or paper) for improved security. Despite the name, wallets never store the actual coins or tokens.
Web3
The third version of the web. First proposed by Gavin Wood, Web3 represents a new vision and focus for web applications: from centrally owned and managed applications, to applications built on decentralized protocols.
Wei
The smallest denomination of ether. 10^18 wei = 1 ether.
WGMI
We Gonna Make It.
Whisper
A decentralized (P2P) messaging service. It is used along with Web3 and Swarm to build DApps.
White Hat Hacker
A hacker that exposes security vulnerabilities to help protect projects/protocols/users from malicious hackers.
Whitelist
A Presale list that guarantees you an allocation to mint an NFT or buy tokens in an ICO or IDO.
Z
Zero address
A special Ethereum address, composed entirely of zeros, that is specified as the destination address of a contract creation transaction.
Zero-Knowledge Proof
A cryptographic method that allows an individual to prove that a statement is true without conveying any additional information apart from the fact that the statement is indeed true.
Zero-Knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups)
ZK-rollups is a type of layer 2 scaling solution that bundles transactions into batches and shares the validity proof on a Layer 1 protocol such as the Ethereum mainnet.
zk-SNARK
Zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive Argument of Knowledge. A cryptographic process that allows one entity to prove it possesses certain information without having to disclose that specific information.
Layer 2 (L2)
Layer 2 refers to several approaches to handle transactions off the main Ethereum chain. These allow for higher scalability of the network and reduced transaction fees. Some examples include Optimistic and Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Rollups, Validium, Plasma and State Channels.
Leverage
The ratio of borrowed funds to the trader's own capital, allowing control of larger trading positions compared to available capital.
Library
A library in Ethereum is a special type of contract that has no payable functions, no fallback function, and no data storage. Therefore, it cannot receive or hold ether, or store data. A library serves as previously deployed code that other contracts can call for read-only computation.
Lightweight client
A lightweight client is an Ethereum client that does not store a local copy of the blockchain, or validate blocks and transactions. It offers the functions of a wallet and can create and broadcast transactions.
Liquid Staking
A staking mechanism where a staking pool or exchange provides users with derivative tokens when they stake the original tokens with the staking pool or exchange. The derivative tokens may then be used in other DeFi activities instead of being locked. Read more here.
Liquidation
In Defi, it refers to the process of selling assets off from an under-collateralized loan. More on Liquidation here.
Liquidity
The degree to which an asset, such as Ethereum, can be bought or sold quickly in the market without causing a significant impact on its price. It measures the ease of converting the asset into cash or other assets. Liquidity can be influenced by various factors, including trading volume, the number of market participants, the presence of market makers, and the availability of trading pairs on different exchanges.
Margin
The collateral or initial investment in cryptocurrency trading required to open and maintain a leveraged position. It involves the use of borrowed funds to amplify trading positions in crypto, enabling the potential for larger profits but also increasing the risk of larger losses.
Merkle Patricia Tree
A data structure used in Ethereum to efficiently store key-value pairs.
Message
An internal transaction that is never serialized and only sent within the EVM.
Message Call
The act of passing a message from one Account to another. If the destination account is associated with EVM Code, then the VM will be started with the state of said Object and the Message acted upon.
Metaverse
A simulated digital environment that uses AR, VR and blockchain along with concepts from social media to create spaces for rich user interaction mimicking the real world.
Method ID
The first 4 bytes in hex (8 characters) of the Keccak hash result of the ASCII form of a function signature e.g. functioname(uint32,bool), also called a function selector.
Metropolis
Metropolis is the third development stage of Ethereum, launched in October 2017.
MEV
Short for Maximal Extractable Value (previously Miner Extractable Value), it refers to the value that a miner or validator are able to obtain from reordering transactions within the blocks they produce, on top of the block reward and transaction fees they normally benefit from. Transactions leading to MEV include arbitrage and liquidations. More on this here.
MEV Relay
A trusted mediator connecting Ethereum validators and block builders, allowing validators to offer their block space to maximize extractable value (MEV).
Miner
A network node that finds valid proof of work for new blocks, by repeated hashing.
Mint
In general, coin minting refers to the process of generating a country's currency with government approval. In crypto, it refers to creating new tokens on a blockchain.
Mist
The first Ethereum-enabled browser, built by the Ethereum Foundation. It contains a browser based wallet that was the first implementation of the ERC-20 token standard (Fabian Vogelsteller, author of ERC-20, was also the main developer of Mist). Mist was also the first wallet to introduce the camelCase checksum (EIP-55). Mist runs a full node, and offers a full DApp browser with support for Swarm-based storage and ENS addresses.
N
NatSpec
Ethereum Natural Language Specification Format. A standard format of comments to provide smart contract documentation for end-users and developers.
Network
Referring to the Ethereum network, a peer-to-peer network that propagates transactions and blocks to every Ethereum node (network participant).
NFT
A non-fungible token (also known as a "deed"). This is a token standard introduced by the ERC-721 proposal. NFTs can be tracked and traded, but each token is unique and distinct; they are not interchangeable like ERC-20 tokens. NFTs can represent ownership of digital or physical assets.
NGMI
Not Gonna Make It.
Node
A software client that participates in the network.
Nonce
In cryptography, a value that can only be used once. There are two types of nonce used in Ethereum. (1) An account nonce: A transaction counter in each account, which is used to prevent replay attacks. (2) Proof of work nonce: The random value in a block that was used to satisfy the proof of work.
O
Off-Chain
Any activity or transaction that occurs outside the Ethereum blockchain network involves conducting operations or storing data without directly involving the blockchain’s decentralized consensus mechanism. Off-chain transactions are typically faster and less expensive than on-chain transactions.
On-Chain Governance
A voting system where participating nodes can vote to approve or reject changes to a blockchain protocol.
On-Ramp
A gateway facilitating the purchase of crypto assets for new users, allowing them to convert fiat currency into cryptocurrencies using familiar payment methods like cash, card, or bank transfers.
OpSec
Short for Operations Security, OPSEC refers to a set of practices and principles aimed at identifying risks, implementing countermeasures to prevent them, and safeguarding information and systems.
Optimistic Rollups
Layer 2 scaling solutions that bundle transactions together, assuming their validity, for faster and cheaper processing. Disputes are resolved on the main blockchain if any invalid transactions are detected. They enhance scalability and reduce fees in blockchain networks.
P
Paper Hands
Traders with low-risk tolerance who quickly exit positions at the first sign of disturbances, contrasting with Diamond Hands' resilience during market downturns.
Perpetual Trading
A type of derivative trading which allows traders to speculate on crypto prices without owning the assets, resembling futures contracts with no expiration. It allows leveraged exposure but also comes with high risk and requires a good understanding of the market and risk management.
Play-to-Earn
A business/tokenomics model commonly utilized in gaming projects where the gamers/users earn financial rewards from playing the game.
Ponzi Scheme
A fraudulent investment scheme that promises high returns to investors, typically in a short period, by using funds from new investors to pay returns to earlier investors. The scheme operates by creating the illusion of a legitimate investment opportunity, often with false claims of guaranteed profits or exclusive access to special investments.
PoS Staking
It involves participants, known as validators, locking up a certain amount of cryptocurrency as collateral (staking) to be eligible to validate transactions and create new blocks.
Pre-mine
The act of mining or creating and distributing a quantity of coins or blockchain-based assets before it is made available to the public.
Private key
The secret number that allows Ethereum users to prove ownership of an account or contracts, by producing a digital signature (see public key, address, ECDSA).
Private transaction
A transaction that bypassed the Ethereum transaction pool and was sent directly to miners.
Proof-of-Stake (PoS)
Proof-of-Stake is a method by which a cryptocurrency blockchain protocol aims to achieve distributed consensus. Proof-of-Stake asks users to prove ownership of a certain amount of cryptocurrency (their "stake" in the network) in order to be able to participate in the validation of transactions.
Proof-of-Work (PoW)
A piece of data (the proof) that requires significant computation to find. In Ethereum, miners must find a numeric solution to the Ethash algorithm that meets a network-wide difficulty target.
Public key
A number, derived via a one-way function from a private key, which can be shared publicly and used by anyone to verify a digital signature made with the corresponding private key.
R
Rebase
Feature of certain tokens where the token total supply changes automatically (increases or decreases) to meet its target price.
Rebase Token
An asset that automatically adjusts its supply in response to crypto price fluctuations, providing stability and mitigating volatility.
Receipt
Data returned by an Ethereum client to represent the result of a particular transaction, including a hash of the transaction, its block number, the amount of gas used and, in case of deployment of a Smart Contract, the address of the Contract.
Re-entrancy attack
An attack that consists of an Attacker contract calling a Victim contract function in such a way that during execution the Victim calls the Attacker contract again, recursively. This can result, for example, in the theft of funds by skipping parts of the Victim contract that update balances or count withdrawal amounts. Read more about it here.
Rekt
Deriving from the original word 'wrecked', it is usually used as an expression by a person who has just suffered a significant loss in cryptocurrency.
Reward
An amount of ether included in each new block as a reward by the network to the miner who found the Proof-of-Work solution.
Rinkeby
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
Ropsten
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
S
Safu
An intentional misspelling of the word "safe", originally by a content creator named Bizonacci. It is now popularly used to inform users that funds are, in fact, safe.
Sandwich attack
The act of monitoring the transaction pool for a sufficiently valuable transaction (such as a large trade on a decentralized exchange), then submitting two transactions 'sandwiching' the target transaction. The first one immediately before the target pushes price in one direction, while the second one immediately after the target does the opposite. The attacker profits from the arbitrage between their two transactions. More on this here.
Satoshi Nakamoto
The name used by the person or people who designed Bitcoin, created its original reference implementation, and were the first to solve the double-spend problem for digital currency. Their real identity remains unknown.
Sepolia
An Ethereum testnet. Check out the block explorer here.
Serenity
The fourth and final development stage of Ethereum. Serenity does not yet have a planned release date.
SHA
The Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) is a family of cryptographic hash functions published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Sidechain
A blockchain that is connected to another via a two-way peg.
Sign Message
The act of digitally signing a message as proof of ownership or control over a specific Ethereum wallet address.
Slashing
Slashing involves the deduction of validator’s stake if a validator is found guilty in breaking the rules in consensus mechanism of the network.
Slot
Slot the beacon committee is assigned to attest.
Smart contract
A program which executes on the Ethereum computing infrastructure.
Solidity
A procedural (imperative) programming language with syntax that is similar to JavaScript, C++ or Java. The most popular and most frequently used language for Ethereum smart contracts. Created by Gavin Wood (co-author of this book).
Solidity inline assembly
EVM assembly language in a Solidity program. Solidity’s support for inline assembly makes it easier to write certain operations.
Soulbound Token
A non-transferable token permanently tied to the holder's wallet and identity, unable to be sold or given to others. SBTs are designed to represent digital assets that cannot be acquired by purchasing, such as certificates of competence, reputation, medical records, etc.
Source epoch
Last justified checkpoint during the assigned slot.
Spurious Dragon
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,675,000 to address more denial of service attack vectors, and another state clearing; see "Tangerine Whistle". Also, a replay attack protection mechanism.
Stablecoin
Tokens that are pegged to the price of a separate stable asset, most commonly with the US Dollar. Stablecoins are backed by one of these four collateral structures: crypto-backed, fiat-backed, commodity-backed, or algorithmic. More on Stablecoin here.
Staking
A deposit of funds to receive returns. It can be applied to consensus layer (Proof-Of-Stake), Dapps for yield or DAOs for governance and many others.
Swarm
A decentralized (P2P) storage network, used along with Web3 and Whisper to build DApps.
Szabo
A denomination of ether. 10^12 szabo = 1 ether.
T
Tangerine Whistle
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,463,000 to change the gas calculation for certain I/O-intensive operations and to clear the accumulated state from a denial of service attack, which exploited the low gas cost of those operations.
Target epoch
The checkpoint being justified to be the chain tip.
Testnet
Short for "test network", a network used to simulate the behavior of the main Ethereum network.
The Merge
When the Ethereum protocol transitioned from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.
Ticker
A short, unique identifier used to represent a particular token. Tickers are typically three to five letters long, and they are often derived from the name of the token. For example, the ticker for Ethereum is ETH, and the ticker for Tether USD is USDT.
Timelock
A condition for a transaction to only be processed at a certain time or block on the blockchain.
Token Allowance
Permitting another address to spend tokens on your behalf. Check your allowances using our Token Approvals tool.
Token Spamming
Token spamming on Etherscan is when an address sends an unwanted token to one or more addresses multiple times. Read in more detail in our blog article.
Token Spoofing
A situation where an address is impersonating another address to transfer token(s). From the transaction hash, it may look like address A is transferring a certain token to address B, but it is actually being transferred from address C. Read in more detail in our blog article.
TradFi
Short for Traditional Finance, referring to the mainstream non-blockchain finance industry.
Transaction
Data committed to the Ethereum Blockchain signed by an originating account, targeting a specific address. The transaction contains metadata such as the gas limit for the transaction.
Transaction Fee
The total cost incurred by users for their transactions to be included in the blockchain. It comprises the base fee, which covers computational resources, and an optional tip to prioritize the inclusion of their transaction in a block.
Transaction Pool
Also known as Mempool, the transaction pool refers to the collection of pending transactions that have been created by users and are pending confirmation by miners.
Truffle
A development framework that focuses on smart contract development and utilizes EVM. Read more here.
Turing complete
A system of data-manipulation rules (such as a computer’s instruction set, a programming language, or a cellular automaton) is said to be "Turing complete" or "computationally universal" if it can be used to simulate any Turing machine. The concept is named after English mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing.
TVL
Total Value Locked refers to the amount of value that is locked inside a DeFi application or ecosystem.
U
Uncle Block
A non-canonical block created when multiple miners simultaneously mine on Ethereum before The Merge. Only one block becomes part of the canonical chain, while the others are uncle blocks. Miners of uncle blocks receive reduced rewards.
V
Validator
Validators propose and attest new blocks on the Beacon Chain and participate in securing the network. A validator stakes 32 ETH into the validator deposit contract on the Execution Layer and is rewarded in ETH as a percentage of their stake when successfully proposing or attesting to a block.
Validity Proof
Cryptographic evidence that verifies the correctness or integrity of a claim or statement within a system or context (with no real information shared between two parties). These are commonly used in cryptographic protocols and verification processes to ensure security and compliance.
Vitalik Buterin
Vitalik Buterin is a Russian–Canadian programmer and writer primarily known as the co-founder of Ethereum and as the co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine.
Volatility
The degree of price fluctuations or variability in the value of Ethereum or any other asset over a specific period. In the context of Ethereum, volatility represents the rapid and significant changes in its price or market value.
Vyper
A high-level programming language, similar to Serpent, with Python-like syntax. Intended to get closer to a pure-functional language. Created by Vitalik Buterin.
W
WAGMI
We’re All Gonna Make It.
Wallet
Software that holds private keys. Used to access and control Ethereum accounts and interact with Smart Contracts. Keys need not be stored in a wallet, and can instead be retrieved from an offline storage (e.g. a memory card or paper) for improved security. Despite the name, wallets never store the actual coins or tokens.
Web3
The third version of the web. First proposed by Gavin Wood, Web3 represents a new vision and focus for web applications: from centrally owned and managed applications, to applications built on decentralized protocols.
Wei
The smallest denomination of ether. 10^18 wei = 1 ether.
WGMI
We Gonna Make It.
Whisper
A decentralized (P2P) messaging service. It is used along with Web3 and Swarm to build DApps.
White Hat Hacker
A hacker that exposes security vulnerabilities to help protect projects/protocols/users from malicious hackers.
Whitelist
A Presale list that guarantees you an allocation to mint an NFT or buy tokens in an ICO or IDO.
Z
Zero address
A special Ethereum address, composed entirely of zeros, that is specified as the destination address of a contract creation transaction.
Zero-Knowledge Proof
A cryptographic method that allows an individual to prove that a statement is true without conveying any additional information apart from the fact that the statement is indeed true.
Zero-Knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups)
ZK-rollups is a type of layer 2 scaling solution that bundles transactions into batches and shares the validity proof on a Layer 1 protocol such as the Ethereum mainnet.
zk-SNARK
Zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive Argument of Knowledge. A cryptographic process that allows one entity to prove it possesses certain information without having to disclose that specific information.
NatSpec
Ethereum Natural Language Specification Format. A standard format of comments to provide smart contract documentation for end-users and developers.
Network
Referring to the Ethereum network, a peer-to-peer network that propagates transactions and blocks to every Ethereum node (network participant).
NFT
A non-fungible token (also known as a "deed"). This is a token standard introduced by the ERC-721 proposal. NFTs can be tracked and traded, but each token is unique and distinct; they are not interchangeable like ERC-20 tokens. NFTs can represent ownership of digital or physical assets.
NGMI
Not Gonna Make It.
Node
A software client that participates in the network.
Nonce
In cryptography, a value that can only be used once. There are two types of nonce used in Ethereum. (1) An account nonce: A transaction counter in each account, which is used to prevent replay attacks. (2) Proof of work nonce: The random value in a block that was used to satisfy the proof of work.
Off-Chain
Any activity or transaction that occurs outside the Ethereum blockchain network involves conducting operations or storing data without directly involving the blockchain’s decentralized consensus mechanism. Off-chain transactions are typically faster and less expensive than on-chain transactions.
On-Chain Governance
A voting system where participating nodes can vote to approve or reject changes to a blockchain protocol.
On-Ramp
A gateway facilitating the purchase of crypto assets for new users, allowing them to convert fiat currency into cryptocurrencies using familiar payment methods like cash, card, or bank transfers.
OpSec
Short for Operations Security, OPSEC refers to a set of practices and principles aimed at identifying risks, implementing countermeasures to prevent them, and safeguarding information and systems.
Optimistic Rollups
Layer 2 scaling solutions that bundle transactions together, assuming their validity, for faster and cheaper processing. Disputes are resolved on the main blockchain if any invalid transactions are detected. They enhance scalability and reduce fees in blockchain networks.
P
Paper Hands
Traders with low-risk tolerance who quickly exit positions at the first sign of disturbances, contrasting with Diamond Hands' resilience during market downturns.
Perpetual Trading
A type of derivative trading which allows traders to speculate on crypto prices without owning the assets, resembling futures contracts with no expiration. It allows leveraged exposure but also comes with high risk and requires a good understanding of the market and risk management.
Play-to-Earn
A business/tokenomics model commonly utilized in gaming projects where the gamers/users earn financial rewards from playing the game.
Ponzi Scheme
A fraudulent investment scheme that promises high returns to investors, typically in a short period, by using funds from new investors to pay returns to earlier investors. The scheme operates by creating the illusion of a legitimate investment opportunity, often with false claims of guaranteed profits or exclusive access to special investments.
PoS Staking
It involves participants, known as validators, locking up a certain amount of cryptocurrency as collateral (staking) to be eligible to validate transactions and create new blocks.
Pre-mine
The act of mining or creating and distributing a quantity of coins or blockchain-based assets before it is made available to the public.
Private key
The secret number that allows Ethereum users to prove ownership of an account or contracts, by producing a digital signature (see public key, address, ECDSA).
Private transaction
A transaction that bypassed the Ethereum transaction pool and was sent directly to miners.
Proof-of-Stake (PoS)
Proof-of-Stake is a method by which a cryptocurrency blockchain protocol aims to achieve distributed consensus. Proof-of-Stake asks users to prove ownership of a certain amount of cryptocurrency (their "stake" in the network) in order to be able to participate in the validation of transactions.
Proof-of-Work (PoW)
A piece of data (the proof) that requires significant computation to find. In Ethereum, miners must find a numeric solution to the Ethash algorithm that meets a network-wide difficulty target.
Public key
A number, derived via a one-way function from a private key, which can be shared publicly and used by anyone to verify a digital signature made with the corresponding private key.
R
Rebase
Feature of certain tokens where the token total supply changes automatically (increases or decreases) to meet its target price.
Rebase Token
An asset that automatically adjusts its supply in response to crypto price fluctuations, providing stability and mitigating volatility.
Receipt
Data returned by an Ethereum client to represent the result of a particular transaction, including a hash of the transaction, its block number, the amount of gas used and, in case of deployment of a Smart Contract, the address of the Contract.
Re-entrancy attack
An attack that consists of an Attacker contract calling a Victim contract function in such a way that during execution the Victim calls the Attacker contract again, recursively. This can result, for example, in the theft of funds by skipping parts of the Victim contract that update balances or count withdrawal amounts. Read more about it here.
Rekt
Deriving from the original word 'wrecked', it is usually used as an expression by a person who has just suffered a significant loss in cryptocurrency.
Reward
An amount of ether included in each new block as a reward by the network to the miner who found the Proof-of-Work solution.
Rinkeby
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
Ropsten
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
S
Safu
An intentional misspelling of the word "safe", originally by a content creator named Bizonacci. It is now popularly used to inform users that funds are, in fact, safe.
Sandwich attack
The act of monitoring the transaction pool for a sufficiently valuable transaction (such as a large trade on a decentralized exchange), then submitting two transactions 'sandwiching' the target transaction. The first one immediately before the target pushes price in one direction, while the second one immediately after the target does the opposite. The attacker profits from the arbitrage between their two transactions. More on this here.
Satoshi Nakamoto
The name used by the person or people who designed Bitcoin, created its original reference implementation, and were the first to solve the double-spend problem for digital currency. Their real identity remains unknown.
Sepolia
An Ethereum testnet. Check out the block explorer here.
Serenity
The fourth and final development stage of Ethereum. Serenity does not yet have a planned release date.
SHA
The Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) is a family of cryptographic hash functions published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Sidechain
A blockchain that is connected to another via a two-way peg.
Sign Message
The act of digitally signing a message as proof of ownership or control over a specific Ethereum wallet address.
Slashing
Slashing involves the deduction of validator’s stake if a validator is found guilty in breaking the rules in consensus mechanism of the network.
Slot
Slot the beacon committee is assigned to attest.
Smart contract
A program which executes on the Ethereum computing infrastructure.
Solidity
A procedural (imperative) programming language with syntax that is similar to JavaScript, C++ or Java. The most popular and most frequently used language for Ethereum smart contracts. Created by Gavin Wood (co-author of this book).
Solidity inline assembly
EVM assembly language in a Solidity program. Solidity’s support for inline assembly makes it easier to write certain operations.
Soulbound Token
A non-transferable token permanently tied to the holder's wallet and identity, unable to be sold or given to others. SBTs are designed to represent digital assets that cannot be acquired by purchasing, such as certificates of competence, reputation, medical records, etc.
Source epoch
Last justified checkpoint during the assigned slot.
Spurious Dragon
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,675,000 to address more denial of service attack vectors, and another state clearing; see "Tangerine Whistle". Also, a replay attack protection mechanism.
Stablecoin
Tokens that are pegged to the price of a separate stable asset, most commonly with the US Dollar. Stablecoins are backed by one of these four collateral structures: crypto-backed, fiat-backed, commodity-backed, or algorithmic. More on Stablecoin here.
Staking
A deposit of funds to receive returns. It can be applied to consensus layer (Proof-Of-Stake), Dapps for yield or DAOs for governance and many others.
Swarm
A decentralized (P2P) storage network, used along with Web3 and Whisper to build DApps.
Szabo
A denomination of ether. 10^12 szabo = 1 ether.
T
Tangerine Whistle
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,463,000 to change the gas calculation for certain I/O-intensive operations and to clear the accumulated state from a denial of service attack, which exploited the low gas cost of those operations.
Target epoch
The checkpoint being justified to be the chain tip.
Testnet
Short for "test network", a network used to simulate the behavior of the main Ethereum network.
The Merge
When the Ethereum protocol transitioned from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.
Ticker
A short, unique identifier used to represent a particular token. Tickers are typically three to five letters long, and they are often derived from the name of the token. For example, the ticker for Ethereum is ETH, and the ticker for Tether USD is USDT.
Timelock
A condition for a transaction to only be processed at a certain time or block on the blockchain.
Token Allowance
Permitting another address to spend tokens on your behalf. Check your allowances using our Token Approvals tool.
Token Spamming
Token spamming on Etherscan is when an address sends an unwanted token to one or more addresses multiple times. Read in more detail in our blog article.
Token Spoofing
A situation where an address is impersonating another address to transfer token(s). From the transaction hash, it may look like address A is transferring a certain token to address B, but it is actually being transferred from address C. Read in more detail in our blog article.
TradFi
Short for Traditional Finance, referring to the mainstream non-blockchain finance industry.
Transaction
Data committed to the Ethereum Blockchain signed by an originating account, targeting a specific address. The transaction contains metadata such as the gas limit for the transaction.
Transaction Fee
The total cost incurred by users for their transactions to be included in the blockchain. It comprises the base fee, which covers computational resources, and an optional tip to prioritize the inclusion of their transaction in a block.
Transaction Pool
Also known as Mempool, the transaction pool refers to the collection of pending transactions that have been created by users and are pending confirmation by miners.
Truffle
A development framework that focuses on smart contract development and utilizes EVM. Read more here.
Turing complete
A system of data-manipulation rules (such as a computer’s instruction set, a programming language, or a cellular automaton) is said to be "Turing complete" or "computationally universal" if it can be used to simulate any Turing machine. The concept is named after English mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing.
TVL
Total Value Locked refers to the amount of value that is locked inside a DeFi application or ecosystem.
U
Uncle Block
A non-canonical block created when multiple miners simultaneously mine on Ethereum before The Merge. Only one block becomes part of the canonical chain, while the others are uncle blocks. Miners of uncle blocks receive reduced rewards.
V
Validator
Validators propose and attest new blocks on the Beacon Chain and participate in securing the network. A validator stakes 32 ETH into the validator deposit contract on the Execution Layer and is rewarded in ETH as a percentage of their stake when successfully proposing or attesting to a block.
Validity Proof
Cryptographic evidence that verifies the correctness or integrity of a claim or statement within a system or context (with no real information shared between two parties). These are commonly used in cryptographic protocols and verification processes to ensure security and compliance.
Vitalik Buterin
Vitalik Buterin is a Russian–Canadian programmer and writer primarily known as the co-founder of Ethereum and as the co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine.
Volatility
The degree of price fluctuations or variability in the value of Ethereum or any other asset over a specific period. In the context of Ethereum, volatility represents the rapid and significant changes in its price or market value.
Vyper
A high-level programming language, similar to Serpent, with Python-like syntax. Intended to get closer to a pure-functional language. Created by Vitalik Buterin.
W
WAGMI
We’re All Gonna Make It.
Wallet
Software that holds private keys. Used to access and control Ethereum accounts and interact with Smart Contracts. Keys need not be stored in a wallet, and can instead be retrieved from an offline storage (e.g. a memory card or paper) for improved security. Despite the name, wallets never store the actual coins or tokens.
Web3
The third version of the web. First proposed by Gavin Wood, Web3 represents a new vision and focus for web applications: from centrally owned and managed applications, to applications built on decentralized protocols.
Wei
The smallest denomination of ether. 10^18 wei = 1 ether.
WGMI
We Gonna Make It.
Whisper
A decentralized (P2P) messaging service. It is used along with Web3 and Swarm to build DApps.
White Hat Hacker
A hacker that exposes security vulnerabilities to help protect projects/protocols/users from malicious hackers.
Whitelist
A Presale list that guarantees you an allocation to mint an NFT or buy tokens in an ICO or IDO.
Z
Zero address
A special Ethereum address, composed entirely of zeros, that is specified as the destination address of a contract creation transaction.
Zero-Knowledge Proof
A cryptographic method that allows an individual to prove that a statement is true without conveying any additional information apart from the fact that the statement is indeed true.
Zero-Knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups)
ZK-rollups is a type of layer 2 scaling solution that bundles transactions into batches and shares the validity proof on a Layer 1 protocol such as the Ethereum mainnet.
zk-SNARK
Zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive Argument of Knowledge. A cryptographic process that allows one entity to prove it possesses certain information without having to disclose that specific information.
Paper Hands
Traders with low-risk tolerance who quickly exit positions at the first sign of disturbances, contrasting with Diamond Hands' resilience during market downturns.
Perpetual Trading
A type of derivative trading which allows traders to speculate on crypto prices without owning the assets, resembling futures contracts with no expiration. It allows leveraged exposure but also comes with high risk and requires a good understanding of the market and risk management.
Play-to-Earn
A business/tokenomics model commonly utilized in gaming projects where the gamers/users earn financial rewards from playing the game.
Ponzi Scheme
A fraudulent investment scheme that promises high returns to investors, typically in a short period, by using funds from new investors to pay returns to earlier investors. The scheme operates by creating the illusion of a legitimate investment opportunity, often with false claims of guaranteed profits or exclusive access to special investments.
PoS Staking
It involves participants, known as validators, locking up a certain amount of cryptocurrency as collateral (staking) to be eligible to validate transactions and create new blocks.
Pre-mine
The act of mining or creating and distributing a quantity of coins or blockchain-based assets before it is made available to the public.
Private key
The secret number that allows Ethereum users to prove ownership of an account or contracts, by producing a digital signature (see public key, address, ECDSA).
Private transaction
A transaction that bypassed the Ethereum transaction pool and was sent directly to miners.
Proof-of-Stake (PoS)
Proof-of-Stake is a method by which a cryptocurrency blockchain protocol aims to achieve distributed consensus. Proof-of-Stake asks users to prove ownership of a certain amount of cryptocurrency (their "stake" in the network) in order to be able to participate in the validation of transactions.
Proof-of-Work (PoW)
A piece of data (the proof) that requires significant computation to find. In Ethereum, miners must find a numeric solution to the Ethash algorithm that meets a network-wide difficulty target.
Public key
A number, derived via a one-way function from a private key, which can be shared publicly and used by anyone to verify a digital signature made with the corresponding private key.
Rebase
Feature of certain tokens where the token total supply changes automatically (increases or decreases) to meet its target price.
Rebase Token
An asset that automatically adjusts its supply in response to crypto price fluctuations, providing stability and mitigating volatility.
Receipt
Data returned by an Ethereum client to represent the result of a particular transaction, including a hash of the transaction, its block number, the amount of gas used and, in case of deployment of a Smart Contract, the address of the Contract.
Re-entrancy attack
An attack that consists of an Attacker contract calling a Victim contract function in such a way that during execution the Victim calls the Attacker contract again, recursively. This can result, for example, in the theft of funds by skipping parts of the Victim contract that update balances or count withdrawal amounts. Read more about it here.
Rekt
Deriving from the original word 'wrecked', it is usually used as an expression by a person who has just suffered a significant loss in cryptocurrency.
Reward
An amount of ether included in each new block as a reward by the network to the miner who found the Proof-of-Work solution.
Rinkeby
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
Ropsten
An Ethereum testnet deprecated on the year 2022
S
Safu
An intentional misspelling of the word "safe", originally by a content creator named Bizonacci. It is now popularly used to inform users that funds are, in fact, safe.
Sandwich attack
The act of monitoring the transaction pool for a sufficiently valuable transaction (such as a large trade on a decentralized exchange), then submitting two transactions 'sandwiching' the target transaction. The first one immediately before the target pushes price in one direction, while the second one immediately after the target does the opposite. The attacker profits from the arbitrage between their two transactions. More on this here.
Satoshi Nakamoto
The name used by the person or people who designed Bitcoin, created its original reference implementation, and were the first to solve the double-spend problem for digital currency. Their real identity remains unknown.
Sepolia
An Ethereum testnet. Check out the block explorer here.
Serenity
The fourth and final development stage of Ethereum. Serenity does not yet have a planned release date.
SHA
The Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) is a family of cryptographic hash functions published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Sidechain
A blockchain that is connected to another via a two-way peg.
Sign Message
The act of digitally signing a message as proof of ownership or control over a specific Ethereum wallet address.
Slashing
Slashing involves the deduction of validator’s stake if a validator is found guilty in breaking the rules in consensus mechanism of the network.
Slot
Slot the beacon committee is assigned to attest.
Smart contract
A program which executes on the Ethereum computing infrastructure.
Solidity
A procedural (imperative) programming language with syntax that is similar to JavaScript, C++ or Java. The most popular and most frequently used language for Ethereum smart contracts. Created by Gavin Wood (co-author of this book).
Solidity inline assembly
EVM assembly language in a Solidity program. Solidity’s support for inline assembly makes it easier to write certain operations.
Soulbound Token
A non-transferable token permanently tied to the holder's wallet and identity, unable to be sold or given to others. SBTs are designed to represent digital assets that cannot be acquired by purchasing, such as certificates of competence, reputation, medical records, etc.
Source epoch
Last justified checkpoint during the assigned slot.
Spurious Dragon
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,675,000 to address more denial of service attack vectors, and another state clearing; see "Tangerine Whistle". Also, a replay attack protection mechanism.
Stablecoin
Tokens that are pegged to the price of a separate stable asset, most commonly with the US Dollar. Stablecoins are backed by one of these four collateral structures: crypto-backed, fiat-backed, commodity-backed, or algorithmic. More on Stablecoin here.
Staking
A deposit of funds to receive returns. It can be applied to consensus layer (Proof-Of-Stake), Dapps for yield or DAOs for governance and many others.
Swarm
A decentralized (P2P) storage network, used along with Web3 and Whisper to build DApps.
Szabo
A denomination of ether. 10^12 szabo = 1 ether.
T
Tangerine Whistle
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,463,000 to change the gas calculation for certain I/O-intensive operations and to clear the accumulated state from a denial of service attack, which exploited the low gas cost of those operations.
Target epoch
The checkpoint being justified to be the chain tip.
Testnet
Short for "test network", a network used to simulate the behavior of the main Ethereum network.
The Merge
When the Ethereum protocol transitioned from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.
Ticker
A short, unique identifier used to represent a particular token. Tickers are typically three to five letters long, and they are often derived from the name of the token. For example, the ticker for Ethereum is ETH, and the ticker for Tether USD is USDT.
Timelock
A condition for a transaction to only be processed at a certain time or block on the blockchain.
Token Allowance
Permitting another address to spend tokens on your behalf. Check your allowances using our Token Approvals tool.
Token Spamming
Token spamming on Etherscan is when an address sends an unwanted token to one or more addresses multiple times. Read in more detail in our blog article.
Token Spoofing
A situation where an address is impersonating another address to transfer token(s). From the transaction hash, it may look like address A is transferring a certain token to address B, but it is actually being transferred from address C. Read in more detail in our blog article.
TradFi
Short for Traditional Finance, referring to the mainstream non-blockchain finance industry.
Transaction
Data committed to the Ethereum Blockchain signed by an originating account, targeting a specific address. The transaction contains metadata such as the gas limit for the transaction.
Transaction Fee
The total cost incurred by users for their transactions to be included in the blockchain. It comprises the base fee, which covers computational resources, and an optional tip to prioritize the inclusion of their transaction in a block.
Transaction Pool
Also known as Mempool, the transaction pool refers to the collection of pending transactions that have been created by users and are pending confirmation by miners.
Truffle
A development framework that focuses on smart contract development and utilizes EVM. Read more here.
Turing complete
A system of data-manipulation rules (such as a computer’s instruction set, a programming language, or a cellular automaton) is said to be "Turing complete" or "computationally universal" if it can be used to simulate any Turing machine. The concept is named after English mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing.
TVL
Total Value Locked refers to the amount of value that is locked inside a DeFi application or ecosystem.
U
Uncle Block
A non-canonical block created when multiple miners simultaneously mine on Ethereum before The Merge. Only one block becomes part of the canonical chain, while the others are uncle blocks. Miners of uncle blocks receive reduced rewards.
V
Validator
Validators propose and attest new blocks on the Beacon Chain and participate in securing the network. A validator stakes 32 ETH into the validator deposit contract on the Execution Layer and is rewarded in ETH as a percentage of their stake when successfully proposing or attesting to a block.
Validity Proof
Cryptographic evidence that verifies the correctness or integrity of a claim or statement within a system or context (with no real information shared between two parties). These are commonly used in cryptographic protocols and verification processes to ensure security and compliance.
Vitalik Buterin
Vitalik Buterin is a Russian–Canadian programmer and writer primarily known as the co-founder of Ethereum and as the co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine.
Volatility
The degree of price fluctuations or variability in the value of Ethereum or any other asset over a specific period. In the context of Ethereum, volatility represents the rapid and significant changes in its price or market value.
Vyper
A high-level programming language, similar to Serpent, with Python-like syntax. Intended to get closer to a pure-functional language. Created by Vitalik Buterin.
W
WAGMI
We’re All Gonna Make It.
Wallet
Software that holds private keys. Used to access and control Ethereum accounts and interact with Smart Contracts. Keys need not be stored in a wallet, and can instead be retrieved from an offline storage (e.g. a memory card or paper) for improved security. Despite the name, wallets never store the actual coins or tokens.
Web3
The third version of the web. First proposed by Gavin Wood, Web3 represents a new vision and focus for web applications: from centrally owned and managed applications, to applications built on decentralized protocols.
Wei
The smallest denomination of ether. 10^18 wei = 1 ether.
WGMI
We Gonna Make It.
Whisper
A decentralized (P2P) messaging service. It is used along with Web3 and Swarm to build DApps.
White Hat Hacker
A hacker that exposes security vulnerabilities to help protect projects/protocols/users from malicious hackers.
Whitelist
A Presale list that guarantees you an allocation to mint an NFT or buy tokens in an ICO or IDO.
Z
Zero address
A special Ethereum address, composed entirely of zeros, that is specified as the destination address of a contract creation transaction.
Zero-Knowledge Proof
A cryptographic method that allows an individual to prove that a statement is true without conveying any additional information apart from the fact that the statement is indeed true.
Zero-Knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups)
ZK-rollups is a type of layer 2 scaling solution that bundles transactions into batches and shares the validity proof on a Layer 1 protocol such as the Ethereum mainnet.
zk-SNARK
Zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive Argument of Knowledge. A cryptographic process that allows one entity to prove it possesses certain information without having to disclose that specific information.
Safu
An intentional misspelling of the word "safe", originally by a content creator named Bizonacci. It is now popularly used to inform users that funds are, in fact, safe.
Sandwich attack
The act of monitoring the transaction pool for a sufficiently valuable transaction (such as a large trade on a decentralized exchange), then submitting two transactions 'sandwiching' the target transaction. The first one immediately before the target pushes price in one direction, while the second one immediately after the target does the opposite. The attacker profits from the arbitrage between their two transactions. More on this here.
Satoshi Nakamoto
The name used by the person or people who designed Bitcoin, created its original reference implementation, and were the first to solve the double-spend problem for digital currency. Their real identity remains unknown.
Sepolia
An Ethereum testnet. Check out the block explorer here.
Serenity
The fourth and final development stage of Ethereum. Serenity does not yet have a planned release date.
SHA
The Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) is a family of cryptographic hash functions published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Sidechain
A blockchain that is connected to another via a two-way peg.
Sign Message
The act of digitally signing a message as proof of ownership or control over a specific Ethereum wallet address.
Slashing
Slashing involves the deduction of validator’s stake if a validator is found guilty in breaking the rules in consensus mechanism of the network.
Slot
Slot the beacon committee is assigned to attest.
Smart contract
A program which executes on the Ethereum computing infrastructure.
Solidity
A procedural (imperative) programming language with syntax that is similar to JavaScript, C++ or Java. The most popular and most frequently used language for Ethereum smart contracts. Created by Gavin Wood (co-author of this book).
Solidity inline assembly
EVM assembly language in a Solidity program. Solidity’s support for inline assembly makes it easier to write certain operations.
Soulbound Token
A non-transferable token permanently tied to the holder's wallet and identity, unable to be sold or given to others. SBTs are designed to represent digital assets that cannot be acquired by purchasing, such as certificates of competence, reputation, medical records, etc.
Source epoch
Last justified checkpoint during the assigned slot.
Spurious Dragon
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,675,000 to address more denial of service attack vectors, and another state clearing; see "Tangerine Whistle". Also, a replay attack protection mechanism.
Stablecoin
Tokens that are pegged to the price of a separate stable asset, most commonly with the US Dollar. Stablecoins are backed by one of these four collateral structures: crypto-backed, fiat-backed, commodity-backed, or algorithmic. More on Stablecoin here.
Staking
A deposit of funds to receive returns. It can be applied to consensus layer (Proof-Of-Stake), Dapps for yield or DAOs for governance and many others.
Swarm
A decentralized (P2P) storage network, used along with Web3 and Whisper to build DApps.
Szabo
A denomination of ether. 10^12 szabo = 1 ether.
Tangerine Whistle
A hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, which occurred at block #2,463,000 to change the gas calculation for certain I/O-intensive operations and to clear the accumulated state from a denial of service attack, which exploited the low gas cost of those operations.
Target epoch
The checkpoint being justified to be the chain tip.
Testnet
Short for "test network", a network used to simulate the behavior of the main Ethereum network.
The Merge
When the Ethereum protocol transitioned from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.
Ticker
A short, unique identifier used to represent a particular token. Tickers are typically three to five letters long, and they are often derived from the name of the token. For example, the ticker for Ethereum is ETH, and the ticker for Tether USD is USDT.
Timelock
A condition for a transaction to only be processed at a certain time or block on the blockchain.
Token Allowance
Permitting another address to spend tokens on your behalf. Check your allowances using our Token Approvals tool.
Token Spamming
Token spamming on Etherscan is when an address sends an unwanted token to one or more addresses multiple times. Read in more detail in our blog article.
Token Spoofing
A situation where an address is impersonating another address to transfer token(s). From the transaction hash, it may look like address A is transferring a certain token to address B, but it is actually being transferred from address C. Read in more detail in our blog article.
TradFi
Short for Traditional Finance, referring to the mainstream non-blockchain finance industry.
Transaction
Data committed to the Ethereum Blockchain signed by an originating account, targeting a specific address. The transaction contains metadata such as the gas limit for the transaction.
Transaction Fee
The total cost incurred by users for their transactions to be included in the blockchain. It comprises the base fee, which covers computational resources, and an optional tip to prioritize the inclusion of their transaction in a block.
Transaction Pool
Also known as Mempool, the transaction pool refers to the collection of pending transactions that have been created by users and are pending confirmation by miners.
Truffle
A development framework that focuses on smart contract development and utilizes EVM. Read more here.
Turing complete
A system of data-manipulation rules (such as a computer’s instruction set, a programming language, or a cellular automaton) is said to be "Turing complete" or "computationally universal" if it can be used to simulate any Turing machine. The concept is named after English mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing.
TVL
Total Value Locked refers to the amount of value that is locked inside a DeFi application or ecosystem.
U
Uncle Block
A non-canonical block created when multiple miners simultaneously mine on Ethereum before The Merge. Only one block becomes part of the canonical chain, while the others are uncle blocks. Miners of uncle blocks receive reduced rewards.
V
Validator
Validators propose and attest new blocks on the Beacon Chain and participate in securing the network. A validator stakes 32 ETH into the validator deposit contract on the Execution Layer and is rewarded in ETH as a percentage of their stake when successfully proposing or attesting to a block.
Validity Proof
Cryptographic evidence that verifies the correctness or integrity of a claim or statement within a system or context (with no real information shared between two parties). These are commonly used in cryptographic protocols and verification processes to ensure security and compliance.
Vitalik Buterin
Vitalik Buterin is a Russian–Canadian programmer and writer primarily known as the co-founder of Ethereum and as the co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine.
Volatility
The degree of price fluctuations or variability in the value of Ethereum or any other asset over a specific period. In the context of Ethereum, volatility represents the rapid and significant changes in its price or market value.
Vyper
A high-level programming language, similar to Serpent, with Python-like syntax. Intended to get closer to a pure-functional language. Created by Vitalik Buterin.
W
WAGMI
We’re All Gonna Make It.
Wallet
Software that holds private keys. Used to access and control Ethereum accounts and interact with Smart Contracts. Keys need not be stored in a wallet, and can instead be retrieved from an offline storage (e.g. a memory card or paper) for improved security. Despite the name, wallets never store the actual coins or tokens.
Web3
The third version of the web. First proposed by Gavin Wood, Web3 represents a new vision and focus for web applications: from centrally owned and managed applications, to applications built on decentralized protocols.
Wei
The smallest denomination of ether. 10^18 wei = 1 ether.
WGMI
We Gonna Make It.
Whisper
A decentralized (P2P) messaging service. It is used along with Web3 and Swarm to build DApps.
White Hat Hacker
A hacker that exposes security vulnerabilities to help protect projects/protocols/users from malicious hackers.
Whitelist
A Presale list that guarantees you an allocation to mint an NFT or buy tokens in an ICO or IDO.
Z
Zero address
A special Ethereum address, composed entirely of zeros, that is specified as the destination address of a contract creation transaction.
Zero-Knowledge Proof
A cryptographic method that allows an individual to prove that a statement is true without conveying any additional information apart from the fact that the statement is indeed true.
Zero-Knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups)
ZK-rollups is a type of layer 2 scaling solution that bundles transactions into batches and shares the validity proof on a Layer 1 protocol such as the Ethereum mainnet.
zk-SNARK
Zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive Argument of Knowledge. A cryptographic process that allows one entity to prove it possesses certain information without having to disclose that specific information.
Uncle Block
A non-canonical block created when multiple miners simultaneously mine on Ethereum before The Merge. Only one block becomes part of the canonical chain, while the others are uncle blocks. Miners of uncle blocks receive reduced rewards.
Validator
Validators propose and attest new blocks on the Beacon Chain and participate in securing the network. A validator stakes 32 ETH into the validator deposit contract on the Execution Layer and is rewarded in ETH as a percentage of their stake when successfully proposing or attesting to a block.
Validity Proof
Cryptographic evidence that verifies the correctness or integrity of a claim or statement within a system or context (with no real information shared between two parties). These are commonly used in cryptographic protocols and verification processes to ensure security and compliance.
Vitalik Buterin
Vitalik Buterin is a Russian–Canadian programmer and writer primarily known as the co-founder of Ethereum and as the co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine.
Volatility
The degree of price fluctuations or variability in the value of Ethereum or any other asset over a specific period. In the context of Ethereum, volatility represents the rapid and significant changes in its price or market value.
Vyper
A high-level programming language, similar to Serpent, with Python-like syntax. Intended to get closer to a pure-functional language. Created by Vitalik Buterin.
W
WAGMI
We’re All Gonna Make It.
Wallet
Software that holds private keys. Used to access and control Ethereum accounts and interact with Smart Contracts. Keys need not be stored in a wallet, and can instead be retrieved from an offline storage (e.g. a memory card or paper) for improved security. Despite the name, wallets never store the actual coins or tokens.
Web3
The third version of the web. First proposed by Gavin Wood, Web3 represents a new vision and focus for web applications: from centrally owned and managed applications, to applications built on decentralized protocols.
Wei
The smallest denomination of ether. 10^18 wei = 1 ether.
WGMI
We Gonna Make It.
Whisper
A decentralized (P2P) messaging service. It is used along with Web3 and Swarm to build DApps.
White Hat Hacker
A hacker that exposes security vulnerabilities to help protect projects/protocols/users from malicious hackers.
Whitelist
A Presale list that guarantees you an allocation to mint an NFT or buy tokens in an ICO or IDO.
Z
Zero address
A special Ethereum address, composed entirely of zeros, that is specified as the destination address of a contract creation transaction.
Zero-Knowledge Proof
A cryptographic method that allows an individual to prove that a statement is true without conveying any additional information apart from the fact that the statement is indeed true.
Zero-Knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups)
ZK-rollups is a type of layer 2 scaling solution that bundles transactions into batches and shares the validity proof on a Layer 1 protocol such as the Ethereum mainnet.
zk-SNARK
Zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive Argument of Knowledge. A cryptographic process that allows one entity to prove it possesses certain information without having to disclose that specific information.
WAGMI
We’re All Gonna Make It.
Wallet
Software that holds private keys. Used to access and control Ethereum accounts and interact with Smart Contracts. Keys need not be stored in a wallet, and can instead be retrieved from an offline storage (e.g. a memory card or paper) for improved security. Despite the name, wallets never store the actual coins or tokens.
Web3
The third version of the web. First proposed by Gavin Wood, Web3 represents a new vision and focus for web applications: from centrally owned and managed applications, to applications built on decentralized protocols.
Wei
The smallest denomination of ether. 10^18 wei = 1 ether.
WGMI
We Gonna Make It.
Whisper
A decentralized (P2P) messaging service. It is used along with Web3 and Swarm to build DApps.
White Hat Hacker
A hacker that exposes security vulnerabilities to help protect projects/protocols/users from malicious hackers.
Whitelist
A Presale list that guarantees you an allocation to mint an NFT or buy tokens in an ICO or IDO.
Zero address
A special Ethereum address, composed entirely of zeros, that is specified as the destination address of a contract creation transaction.
Zero-Knowledge Proof
A cryptographic method that allows an individual to prove that a statement is true without conveying any additional information apart from the fact that the statement is indeed true.
Zero-Knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups)
ZK-rollups is a type of layer 2 scaling solution that bundles transactions into batches and shares the validity proof on a Layer 1 protocol such as the Ethereum mainnet.
zk-SNARK
Zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive Argument of Knowledge. A cryptographic process that allows one entity to prove it possesses certain information without having to disclose that specific information.