Reference
Glossary
Every term you will meet on this site and most you will meet elsewhere, defined in one sentence a beginner can read and then explained properly. Where a term is routinely misunderstood, the entry says how.
Consensus & Security 22Cryptography 8Custody & Access 15Data & Measurement 27DeFi 17Foundations 20Institutional Access 13Market Structure 28Regulation & Policy 19Risk & Failure Modes 23Scaling & Infrastructure 18Stablecoins 13Tokens & Supply 37
8 terms shown
| Term | Category | In one sentence |
|---|---|---|
| Digital Signature | Cryptography | Proof, produced with a private key, that the holder of that key approved one specific message such as a transaction. |
| Hash Function | Cryptography | A one-way function that turns any data into a fixed-length fingerprint, where the same input always produces the same result. |
| Merkle Tree | Cryptography | A structure that hashes items in pairs repeatedly until one hash represents them all, so any single item can be checked cheaply. |
| Nonce | Cryptography | A number used once; in mining it is the value that is changed while guessing, and in accounts it counts a sender's transactions. |
| Private Key | Cryptography | The secret number that authorizes spending from an address; whoever knows it controls the assets, and it cannot be reset. |
| Public-Key Cryptography | Cryptography | A system of paired keys where one key can be shared openly and the matching secret key is kept private. |
| Seed Phrase | Cryptography | A list of ordinary words, usually twelve or twenty-four, that encodes the master secret from which a wallet's keys are generated. |
| Zero-Knowledge Proof | Cryptography | A method of proving a statement is true without revealing the information that makes it true. |