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 & Security22Cryptography8Custody & Access15Data & Measurement27DeFi17Foundations20Institutional Access13Market Structure28Regulation & Policy19Risk & Failure Modes23Scaling & Infrastructure18Stablecoins13Tokens & Supply37
20 terms shown
| Term | Category | In one sentence |
|---|---|---|
| Account Model | Foundations | An accounting design where the network stores a running balance for each account, like rows in a ledger. |
| Address | Foundations | A string of characters identifying where digital assets can be sent, usually derived from a public key. |
| Base Fee | Foundations | The minimum fee per unit of gas that every transaction in an Ethereum block must pay, set by the protocol and destroyed. |
| Block | Foundations | A batch of transactions recorded together, plus a header that links it to the block before it. |
| Block Height | Foundations | The position of a block in the chain, counted from the first block, which sits at height zero. |
| Block Time | Foundations | The average time between blocks on a network, which sets how often new transactions get their first confirmation. |
| Blockchain | Foundations | A shared record of transactions, copied across many computers, where new entries are grouped into blocks and linked in order. |
| Distributed Ledger | Foundations | A database kept in identical copies by many independent operators and updated by an agreed rule rather than by one owner. |
| EIP-1559 | Foundations | The Ethereum change that replaced blind fee auctions with a protocol-set base fee that is destroyed, plus an optional tip. |
| Gas | Foundations | The unit that measures how much computing work a transaction uses, and therefore what it costs to run. |
| Genesis Block | Foundations | The very first block of a blockchain, created when the network starts and written directly into the software. |
| Light Client | Foundations | Software that checks a blockchain using only block headers and small proofs instead of downloading the whole chain. |
| Mainnet | Foundations | The live network where transactions carry real value and are permanent, as opposed to a practice network. |
| Node | Foundations | A computer running blockchain software that stores the chain, checks new blocks against the rules, and relays them to peers. |
| Priority Fee | Foundations | An optional extra fee per unit of gas paid to the block producer to encourage faster inclusion of a transaction. |
| Smart Contract | Foundations | A program stored on a blockchain that runs exactly as written whenever someone sends it a transaction. |
| State | Foundations | The current record of who owns what and what every contract stores, produced by applying all past transactions in order. |
| Testnet | Foundations | A copy of a network used for testing, where the coins have no market value and mistakes cost nothing. |
| UTXO | Foundations | An accounting design where a balance is the sum of unspent chunks of coin, each spent whole like a banknote. |
| Wallet | Foundations | Software or a device that stores private keys and uses them to sign transactions; it does not hold the assets themselves. |