Crypto Glossary — 30 Core Terms

COINOTAG Crypto Glossary: All Crypto Terms Explained

A working dictionary of the terms you will encounter across the crypto market. Each entry is written as an independent reference and links to related concepts and coin pages so you can go deeper without losing your place.

What is an Airdrop?

An airdrop is a marketing distribution where a crypto project sends tokens to qualifying wallets for free to bootstrap users or distribute supply.

What is the Bitcoin Halving?

In Bitcoin and similar proof-of-work networks, a halving is the protocol-mandated reduction of the block reward by 50% roughly every four years.

What is a Stablecoin?

A stablecoin is a crypto asset whose value is pegged to a fiat currency, commodity, or other reference asset.

What is DeFi?

DeFi is a class of financial services delivered through smart contracts on a public blockchain, with no intermediary required.

What is an NFT?

An NFT is a non-fungible blockchain asset whose uniqueness and ownership are recorded on-chain.

What is a Layer 2?

A Layer 2 is a scaling network built on top of a base chain like Ethereum that batches or off-chains transactions while inheriting L1 security.

What is a Layer 1?

A Layer 1 is a base blockchain that finalizes transactions through its own consensus mechanism, with no dependency on another chain.

What is a Mainnet?

A blockchain's mainnet is its live, production network where transactions carry real economic value.

What is a Testnet?

A testnet is a public blockchain replica used for protocol and contract testing where the underlying tokens have no economic value.

What is a Smart Contract?

A smart contract is a program deployed to a blockchain that executes its rules automatically and without trusted intermediaries.

What is RSI? (Relative Strength Index)

RSI is a 0-100 momentum oscillator that flags overbought and oversold conditions in price action.

What is MACD?

MACD is a trend-following momentum indicator built from the difference between 12-period and 26-period exponential moving averages, plus a 9-period signal line.

What are Fibonacci Retracements?

Fibonacci retracements project potential pullback levels (23.6%, 38.2%, 50%, 61.8%, 78.6%) following a measured price swing.

What are Support and Resistance?

Support and resistance are price levels at which historical buying or selling pressure has reversed direction and is expected to react again.

What are Pivot Points?

Pivot points are intra-period support and resistance levels derived from the previous period's high, low, and close.

What is a Candlestick?

A candlestick is a Japanese price-charting unit that summarizes a period's open, close, high, and low in a single shape.

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is the first and largest decentralized digital currency, created by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.

What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is the second-largest blockchain and the foundational platform for smart contracts and decentralized applications.

What is a Bitcoin ETF?

A Bitcoin ETF is a regulated exchange-traded fund whose price tracks Bitcoin and trades on conventional stock exchanges.

What is Bitcoin Dominance?

Bitcoin dominance is BTC's share of the total crypto market capitalization, a proxy for how risk capital is rotating between BTC and altcoins.

What is Market Capitalization?

Market cap is a coin's circulating supply multiplied by its current price — a more accurate measure of size than price alone.

What is Trading Volume?

Volume is the total quantity of an asset traded over a defined period, signaling the intensity of market interest.

What is KYC? (Know Your Customer)

KYC is the regulated identity verification process that financial services, including crypto exchanges, must apply to their users.

What is AML? (Anti-Money Laundering)

AML is the regulatory framework banks and exchanges use to detect and prevent money laundering, terrorism financing, and sanctions evasion.

What is a Hot Wallet?

A hot wallet runs on an internet-connected device for fast access; it offers convenience but a wider attack surface than cold storage.

What is a Cold Wallet?

A cold wallet keeps the private key fully offline for long-term, high-security storage.

What is a Hardware Wallet?

A hardware wallet is a dedicated physical device that stores the private key inside a secure chip and signs transactions on-device.

What is a Seed Phrase?

A seed phrase is the 12- or 24-word human-readable backup that derives all of a wallet's private keys.

What is a Gas Fee?

A gas fee is the payment required to include a transaction in a blockchain block, scaled to the computational cost of the transaction.

What is a DAO?

A DAO is a decentralized organization governed by smart contracts and the votes of its token holders rather than a central management team.

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