Learn · Glossary
Crypto glossary: 50+ terms in plain English
Short, jargon-free definitions. Tap a link for the full guide behind a term.
- All-time high (ATH)
- The highest price a coin has ever reached.
- Altcoin
- Any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin.
- Ask
- The lowest price a seller is currently willing to accept. Read more
- Bear market
- A long period of falling prices and pessimism.
- Bid
- The highest price a buyer is currently willing to pay. Read more
- Bollinger Bands
- Lines drawn around price that widen when the market is volatile and narrow when it is quiet. Read more
- Bull market
- A long period of rising prices and optimism.
- Candlestick
- A chart bar that shows the open, high, low and close of one period. Read more
- Centralised exchange (CEX)
- A company-run exchange such as Binance or Coinbase that holds your coins while you trade. Read more
- Circulating supply
- The number of coins currently available to trade. Read more
- Cold wallet
- A wallet that is not connected to the internet, such as a hardware wallet. Read more
- Custodial
- A service that holds the private keys for you, such as an exchange account. Read more
- DCA (dollar-cost averaging)
- Buying a fixed amount at regular intervals instead of all at once. Read more
- Decentralised exchange (DEX)
- An exchange run by smart contracts where you trade directly from your own wallet.
- DeFi
- Decentralised finance: lending, trading and other financial services run by smart contracts.
- Drawdown
- The fall from a peak to a later low, usually shown as a percentage.
- Fiat
- Government-issued money such as US dollars or euros.
- FOMO
- Fear of missing out. The urge to buy because a coin is rising fast.
- FUD
- Fear, uncertainty and doubt. Negative news or rumours that may or may not be true.
- Fully diluted valuation (FDV)
- The value of a project if all coins that will ever exist were in circulation. Read more
- Gas fee
- The fee paid to the network to process a transaction.
- Halving
- A scheduled event that cuts the reward for creating new Bitcoin blocks by half.
- Hot wallet
- A wallet connected to the internet. Convenient, but more exposed to hacking. Read more
- Leverage
- Borrowing to trade a bigger position than your own money allows. It magnifies both gains and losses.
- Limit order
- An order to buy or sell only at your chosen price or better. Read more
- Liquidation
- When a leveraged position is closed automatically because losses have used up the margin.
- Liquidity
- How easily you can buy or sell without moving the price. Read more
- MACD
- An indicator showing whether momentum is speeding up or slowing down. Read more
- Maker and taker
- A maker adds an order to the book and waits. A taker trades against an existing order straight away. Fees often differ. Read more
- Market cap
- Price multiplied by circulating supply. A measure of size. Read more
- Market order
- An order to buy or sell immediately at the best available price. Read more
- Memecoin
- A coin created around a joke or trend, usually with little underlying use and very high risk.
- Moving average
- The average price over a number of recent candles, drawn as a smooth line. Read more
- Order book
- The live list of buy and sell orders on an exchange. Read more
- Position size
- How much you buy in a single trade. Read more
- Private key
- A secret code that controls a wallet. Never share it. Read more
- Pump and dump
- A scheme where a group hypes a coin, sells into the buying it caused, and leaves late buyers with losses. Read more
- Resistance
- A price level where rising prices have repeatedly stalled. Read more
- Risk:reward ratio
- How much you could gain compared with how much you could lose on a trade.
- RSI
- Relative Strength Index. A 0 to 100 gauge of how strong recent price moves have been. Read more
- Rug pull
- When the creators of a project take investors’ money and abandon it. Read more
- Seed phrase
- A list of words that can restore a wallet. Whoever has it controls the funds. Read more
- Slippage
- The difference between the price you expected and the price you got. Read more
- Spot trading
- Buying and selling the actual coin, as opposed to derivatives or leveraged contracts.
- Spread
- The gap between the best bid and the best ask. Read more
- Stablecoin
- A coin designed to hold a steady value, usually one US dollar. They carry their own risks.
- Stop-loss
- An order or plan to exit a trade if the price moves against you by a set amount. Read more
- Support
- A price level where falling prices have repeatedly stopped. Read more
- Token
- A digital asset that lives on another blockchain, as opposed to a blockchain’s own native coin.
- Token unlock
- The scheduled release of previously locked coins, which can add selling pressure. Read more
- Trading volume
- The value traded in a period, often 24 hours. Read more
- Volatility
- How much and how quickly a price moves. Read more
- Wallet
- Software or hardware that stores the keys needed to control your coins. Read more
- Whale
- A holder with a large amount of a coin, enough to move the price.