Without the right vocabulary, it's hard to properly read a crypto news story, find your way around an exchange app or keep up in a chat. In this lesson, we've gathered the key crypto terms and sorted them into groups by meaning: the network, coins, wallets, transaction confirmation and trading. By the end, a typical crypto headline won't trip you up anymore.
- A blockchain is a shared database of records maintained by thousands of independent computers.
- A coin lives on its own network, while a token is issued on top of someone else's.
- A wallet stores keys, not coins, and losing your seed phrase means losing access.
- Exchange terms like spread, liquidity and stop-loss will come in handy from your very first trade.
The network: blockchain, nodes and decentralization
Let's start with the blockchain. The easiest way to picture it is as a shared ledger, with a copy held by each of thousands of participants. Records are added in batches called blocks, and each new block points to the one before it. That's why nobody can quietly edit an old record: they'd have to rewrite the entire chain after it on most participants' copies at once.
A computer that stores a copy of the blockchain and checks new records is called a node. The more independent nodes there are, the harder it is for any one person or company to take control of the network. That's what decentralization means: there's no main server to switch off and no admin who'll reverse a transfer because someone called.
Another word you'll run into everywhere is hash. It's a short digital fingerprint of any piece of data: change a single comma in a text, and the hash becomes completely different. Hashes are what link blocks together. We'll dig into the mechanics in our lesson on how a blockchain works; for now, just get familiar with the words.
Say the residents of an apartment building keep a shared log of payments, and each of them has their own copy. If someone edits an entry in their copy, the others will compare notes and spot the forgery right away.
Coins, tokens and stablecoins
A coin usually means a cryptocurrency with its own blockchain: bitcoin on the Bitcoin network, ether on Ethereum. A token, on the other hand, is issued on top of an existing network using a smart contract, a program that carries out the rules written into it on its own. Many tokens, for example, live on the Ethereum network and use its infrastructure.
Everything that isn't Bitcoin is called an altcoin. Stablecoins are a group of their own: their price is pegged to a regular currency, most often the US dollar. USDT and USDC hover around one dollar and work as a kind of cash on exchanges between trades. How that peg works and where its weak spots are is covered in the lessons on stablecoins and their role.
Every token has a contract address, a unique string you can use to look it up in a block explorer. Anyone can fake a name and a logo, but not the contract address. So before buying a little-known token, check the address against the project's official website, not against some image posted in a chat.
The last word in this group is NFT. It's a token with a unique ID, so one NFT can't be swapped one-for-one with another, just like two concert tickets for different seats aren't interchangeable.
| Term | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Coin | A cryptocurrency with its own blockchain | BTC, ETH |
| Token | An asset issued on top of another network | Tokens on Ethereum |
| Stablecoin | A token whose price is pegged to a currency | USDT, USDC |
| NFT | A unique, non-fungible token | A digital ticket, an in-game item |
Wallet, address and seed phrase
Coins don't sit in a crypto wallet the way bills sit in a regular wallet. They're always recorded on the blockchain, and the wallet holds the keys that let you use them. A public address is like a bank card number: it's fine to share it with someone who's sending you money. A private key is your PIN and signature rolled into one, and you never show it to anyone.
A seed phrase is 12 or 24 words from which the wallet can restore all your keys. Dropped your phone in the lake? If the phrase is written down on paper, you'll be back in your funds in a couple of minutes. But if it's lost or ends up in someone else's hands, nobody can help you: a decentralized network has no support desk to reset your password.
There's one more concept tied to addresses: the transfer network. The same USDT exists on several blockchains at once, such as Ethereum and Tron, and the exchange will ask which network to send it over. The sender and the recipient have to use the same network, or the funds may get stuck or lost.
Wallets can be hot, meaning connected to the internet, or cold, with the keys stored offline, for example on a hardware device. They can also be custodial, where an exchange controls the keys, or non-custodial, where only you hold them. How to choose and create a crypto wallet is covered in a separate lesson.
No exchange, wallet support team or chat admin will ever ask for your seed phrase. Any such request is a sure sign that someone is trying to rob you.
How transfers get confirmed: mining, staking and gas
For thousands of nodes to agree on which records are valid, a network uses a consensus mechanism. Bitcoin runs on Proof of Work: miners spend computing power and electricity, and whoever finds a suitable hash first adds the block and collects the reward. That's what mining is.
Since 2022, Ethereum has run on Proof of Stake. Instead of powerful computers, participants lock up their coins as collateral and earn rewards for honest work. Taking part this way is called staking. If a validator tries to cheat the network, part of its stake can be taken away.
For every transaction, you pay the network a fee. On Ethereum it's called gas, and gas gets pricier when the network is busy. So the same transfer can cost noticeably less in the morning than in the middle of a frenzy over a new coin.
Next to a transfer in your wallet or on an exchange, you'll often see a number of confirmations. One confirmation means the transaction has made it into a block; each additional one means another block has been added on top. An exchange credits your deposit only after the number of confirmations it requires, which is why a transfer sometimes takes longer than you'd expect.
Roughly every four years, the reward Bitcoin miners get for a block is cut in half. This is built into the network's code, so new coins are issued more and more slowly over time.
Exchange lingo: from spread to short
Open an exchange app, and your vocabulary will grow fast. Below are the most common terms you'll need on your very first trade. No need to memorize them: keep the list handy and come back to it until the words feel familiar.
Pay special attention to the difference between spot and futures. On the spot market, you buy the coin itself, and it's yours. A futures contract is an agreement tied to a coin's price: you don't get the coin, but you can open a short and use leverage, meaning you trade a bigger amount than your deposit. Leverage multiplies profits and losses alike, so beginners are better off starting with spot.
Many of these words are explained in detail later in the course. For example, we'll go through order types in the level on trading basics, and market cap and trading volume in the level on market analysis.
- Trading pair: what you're exchanging for what, for example BTC/USDT.
- Order: a request to buy or sell; a market order fills right away, while a limit order waits for your price.
- Spread: the difference between the best bid and the best ask price.
- Liquidity: how easily you can buy or sell an asset without moving the price much.
- Market cap: a coin's price multiplied by the number of coins in circulation.
- Volatility: how widely the price swings; for crypto it's usually wider than for stocks.
- Long and short: a bet that the price will go up and a bet that it will go down.
- Stop-loss: an order that automatically closes your position when the price hits a set level, capping your loss.
- HODL, FOMO, DYOR: slang for holding long-term, fear of missing out, and do your own research.
When you come across an unfamiliar word in the news, find it in this lesson and try to explain it in your own words in one sentence. Keep up that habit for a week, and most of this glossary will be yours.
Pick any recent crypto news story on CoinDesk, The Block or the CoinGecko news section and write down every term that's new or only vaguely familiar. Explain each one in a single sentence in your own words, then check yourself against the lesson. The goal is to read the whole story without stumbling.
Entry is free and you trade on a demo account, so you need no money of your own. Free tournaments pay out Tour Passes, and those get you into tournaments with USDT prizes. The best go further — to a $5,000 funded account.
FAQ
What's the difference between a token and a coin?
A coin has its own blockchain, while a token is issued on someone else's network using a smart contract. In casual conversation people mix up the two all the time, and that's no big deal, but in project documentation the distinction matters.
Can I recover a wallet without the seed phrase?
For a non-custodial wallet, usually not: without the seed phrase or private key, access is gone. If your funds are on an exchange, though, you can get access back through its support team, following the exchange's rules.
What does "the coin fell 10% in 24 hours" mean in terms of the glossary?
It's volatility in action: over 24 hours, the price dropped by a tenth. Moves like that are routine in crypto, which is exactly why beginners are advised to start with a demo account.
What is gas, and why is it sometimes cheap and sometimes expensive?
Gas is the fee for transactions on Ethereum and similar networks. When lots of people want to send transactions at once, they compete for room in a block, and gas gets more expensive.
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