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Crypto & Digital Assets

Crypto market structure and on-chain concepts. 6 indexed terms, 17 additional definitions.

Key Concepts

Bitcoin Dominance

Bitcoin's share of total cryptocurrency market capitalisation, a widely watched indicator of the crypto market cycle, with rising dominance typically signalling risk-off conditions and falling dominance signalling 'altseason'.

BTC Funding Rate

The periodic payment between long and short holders of Bitcoin perpetual futures contracts, a real-time gauge of leveraged sentiment, where persistently positive rates signal overheated longs and negative rates signal excessive short selling.

Centralized Exchange (CEX)

A cryptocurrency trading platform operated by a central company that holds custody of users' funds, matches orders, and typically requires identity verification.

DeFi

Decentralised Finance, financial services such as lending, borrowing, trading, and yield generation conducted entirely on public blockchains via smart contracts, without centralised intermediaries.

Proof of Stake

A consensus mechanism where validators are selected to create new blocks based on the amount of cryptocurrency they have staked as collateral, offering an energy-efficient alternative to Proof of Work.

Yield Farming

A DeFi strategy where users provide liquidity or lend assets across decentralized protocols to earn rewards, often in the form of additional tokens on top of standard interest.

Show 17 additional definitions ▾
Bitcoin Halving
The programmatic reduction of Bitcoin's block reward by 50% approximately every four years, a supply shock mechanism hardcoded into Bitcoin's protocol that has historically preceded major bull markets.
Bitcoin Mining
The process of using specialized computer hardware to validate Bitcoin transactions and add new blocks to the blockchain, earning newly minted BTC as a reward.
Blockchain
A distributed, immutable ledger that records transactions across a network of computers without requiring a central authority.
CBDC
A Central Bank Digital Currency, a digital form of a country's sovereign currency issued and controlled directly by the central bank. Unlike cryptocurrency, CBDCs are centralised, programmable money that could give governments unprecedented visibility and control over financial flows.
Crypto-Macro Correlation
The relationship between cryptocurrency prices and traditional macro factors, particularly real yields, dollar strength, and equity risk appetite, which emerged strongly in 2021–2022 and has defined crypto's trading behaviour since.
Crypto Wallet
A software application or hardware device that stores the cryptographic keys needed to send, receive, and manage cryptocurrency, serving as the user's interface to the blockchain.
Decentralized Exchange (DEX)
A cryptocurrency exchange that operates without a central authority, using smart contracts to facilitate peer-to-peer trading directly from users' wallets.
Gas Fees
Transaction fees paid to blockchain validators for processing and confirming transactions, denominated in the network's native token and varying based on network congestion.
Liquidity Pool
A collection of cryptocurrency tokens locked in a smart contract that provides liquidity for decentralized trading, lending, or other DeFi activities.
Non-Fungible Token (NFT)
A unique cryptographic token on a blockchain that represents ownership of a distinct digital or physical asset, unlike fungible tokens where each unit is interchangeable.
On-Chain Metrics
Data derived directly from the Bitcoin or Ethereum blockchain, including wallet flows, exchange balances, long-term vs short-term holder behaviour, and miner activity, offering a transparent view of supply and demand dynamics unavailable in traditional markets.
Private Key
A cryptographic string of characters that grants its holder the ability to authorize transactions and control the cryptocurrency associated with a corresponding public address.
Proof of Work
A consensus mechanism that requires network participants to expend computational effort solving cryptographic puzzles to validate transactions and secure the blockchain.
Public Key
A cryptographic identifier derived from a private key that serves as a wallet's receiving address, allowing others to send cryptocurrency without compromising the holder's security.
Smart Contract
A self-executing program stored on a blockchain that automatically enforces the terms of an agreement when predetermined conditions are met, eliminating the need for intermediaries.
Stablecoin
A cryptocurrency designed to maintain a stable value relative to a reference asset (usually the US dollar), the primary medium of exchange in crypto markets, systemic plumbing of DeFi, and a growing force in dollar globalisation.
Staking
The process of locking up cryptocurrency to support a Proof of Stake blockchain network, earning rewards in return for helping validate transactions and secure the chain.

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