Crypto glossary

The vocabulary behind the mechanisms.

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Block height

The position of a block counted from the genesis block; it does not uniquely identify a block across competing branches.

Crypto-asset service provider, a defined category under MiCA. Its scope should not be assumed identical to FATF’s VASP category.

The confidence or protocol guarantee that an accepted history will not be reversed, under stated assumptions.

A measure of execution resources; gas units and the price per unit are separate quantities.

A fixed-length fingerprint computed from data by a hash function. It checks consistency, not truth.

Threshold-weighted collateral value divided by debt value in the Aave model described here.

The value shortfall of certain liquidity-provider positions relative to holding the original assets after relative prices change.

Assets held under shared contract rules to support activities such as exchange or lending.

A node’s local collection of pending transactions; different nodes can hold different sets.

Multi-party computation; threshold-signing schemes can use it to produce signatures from distributed secret shares.

A spending policy requiring several signatures, such as two of three authorised keys.

A number used in a particular protocol context: a mining search field in Bitcoin or an account transaction counter in Ethereum.

A mechanism that supplies a contract with information originating outside its immediate execution context.

A cryptographic secret used to authorise signatures under a signing scheme.

A value that permits signature verification without revealing the private key.

A scaling system that links off-chain execution to a base layer using published information and a proof or challenge mechanism.

Recovery words that can derive wallet keys in supported deterministic wallet systems; they are highly sensitive secrets.

A protocol penalty for specified consensus offences, distinct from ordinary downtime penalties.

Requirements for originator and beneficiary information accompanying covered transfers under the relevant legal framework.

Total value locked: an aggregation of assets attributed to a protocol under a particular measurement method.

An unspent transaction output: a value with conditions that must be satisfied to spend it.

A participant performing protocol-defined validation and consensus duties; on Ethereum, stake supports these duties.