GLOSSARY
Terms, in brief
A one-paragraph definition for every term. Each one has a direct link.
Address
A string of characters that publicly identifies where crypto-assets sent to you can arrive, similar to an IBAN. It's derived from your wallet's public key and you can hand it out to anyone without any risk, since only the private key gives control over the funds, not the address itself. Every movement to an address stays permanently visible on the blockchain, but doesn't by itself reveal who is behind it. See the guide: What is a blockchain, briefly
#Airdrop
The free distribution of units of a new token to a group of holders of another crypto-asset, usually as a promotion method or as a reward for people who already used a network or an app. Receiving an airdrop generally doesn't require any payment from you, but can require completing certain steps, such as connecting a wallet to a site. Not every airdrop is legitimate; some are used as bait to get a user to connect their wallet to a fake site.
#Altcoin
An informal term for any crypto-asset other than Bitcoin. The category covers both large networks with their own blockchain and a clear purpose, and tokens issued in a few minutes on an existing platform, with no code of their own and no team behind them. Quality varies enormously between these two extremes, and most altcoins have a small market cap and a thin market, which makes them more volatile than Bitcoin or Ethereum. See the guide: Ethereum and the rest
#Asset-referenced token
A category defined by the crypto-assets law for tokens whose value tracks one or more reference assets, for example several currencies, commodities, or other crypto-assets, unlike an e-money token, which is tied to a single official currency. Like the latter, it carries stricter rules than the general "other crypto-assets" category, because it promises stability.
#ATH (all-time high)
The highest price a crypto-asset has ever reached, in a given reference currency. The figure is historical, not a promise: the fact that an asset once reached a certain level says nothing about whether it will return there. Price platforms usually show the ATH next to the current price, as a point of context, not a target.
#Bear market
A prolonged period in which crypto-asset prices fall steadily or stagnate, usually accompanied by lower public interest and a smaller trading volume. The term comes from the image of a bear swiping its paw downward. A bear market can last from a few months to several years and has no fixed duration or depth set in advance.
#Bitcoin
The first crypto-asset, a decentralized network that lets people send value directly to each other, with no bank or other institution in between. The network is maintained by thousands of independent computers, and its supply is capped through a fixed rule in the code, not a decision made by any institution. Bitcoin has no central issuer and gives you no legal claim over any company or physical asset. See the guide: What is Bitcoin?
#Block
A batch of transactions confirmed together and added to the end of a blockchain. Each block also contains the digital fingerprint of the block before it, which links blocks into a chain: changing a single transaction in an old block changes its fingerprint and breaks the link to everything added after it. New blocks are proposed by the network's nodes, called miners or validators depending on the network. See the guide: What is a blockchain, briefly
#Blockchain
A distributed ledger in which transactions are grouped into blocks linked chronologically through a digital fingerprint, kept simultaneously by thousands of independent computers instead of a single central server. Anyone can read a public blockchain, but no one controls it alone, and rewriting an old transaction would require rebuilding every block after it and getting the agreement of most of the network. See the guide: What is a blockchain, briefly
#Bull market
A prolonged period in which crypto-asset prices rise steadily, usually accompanied by higher public interest and a larger trading volume. The term comes from the image of a bull swiping its horns upward. Like a bear market, a bull market has no fixed duration or intensity and is usually only identified in hindsight.
#CASP (crypto-asset service provider)
The abbreviation used in European regulation for any entity authorized to offer crypto-asset-related services: custody, operating a trading platform, exchange, advice, or portfolio management. In Moldova, authorizing a CASP falls to the National Commission for Financial Markets, and only authorized entities can legally offer these services once the crypto-assets law takes effect. See the guide: How to buy crypto in Moldova
#CNPF
The National Commission for Financial Markets, the authority in Moldova responsible for authorizing and supervising crypto-asset service providers under the crypto-assets law. The CNPF keeps the public register of authorized providers, receives complaints against them, and can impose sanctions for breaches, from warnings up to withdrawing authorization. Platforms that don't appear in this register aren't supervised by any authority in Moldova. See the guide: How to buy crypto in Moldova
#Cold wallet
A wallet of your own whose private keys are generated and kept on a device that never connects directly to the internet, usually a dedicated physical device (a "hardware wallet"). Because the keys never touch a device connected online, the risk of them being stolen through a remote attack drops significantly compared to a wallet permanently connected to the internet. See the guide: Who controls your crypto?
#Confirmation
The moment a transaction is included in a block validated by the network and becomes a permanent part of the blockchain. A transaction with a single confirmation is already recorded, but some platforms wait for several successive confirmations before treating funds as fully secure, since a very recent block theoretically has a small chance of being replaced by a competing version of the chain. See the guide: What is a blockchain, briefly
#Crypto-asset
The general term, also used by the crypto-assets law, for any digital representation of value or rights that can be transferred and stored electronically, using blockchain technology or a similar one. The category includes Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins, and thousands of other tokens, with large differences in purpose, technology, and risk between them. Not every crypto-asset follows the same legal rules; the law splits them into several categories with different requirements.
#Custody
Crypto-assets held by a third party, usually a trading platform, instead of a wallet of your own. In a custodial model, the platform effectively holds the assets on your behalf, and you only have the right to claim them back, similar to money in a bank account. The alternative is a wallet of your own, non-custodial, where control stays directly with the private key you hold. See the guide: Who controls your crypto?
#DeFi (decentralized finance)
An ecosystem of applications built on blockchains such as Ethereum, offering financial services, for example lending, exchange, or saving, through smart contracts, without a bank or a central platform operating everything. Funds usually stay under the user's direct control, but the risks shift: a bug in a smart contract's code can be just as costly as a bank failure.
#E-money token
A category defined by the crypto-assets law for tokens whose value tracks a single official currency, for example the leu or the euro. Rules for this category are stricter than for other crypto-assets, since a token like this promises stability against a specific currency, moving closer to electronic money and the payment system.
#Ethereum
The second-oldest and second-most-used network in the crypto-asset market, and the first built around smart contracts: programs that run automatically directly on a blockchain. This capability opened the door to thousands of applications built on Ethereum, from lending platforms to games, and became the model many competing networks try to improve on or copy. See the guide: Ethereum and the rest
#Exchange
A platform where you can buy, sell, or swap crypto-assets for other crypto-assets or ordinary money. Most platforms work on a custodial basis: assets stay recorded in your account on the platform, not directly on the blockchain in your name, until you withdraw them to a wallet of your own. Platforms differ from each other in fees, spread, liquidity, and, in Moldova, in whether they're authorized.
#FOMO (fear of missing out)
The impulse to quickly buy or sell an asset just because its price suddenly rose or fell and it seems like everyone else is already profiting from the move. Decisions made out of FOMO tend to skip the usual checks, since urgency feels more important than caution, and this impulse is actively exploited by scam patterns built on time pressure.
#Fork
A change to a blockchain's rules that can result in a single updated network, called a "soft" fork, compatible with the old rules, or in two separate networks, sharing a common history up to the split but different rules afterward, called a "hard" fork. A hard fork can create a new crypto-asset, whose initial holders are identical to the original network's holders at the moment of the split.
#Halving
The periodic reduction, at a fixed interval, of the rewards the Bitcoin network gives miners for each new confirmed block. The reduction rule has been written into the network's code since launch and can't be changed without the near-unanimous agreement of participants, which makes bitcoin's total supply predictable and limited, regardless of market demand. See the guide: What is Bitcoin?
#Hash
The result of a mathematical calculation applied to a set of data, for example a block's contents, in the form of a fixed-length string of characters. Changing a single character in the original data completely changes the resulting hash, which makes it possible to instantly detect any change. Every block in a blockchain contains the previous block's hash, and that's the mechanism that links blocks into a chain. See the guide: What is a blockchain, briefly
#Hot wallet
A wallet of your own whose private keys are generated and kept on a device connected to the internet, such as a phone app or a browser extension. It's more practical for frequent transactions than a cold wallet, but it exposes the keys to any online device's risks: viruses, fake apps, or a compromised phone could, in theory, reach the keys kept there. See the guide: Who controls your crypto?
#KYC (know your customer)
The process by which a platform verifies your identity, usually through an official document and a photo, before letting you trade larger amounts. Authorized platforms are legally required to apply procedures like this, as part of anti-money-laundering rules. An identical request coming through a message or from an unfamiliar platform usually follows the same pattern as any other suspicious request for personal data.
#Leverage
Trading with money borrowed from a platform, which lets you control a position larger than the capital you put in. Leverage amplifies gains and losses symmetrically: a small price move can mean a much larger percentage gain or loss on the deposited capital. When the loss gets close enough to the deposited capital, the platform can automatically close the position. See the guide: What trading is and why it's risky
#Limit order
A buy or sell order that only executes at the price you specify or a better one, never a worse one. Unlike a market order, a limit order doesn't guarantee immediate execution: if the market price never reaches the level requested, the order can remain unfilled for an undefined period or be cancelled.
#Liquidation
A platform's forced closing of a leveraged position when the loss gets close enough to the deposited capital that the platform risks being left holding the difference. Liquidation happens automatically, without any action from you, and can mean losing the entire deposited amount much faster than expected, especially with high leverage. See the guide: What trading is and why it's risky
#Liquidity
How easily an asset can be bought or sold at a given moment without the transaction itself moving the price much. A liquid market has many active buyers and sellers and, usually, a smaller spread. A thin market, with few participants, tends to have a wider spread and prices that can move sharply on a relatively small trade. See the guide: Why prices differ
#Liquidity pool
A reservoir of funds, deposited by multiple users into a smart contract, used to allow swaps between two crypto-assets without a traditional order book matching buyers and sellers directly. Whoever deposits funds into a pool usually receives a share of the fees paid by people swapping through it, but also takes on the risk that the deposited value drops compared to simply holding the assets.
#Market cap
The theoretical value of a crypto-asset's entire circulating supply, calculated by multiplying the current price of one unit by the number of units in circulation. An asset with a low unit price can have a large market cap if there are enough units, and the reverse is also true, so the price of one unit, alone, doesn't say how "big" a network is. See the guide: Why prices differ
#Market order
A buy or sell order executed immediately, at the best price available on the platform at that moment, without specifying an exact value beforehand. It's fast, but the final price can differ slightly from what you saw a moment before pressing the button, especially in a thinly traded market or during a period of sharp price moves.
#MiCA
The European Union regulation on markets in crypto-assets, adopted to set common rules for authorization, transparency, and supervision across every member state. Moldova's crypto-assets law adopts MiCA's definitions, categories, and service types almost word for word, taken on under the Association Agreement with the EU, which means a company authorized in Moldova works with the same concepts as one authorized in the EU, though authorizations aren't automatically valid one in place of the other.
#Mining
The process by which dedicated computers, called miners, contribute computing power to verify transactions and propose new blocks on a network using proof of work, such as Bitcoin. Miners receive a reward for each successfully confirmed block, made up of new units issued by the network and the network fees paid by whoever sends transactions. See the guide: What is a blockchain, briefly
#Network fee (gas)
The amount paid directly to the network, not the platform, for a transaction to be included in a block by the nodes that confirm it. Its size depends on how congested the network is at that moment, not on the amount transferred, and can vary a lot over a short interval. It's distinct from a trading platform's fee, which stays with the platform, not the network. See the guide: How fees work
#NFT (non-fungible token)
A unique token that can't be swapped one for one with another identical token, unlike a unit of Bitcoin or an ordinary currency. An NFT usually represents ownership of a specific digital object, for example an image or an item from a game, recorded on a blockchain. The crypto-assets law treats truly unique assets such as NFTs separately.
#Node
A computer that keeps a full copy of a blockchain and updates it independently as new blocks appear. Thousands of independent nodes, spread around the world, verify every transaction and reach the same answer every time, since they all start from the same chain. The absence of a central node is what makes a decentralized network hard for any single party to stop or control. See the guide: What is a blockchain, briefly
#P2P (peer-to-peer)
A direct exchange of crypto-assets between two people, for cash or a bank transfer, with no platform in between. It's more flexible than a platform, but also riskier, since there's no intermediary to mediate a possible dispute or hold funds until the exchange is completed correctly. See the guide: How to buy crypto in Moldova
#Private key
A mathematically generated string of characters that proves the right to control and transfer the crypto-assets tied to it. Whoever holds the private key effectively controls the funds, regardless of who else "knows" those funds belong to them. A wallet of your own usually doesn't show you the private key directly, but encodes it into a recovery phrase it can be rebuilt from at any time. See the guide: Who controls your crypto?
#Proof of stake
A mechanism by which a network chooses which node proposes the next block based on the amount of crypto-assets that node sets aside as collateral, not on computing power. A node that validates transactions incorrectly risks losing part of its deposited collateral. Ethereum switched to this mechanism, considered far more energy-efficient than proof of work. See the guide: What is a blockchain, briefly
#Proof of work
The mechanism Bitcoin uses, where nodes, called miners, compete to solve a costly mathematical calculation for the right to propose the next block. The real computing cost involved makes rewriting the network's history extremely expensive, which protects the chain's integrity but consumes a lot of electricity, which is why other networks have switched to alternative mechanisms such as proof of stake. See the guide: What is a blockchain, briefly
#Public key
The half of a wallet's cryptographic key pair that can be shared freely, unlike the private key. A wallet's address is derived from the public key. The mathematical relationship between the two keys makes it possible to verify a signature without ever revealing the private key behind it, which is what the whole system's security is built on.
#Public offering
The moment an issuer first offers a new crypto-asset publicly for purchase, usually accompanied by publishing a white paper. The crypto-assets law regulates this stage separately, including a retail buyer's right to withdraw from a purchase made directly from the issuer, as part of a public offering, within a few days of buying, without giving a reason.
#Pump and dump
A pattern in which a group coordinates massively buying a small-cap crypto-asset to artificially push its price up, then quickly sells at the inflated price, leaving later buyers holding an asset that quickly returns to its earlier value or lower. Aggressive promotion of an unfamiliar crypto-asset, with promises of fast gains, is a typical sign of this pattern.
#Recovery phrase (seed phrase)
A string of 12 or 24 ordinary words that a wallet's private key can be rebuilt from, on any compatible device. It appears once, when the wallet is created, and no copy of it is kept anywhere else, not even by the app's maker. Whoever has the phrase can transfer everything in the wallet; whoever loses it can no longer recover the funds. See the guide: The recovery phrase (seed phrase)
#Rug pull
A type of scam in which the creators of a new token raise funds from buyers, then suddenly withdraw the available liquidity or funds and disappear, leaving the token practically worthless. The name comes from the image of the rug being pulled out from under buyers' feet. A new project, with no verifiable code and no identifiable team, is more exposed to this risk than one with a public track record. See the guide: Ethereum and the rest
#Satoshi
The smallest unit a bitcoin can be divided into, equal to one hundred-millionth of a whole bitcoin. The name comes from the pseudonym used by the creator or creators of the Bitcoin network. The existence of a unit this small means you don't need to buy a whole bitcoin to use the network. See the guide: What is Bitcoin?
#Slippage
The difference between the price you expect a transaction to execute at and the price it actually executes at, caused by market movement or insufficient liquidity in the very short interval between sending the order and its confirmation. Slippage tends to be larger in thin markets or on large trades, compared to a small one in a highly liquid market.
#Smart contract
A small program that runs directly on a blockchain and automatically executes rules written in advance, without depending on a company to operate it. A smart contract can, for example, hold funds safely until two parties confirm a transaction, or issue a new token according to fixed rules. Ethereum was the first large network built around this capability. See the guide: Ethereum and the rest
#Spread
The difference between the buy price and the sell price shown at the same moment by a platform, for the same asset. It doesn't usually appear as a separate cost line, but it represents a real cost of the transaction, sometimes larger than the explicitly shown fee. A platform with low liquidity tends to have a wider spread, to cover its risk. See the guide: How fees work
#Stablecoin
A crypto-asset built to always be worth roughly the same as a reference asset, almost always the US dollar, unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, whose prices form freely on the market. The link to the reference price is maintained through reserves held by the issuer and a right of redemption, not through a decentralized mechanism, which makes trust in the issuer a central factor. See the guide: Why USDT is different
#Staking
Setting crypto-assets aside as collateral to take part in validating transactions on a proof-of-stake network, in exchange for a reward also paid by the network. Staked funds usually stay locked for a period and can be reduced if the node using them validates incorrectly. The mechanism is the alternative to mining, used by networks such as Ethereum. See the guide: What is a blockchain, briefly
#Supply cap
The maximum number of units a network will ever issue, fixed by its code's rules, not by a decision from any institution. Bitcoin, for example, has a supply cap of 21 million units, known in advance by every participant in the network. Not every crypto-asset has a fixed cap; some have a supply that can keep growing under its own rules. See the guide: What is Bitcoin?
#Token
A crypto-asset issued on another network's blockchain, instead of having its own dedicated blockchain, usually through a smart contract that defines its rules: how many units exist, how they're transferred, what rights they grant. Launching a new token is technically simple and cheap, which explains why thousands of tokens exist, with large differences in quality and purpose between them. See the guide: Ethereum and the rest
#Transaction
The instruction that moves crypto-assets from one address to another, signed with the sender's private key as proof of the right to make the transfer. Once sent to the network, a transaction waits to be included in a block by the nodes, after which it becomes a permanent, publicly visible part of the blockchain. See the guide: What is a blockchain, briefly
#USDC
A stablecoin tied to the US dollar, issued by the company Circle, functionally similar to USDT: each unit should be backed by equivalent reserves held by the issuer, and the right of redemption at the issuer is what keeps the price close to one dollar. As with any stablecoin, trust depends on the issuing company managing its reserves properly, not on a decentralized mechanism. See the guide: Why USDT is different
#USDT
The most used stablecoin, tied to the US dollar, issued by the company Tether. Unlike Bitcoin, which has no central issuer, USDT is issued and redeemed by a private company, which claims to hold equivalent reserves in dollars or easily convertible assets for every unit in circulation. It often works as a dollar substitute on trading platforms. See the guide: Why USDT is different
#Volatility
How much an asset's price fluctuates over a period of time. Crypto-assets generally have much higher volatility than ordinary stocks, meaning large price moves, in both directions, sometimes within the same day. High volatility amplifies both the potential for gains and the risk of losses, especially for anyone trading with leverage. See the guide: What trading is and why it's risky
#Volume
The total value of transactions carried out with an asset, on a platform or across the entire market, over a given time interval, usually 24 hours. High volume usually points to a more liquid market with a smaller spread, while low volume can mean prices that move sharply on relatively small trades. See the guide: Why prices differ
#Wallet
An app, a browser extension, or a physical device that holds the private key you use to control crypto-assets recorded on the blockchain in your name. The wallet doesn't actually "contain" the assets, they exist on the blockchain, it only holds the key that controls them. It's called a wallet of your own, or non-custodial, when only you hold the key, unlike a custodial account on a platform. See the guide: Who controls your crypto?
#Whale
An informal term for a holder of a very large amount of a crypto-asset, large enough that their transactions alone can move the price in a thin market. A whale's movement, for example transferring a large sum to a trading platform, is sometimes watched by other participants as a signal, though it says nothing certain about the real intentions behind it.
#White paper
The document an issuer publishes before publicly offering a crypto-asset or requesting its admission to trading. It describes the project, the technology used, the rights and obligations tied to the token, and the associated risks. Under the crypto-assets law, a white paper can't contain promises about the asset's future value and must clearly state that the asset isn't guaranteed.
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