The Dictionary
Explore 227+ clear, technical, and objective definitions defining the decentralized future.
Recently Defined
Account Abstraction
Account abstraction is a wallet design that turns the user's account into a programmable smart contract instead of a traditional Externally Owned Account (EOA) controlled by a single private key. On Ethereum it is standardized through ERC-4337, which lets wallets define their own rules for authorization, gas payment, and recovery.
Account Verification Tier
Your KYC status level that unlocks higher deposit/withdrawal limits and features.
Address Poisoning
Address poisoning is a scam where attackers send tiny transactions from wallet addresses that resemble your previous transaction history.
Admin Key
An admin key (or privileged key/role) is a private key or multisig address that retains special permissions over a smart contract—such as upgrading code, pausing the protocol, changing parameters, or withdrawing funds.
AI Agent (Crypto)
A crypto AI agent is an autonomous software program that uses large language models or other AI systems to make decisions on-chain — holding a wallet, executing trades, posting to social platforms, or interacting with smart contracts without a human pressing the button for every action.
Airdrop
An airdrop is the distribution of free tokens or coins to wallet addresses, often used to reward early users, market a project, or decentralize token ownership.
Allowance
An allowance is the specific quantity of tokens that a wallet has authorized a particular smart-contract address (spender) to transfer on its behalf, as recorded in the token contract’s state.
Altcoin
An altcoin is any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin.
AMM (Automated Market Maker)
An Automated Market Maker, or AMM, is a system used by decentralized exchanges to price assets and process trades using algorithms and liquidity pools instead of a traditional order book.
Arbitrage
Arbitrage is a trading strategy where a trader buys the same crypto asset on one exchange at a lower price and sells it on another exchange at a higher price. The goal is to profit from the temporary price difference between markets.
Ask Price
The lowest price a seller is willing to accept right now (sell side of the order book).
ATH (All-Time High)
ATH, or All-Time High, is the highest price a cryptocurrency has ever reached in its trading history.
ATL (All-Time Low)
ATL, or All-Time Low, is the lowest price a cryptocurrency has ever reached since it began trading.
Atomic Swap
An atomic swap is a smart-contract-based trade in which two parties exchange tokens across different chains (or within the same chain) with a guarantee that either both legs execute or neither does. No custodian, escrow, or centralized exchange sits in the middle.
Audit
A smart contract audit is a security review of blockchain code by experts.
Auto-Deleveraging (ADL)
A risk-control mechanism on futures exchanges where highly profitable leveraged positions are forcibly reduced/closed to cover losses of bankrupt positions.
Available Balance
The portion of your funds that is free to use for new trades or withdrawals right now.
Bagholder
A bagholder is a trader or investor who continues holding an asset that has dropped heavily in value, often after buying near the top or failing to exit when conditions changed.
Base Network
Base is an Ethereum Layer 2 optimistic rollup developed by Coinbase, designed for low-cost, high-throughput transactions while settling to Ethereum for security.
Basis Trade
A basis trade is a market-neutral strategy that profits from the price difference (the "basis") between a spot asset and its futures contract, or between two derivatives on the same asset. The trader holds offsetting positions so directional price moves largely cancel out.