The UK Financial Conduct Authority, which registers crypto firms for AML and is expanding a fuller crypto regime.

The U.S. central bank. It supervises large banks, runs wholesale payment rails, and researches a potential digital dollar.

The Federal Reserve's instant-payment service for U.S. banks.

The Federal Reserve's RTGS system for U.S. dollar wholesale payments.

A major U.S. asset manager and crypto custodian, issuer of the FBTC spot Bitcoin ETF and related products.

A decentralized storage market where miners earn FIL for providing space and retrieval.

The G20-linked body that coordinates financial-regulation standards, including crypto-asset and stablecoin recommendations.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the U.S. Treasury bureau that writes AML rules and receives suspicious activity reports.

The U.S. Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, a House-passed bill that would split CFTC and SEC oversight of digital assets.

The Financial Information eXchange protocol used by traditional venues for orders and market data.

An uncollateralized loan that must be borrowed and repaid inside the same transaction, used for arb and liquidations.

The freely trading supply. Low float plus hype can produce violent squeezes both ways.

Fear of missing out. Buying because price already ran, often near local tops.

A protocol path for submitting a transaction through a settlement layer or alternative queue when a rollup sequencer does not include it normally.

A split in chain history or protocol rules. Can be accidental (two tips) or intentional (an upgrade).

The rule a node applies to select its preferred chain head when more than one valid branch is available.

Mathematical proofs about contract behavior, complementary to audits and tests.

Mathematically proving that code matches a spec, used on high-value vaults and zk circuits.

A common structure: nonprofit foundation holds IP or treasury, for-profit lab builds the product.

Splitting a high-value asset into many tokens so smaller buyers can hold a slice. Legal title design matters more than the token UI.

Seeing a pending transaction and inserting your own ahead of it for profit.

International policy recommendations for consistent regulation, supervision, and oversight of crypto-asset activities and relevant stablecoin arrangements.

A collapsed centralized exchange whose 2022 failure froze customer funds and reshaped U.S. enforcement.

The November 2022 failure of FTX and Alameda, a defining custody and fraud event for the industry.

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Negative narrative used to scare holders into selling.

A node that verifies every block and transaction against consensus rules instead of trusting a third party.

A contract to buy or sell an asset at a set date and price. Crypto futures are often cash-settled.

The group of large economies that sets high-level financial-stability and FATF-aligned crypto agendas.

A crypto merchant bank and asset manager founded by Mike Novogratz.

How fast delta changes. High gamma near expiry can force dealers to buy rips and sell dips, or the reverse.

The unit of computational work on Ethereum-style chains. Every opcode costs gas, paid in the network fee token.

The maximum gas a transaction or block may consume. A low limit can cause a transaction to fail mid-execution.

The amount paid per unit of gas, usually quoted in gwei; effective fees and inclusion depend on the network's fee rules and transaction conditions.

Ethereum co-founder later behind Polkadot and the Solidity language's early work.

The EU data-protection law. On-chain permanence collides with erasure rights, a standing compliance tension.

An exchange and custodian founded by the Winklevoss twins, with a New York trust charter.

The first block or agreed starting record of a blockchain, anchoring its initial history and state under that network's rules.

The U.S. payment-stablecoin law enacted as Public Law 119-27 on July 18, 2025, establishing an issuer and supervisory framework with implementation provisions.

Operators who exploit then negotiate returns. Legal and ethical status is messy.

The issuer of GBTC and other crypto trusts, later converted in part to spot ETFs.

A discount applied to collateral value so a protocol or desk has a buffer against a sudden print.

An early Bitcoin contributor and the first known recipient of a Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi.

A rule change that old software will reject. Nodes must upgrade or they follow a different chain.

A dedicated device designed to keep signing keys isolated from a general-purpose computer and to authorize transactions through a controlled interface.

A fixed-length fingerprint of data produced by a one-way cryptographic function, used to detect tampering and link blocks.

The act of running data through a hash function so the output changes if even one input bit changes.

Settlement risk named after a bank failure where one side of FX paid and the other did not.

A crypto-community term for holding an asset, popularized by the misspelled title of a December 2013 BitcoinTalk post.

The share of a token's supply associated with a small number of addresses or inferred owners, measured under an explicit method.

If you raise money on a promise of profits from a team's work, expect securities analysis.

The U.S. Supreme Court test for an investment contract: money, a common enterprise, and an expectation of profit from the efforts of others.

An umbrella of open-source enterprise DLT projects hosted by the Linux Foundation.

The International Monetary Fund. It advises members on monetary policy and has published extensively on crypto and CBDCs.

The value shortfall of a liquidity position relative to holding its original assets when relative prices change; the shortfall can exist before withdrawal and may persist.

Fake handles that clone influencers or founders to push drainers or fake mints.

The volatility priced into options. It is a market forecast, not a historical statistic.

An Ethereum proof-of-stake recovery mechanism that increases penalties for inactive validators when the chain fails to finalize for an extended period.

Pause guardians, war rooms, and user alerts planned before a hack, not during one.

The pace at which new supply is issued, often quoted as an annual percentage of circulating supply.

The ability of chains and apps to pass assets and messages without a trusted spreadsheet in the middle.

A derivative commonly quoted in fiat units whose margin and profit or loss are calculated in the underlying cryptocurrency using inverse-price arithmetic.

A U.S. law regulating investment companies, including many mutual funds and ETFs; U.S. spot Bitcoin and ether commodity-trust ETPs do not register under this Act.

Indication of interest. A non-binding hint of size used to find the other side without showing a firm order.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, which writes the legal contracts behind most OTC derivatives.

BlackRock's ETF brand, including IBIT and other crypto-linked funds.

A global standard for richer financial messages used by payments, securities, and FX. Several crypto networks market ISO 20022 compatibility for bank rails.

Messaging richness banks want. Crypto ledgers can carry memos, but legal interoperability is about gateways, not magic compatibility badges.

The international codes for currencies (USD, EUR, XAU). Crypto tickers are informal and are not ISO 4217 assignments.

Early Mt. Gox and Ripple figure who later co-founded Stellar.

The common request format for Ethereum-style node APIs.

The 256-bit Keccak hash function used in Ethereum; it is related to, but not interchangeable with, standardized SHA3-256.

A formula for bet size from edge and odds. Full Kelly is often too aggressive for crypto.

An encrypted file that holds a private key, used by some desktop and node wallets.

A long-running U.S. and global exchange known for spot markets, staking, and a relatively conservative listing culture.

Know Your Customer. Collecting and verifying identity before opening an account, required of most regulated venues.

An OTC or FX habit of confirming a quote after the client hits it. Controversial in crypto RFQ.

The time from broadcast to a usable confirmation, distinct from theoretical throughput.

The trust, fund, or company that actually owns the real-world asset behind a token.

Legal Entity Identifier. A global id for companies in financial messages, including many ISO 20022 payments.

A market where depositors earn interest and borrowers post collateral to take a loan.

Controlling a larger position than the cash posted as margin. Gains and losses both scale.

Borrowed size amplifies gains and losses. Most new traders are liquidated by sizing, not by the idea.

Facebook's 2019 proposed global stablecoin and payment network. Political backlash forced a redesign and eventual shutdown path.

A liquid-staking protocol whose Ethereum staking tokens, stETH and wstETH, represent claims linked to staked ether; LDO is a separate governance token.

A client that verifies selected authenticated blockchain data with less local computation and storage than a full node; its proofs and trust assumptions depend on the protocol.

Bitcoin's payment-channel network for cheap, fast transfers that settle back to L1 when channels close.

Instant Bitcoin transfers over payment channels with low fees when routes are available.

A Lightning routing technique that conceals information about a recipient's route segment using encrypted forwarding instructions and blinded node identifiers.

An instruction to buy or sell only at a chosen price or better. It may rest unfilled.

A public Ethereum zkEVM rollup powered by the Lineth software stack, with execution on Layer 2 and validity proofs and settlement on Ethereum.