Turning the page.
Bringing the next chapter into view…
From your first block to the finer details. Explore the ideas, people, and systems behind the market—one useful explanation at a time.
Follow a transaction from a key to a shared ledger.
Begin with BlockchainExplore contracts, liquidity, borrowing and the risks between them.
Begin with Smart contractUnderstand what a price, valuation or sentiment indicator can tell you.
Begin with Market capitalizationLearn custody, permissions and how to assess what you sign.
Begin with Hardware walletConnect the original ideas to the incidents that changed the industry.
Begin with A Cypherpunk's ManifestoSeparate technical standards, issuer claims and legal frameworks.
Begin with Howey testL2 Standard Bridged WETH (Base) (WETH) is a crypto asset primarily associated with base.
A period when attention and airdrop farming concentrated on Ethereum rollups.
LAGOON provides open, general-purpose, secure vault infrastructure to build and scale on-chain yield products.
Larpcoin (LARP) is a crypto asset primarily associated with solana.
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.
Launchpad is a market sector used to group crypto assets with similar use or design.
Law Blocks AI (LBT) is a blockchain-based Legal Tech platform that combines AI-generated legal documents, Web3 digital signatures, and secure document storage on blockchain.
A network that provides shared security or messaging so many Layer 1s can plug in, such as Polkadot or Cosmos.
Layer 0 (L0) is a market sector used to group crypto assets with similar use or design.
A base blockchain that settles its own transactions, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, or the XRP Ledger.
Layer 1 (L1) is a market sector used to group crypto assets with similar use or design.
A network built on a Layer 1 that processes transactions off the base chain and posts proofs or data back to it.
Layer 2 (L2) is a market sector used to group crypto assets with similar use or design.
Layer2DAO (L2DAO) is a crypto asset primarily associated with arbitrum-one.
An interoperability protocol that uses oracles and relayers to pass messages between chains.
Pushing the boundaries of blockchain technology through open source development, Sei stands to unlock a brand new design space for consumer facing applications.
LayerZero V2 is a Bridge protocol active on Ethereum, ApeChain, Base. LayerZero is a technology that enables applications to move data across blockchains, uniquely supporting censorship-resistant messages and…
LBank is a centralized exchange listed with country British Virgin Islands.
A French hardware-wallet maker whose devices store keys in a secure element.
Even hardware users can be phished via companion apps and blind signing. Verify on device.
Ledger's companion app for managing accounts and apps on the hardware device.
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.
LeisureMeta (LM) is a crypto asset primarily associated with ethereum.
A market where depositors earn interest and borrowers post collateral to take a loan.
Lending/Borrowing Protocols is a market sector used to group crypto assets with similar use or design.
LEO Token is a utility token used on the Bitfinex exchange to reduce trading fees and access various services within the platform.
A Solana memecoin launch culture and tooling cluster associated with Bonk-adjacent trench trading.
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.
LeveX is a centralized exchange listed with country Panama.
Facebook's 2019 proposed global stablecoin and payment network. Political backlash forced a redesign and eventual shutdown path.
A 2025 Solana memecoin promoted in connection with Argentina's president Javier Milei, then collapsing amid insider-profit and political backlash. Not Facebook's Libra.
A liquid-staking protocol whose Ethereum staking tokens, stETH and wstETH, represent claims linked to staked ether; LDO is a separate governance token.
The governance body coordinating Lido liquid staking across chains.
Lido Earn ETH (EARNETH) is a crypto asset primarily associated with ethereum.
Lido Staked Ether (STETH) is a token that represents staked Ether in the Lido protocol, allowing users to earn staking rewards while maintaining liquidity of their assets.
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.
A compact proof that a transaction or state is in a header a light client already trusts.
Lighter is a decentralized trading platform built for unmatched security and scale.
Lighter Bridge is a Bridge protocol active on Ethereum, Arbitrum. Lighter is a decentralized trading platform that is designed to deliver unmatched security and scale.
A BOLT-11 or BOLT-12 request that a Lightning payer uses to find a path and settle.
A leading Lightning Network engineering company building protocol and Lightning-native products.
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.
Channel backups, watchtowers, and inbound liquidity matter as much as on-chain self-custody habits.
A business that opens channels and provides liquidity to Lightning users.
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.
Linea Bridge is a Canonical Bridge protocol active on Ethereum. The main bridge, on a technical level, in Linea is the Canonical Message Bridge.
UNI is the governance token for Uniswap, an Automated Market Marker DEX on the Ethereum blockchain.
A derivative whose profit or loss changes proportionally with the underlying price change for a fixed position size, before fees and funding.
Tokens unlock smoothly over time rather than in one cliff.
A Linux Foundation umbrella organization for open-source distributed ledger, identity, and related trust technologies, incorporating the Hyperledger ecosystem.
Lion Group Holding rStock (RLGHL) is a crypto asset primarily associated with arbitrum-one.
Liquid Collective is a non-custodial staking protocol launched on Ethereum.
Blockstream's Bitcoin sidechain for faster issuance and confidential transactions.
Staking through a protocol that issues a receipt token (like stETH) so the position stays usable in DeFi.
Forced close of a leveraged position when margin falls below maintenance. The venue seizes collateral to pay the loss.
Additional collateral a liquidator may receive when repaying an unhealthy loan, intended to make liquidation economically worthwhile.
Hundreds of millions in forced closes within hours, a recurring headline in leverage-heavy markets.
The contracts and keepers that seize under-collateralized loans and sell collateral to keep a protocol solvent.
A map of estimated leverage liquidation levels, used to hunt squeezes.
The mark price at which a leveraged position is force-closed.
How easily size can be traded without moving the price much. Deep books and pools mean better liquidity.
Thick books and pools absorb size. Thin liquidity turns small sells into crashes.
The same asset split across chains and pools, worsening price and UX until aggregation improves.
A wick through obvious stops that fills liquidations or stop orders before reversing.
Paying extra protocol tokens to people who deposit into a pool, used to bootstrap depth.
Points, lasting incentives, or real-yield sharing instead of purely inflationary emissions.
A smart-contract reserve of two or more tokens that enables automated trading and earns fees for depositors.
Liquity V1 is a decentralized and immutable borrowing protocol that allows you to draw 0% interest loans against Ether used as collateral.
Lista CDP is a CDP protocol active on Binance. Lista DAO functions as a open-source liquidity protocol for earning yields on collateralized Crypto assets (BNB, ETH, Stablecoins, and…
Lista Lending is a decentralized P2P lending protocol on BNB Chain that uses a vault-based system to pool liquidity and allocate it across…
Lista Liquid Staking is the yield bearing & liquid staking token for Lista DAO, which appreciates against BNB in line with BNB's staking…
An early Bitcoin fork that uses Scrypt proof of work and is often treated as a payments side-bet to Bitcoin.
lium (SN51) is a crypto asset primarily associated with bittensor.
The Livepeer project aims to deliver a live video streaming network protocol that is fully decentralized, highly scalable, crypto token incentivized, and results in a solution which can serve as the live media layer in…
A protocol for requesting a Lightning payment invoice from a service through an encoded URL-based interaction.
A bridge pattern that locks coins on the source chain and mints wrapped coins on the destination.
LP tokens sent to a locker or burn address so the team cannot rug by removing the pool. Still not a guarantee of honesty.
Contractual period when insiders cannot sell. Separate from on-chain vesting schedules.
Lombard BTC.b is a Bridge protocol active on Bitcoin. BTC.b is Bitcoin for DeFi. A 1:1 Bitcoin representation that works across multiple blockchains, permissionless, decentralized, and always…
Lombard LBTC is a Restaked BTC protocol active on Bitcoin, Ethereum. LBTC is a yield-bearing Bitcoin asset, 1:1 backed by native bitcoin, combining an institutional off-chain yield strategy with yield…
A position that profits if price rises.
Forced selling of leveraged longs that cascades price down. Common on perpetual futures venues.
A forced sell cascade when longs are liquidated into a falling tape.
The count or notional of retail longs versus shorts on a venue. A crowded side is fuel for a squeeze.
Definitions offer a starting point. Detailed readings include the sources behind the explanation.