Glossary of Terms

Blockchain

A public electronic ledger that resides on thousands of computers (called nodes) all over the world that permanently records all transactions that take place on it. A pre-determined minimum standard of these computers have to verify the validity of the transaction, before it is permanently recorded on these nodes, to update the ledger with each new transaction. Once the transaction is recorded, it is immutable, meaning it can not be changed or erased. It is recorded indefinitely. In a "bigger picture" context, the Internet made it easy to exchange information with each other in various formats like text, image, file and video. The Blockchain is making it easy for people to exchange value with each other in a secure way, in the form of digital assets such as cryptocurrencies and other tokens.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin (BTC) is a decentralized digital or virtual currency, created in 2009 without a central bank or single administrator that can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer software cryptography technology or Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain (network) to facilitate instant payments. In a "bigger picture" context, Bitcoin is a consensus network that enables a new payment system and a completely digital form of "money". From a user perspective, BTC is pretty much like cash for the internet. It's introduction, adoption and use has been widely heralded as the first introduction of a new asset class to the investment world in over 150 years. Some uses of BTC are - 1. Currency or medium of exchange; 2. Store of value; 3. Inflation hedge; 4. Investment.

Burning

Coin burning is a process where cryptocurrency miners and developers remove a specific portion of coins from circulation to control their price. It is a common industry practice to incentivise long-term holding among users, by managing the price through restricting supply. This is generally done periodically.

Cryptocurrency

A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that is secured by cryptography, which makes it nearly impossible to counterfeit or double-spend. Many cryptocurrencies are decentralized networks based on blockchain technology—a distributed electronic ledger enforced by a disparate [def.= network of fundamentally different, separate, uniquely located individual computers (nodes) all connected to the same blockchain] network of computers. A defining feature of cryptocurrencies is that they are generally not issued by any central authority, rendering them theoretically immune to government interference or manipulation.

dApps

Decentralized applications (dApps) are digital applications or programs that exist and run on a blockchain or peer-to-peer (P2P) network of computers instead of a single computer. DApps (also called "dapps") are free from the control or interference of a single authority. Benefits of dAps include the safeguarding of user privacy, the lack of censorship, and the flexibility of development. DApps—which are often built on the Ethereum platform—can be developed for a variety of purposes including gaming, finance, and social media.

Difficulty Bomb

Ethereum

Difficulty Bomb refers to a mechanism that, at a predefined block number, increases the difficulty level of puzzles in the proof-of-work mining algorithm resulting in longer than normal block times (and thus less ETH rewards for miners).

Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source and distributed blockchain (computing platform) technology that enables the creation and operation of smart contract functionality and decentralized Digital Applications (DApps). Smart contracts are computer protocols that facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation and performance of some sort of agreement. Ethereum allows the developer to create and publish next-generation distributed applications. Ethereum is open access to digital money and data-friendly services for everyone – no matter your background or location. It's a community-built technology behind the cryptocurrency ether (ETH) with thousands of applications you can use today. Ether is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Amongst cryptocurrencies, Ether is second only to Bitcoin in market capitalization. Ethereum was conceived in 2013 by programmer Vitalik Buterin.

Gas Fees

Gas is essentially a fee that is required to execute a transaction on the Ethereum blockchain platform. This gas fee is priced in small fractions of the cryptocurrency Ether (ETH) that are referred to as Gwei.

Hard Fork

A hard fork (or hardfork), as it relates to blockchain technology, is a radical change to a network's protocol that makes previously invalid blocks and transactions valid, or vice-versa. A hard fork requires all nodes or users to upgrade to the latest version of the protocol software. Forks may be initiated by developers or members of a crypto community who grow dissatisfied with functionalities offered by existing blockchain implementations.

Staking

Staking is a way to put your crypto to work and earn rewards on it. ... Staking cryptocurrencies is a process that involves committing your crypto assets to support a blockchain network and confirm transactions. It's available with cryptocurrencies that use the proof-of-stake model to process payments.