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Crypto & mining glossary
Plain-English definitions for wallets, security, mining and DeFi — written to be useful on their own, with a practical next step for each.
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Wallet basics
Block Explorer
A block explorer is a public website that lets anyone search a blockchain's transactions, addresses and blocks, so you can verify what actually happened without trusting anyone's word.
Crypto Address (Public Address)
A crypto address is a public string of characters, derived from your public key, that you share so others can send coins to you; it is safe to share because it cannot be used to spend.
Network Fee (Transaction Fee)
A network fee is the payment attached to a crypto transaction that compensates miners or validators for including it in a block — it goes to the network, not to your wallet provider.
Non-Custodial Wallet
A non-custodial wallet is a crypto wallet where you, not a company, hold the private keys that control your coins — so nobody else can move, freeze or lose your funds on your behalf.
Private Key
A private key is a secret number that proves you own the crypto at an address and lets you authorize spending it — whoever has the key controls the coins.
Transaction Confirmation
A confirmation is a block added to the blockchain that includes your transaction (or builds on the block that does); each additional block makes the transaction harder to reverse.
UTXO
A UTXO (unspent transaction output) is a discrete chunk of coins locked to an address that hasn't been spent yet; UTXO-based blockchains like Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin track balances as the sum of these chunks.
Security
Address Poisoning
Address poisoning is a scam where an attacker sends tiny transactions from a look-alike address so it appears in your history, hoping you'll copy it by mistake and send real funds to the attacker.
Crypto Phishing
Crypto phishing is fraud that impersonates a wallet, exchange or support team — using fake websites, messages or apps — to trick you into handing over your keys or approving a transaction that drains your funds.
Hot Wallet
A hot wallet is a crypto wallet whose keys live on an internet-connected device (phone, browser, computer), which makes it convenient for everyday use but more exposed than an offline 'cold' wallet.
Passkey
A passkey is a passwordless login credential — a cryptographic key pair stored on your device and unlocked with your fingerprint, face or device PIN — that can't be phished the way a password can.
Self-Custody
Self-custody means holding your own private keys — and therefore your own crypto — instead of leaving it with an exchange or other third party.
Mining
ASIC Miner
An ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) miner is a machine built to compute one specific hashing algorithm, such as Scrypt, far more efficiently than general-purpose hardware like GPUs.
Block Reward
A block reward is the payment a miner receives for adding a valid block to the chain — newly issued coins (the subsidy) plus the transaction fees in that block.
Halving
A halving is a scheduled event in some cryptocurrencies where the block subsidy paid to miners is cut in half, slowing the rate at which new coins are created.
Hashrate
Hashrate is the number of hash calculations per second a miner — or an entire blockchain network — performs, and it determines both your share of block rewards and the network's security.
Merged Mining
Merged mining (also called auxiliary proof of work) lets a miner submit the same hashing work to a parent chain and one or more compatible 'auxiliary' chains at once, earning rewards on all of them without extra energy.
Mining Difficulty
Mining difficulty is a number that sets how hard it is to find a valid block on a proof-of-work chain; the network raises or lowers it automatically to keep the average time between blocks close to its target.
Mining Pool
A mining pool is a group of miners who combine their hashing power and split the rewards in proportion to the work each contributes, turning rare large payouts into small, regular ones.
Scrypt Algorithm
Scrypt is a memory-intensive proof-of-work hashing algorithm used to secure Litecoin, Dogecoin and many related coins; it was designed to be harder to accelerate with specialized chips than Bitcoin's SHA-256.
Coins & networks
Crypto Bridge
A crypto bridge is a system that lets you move value between two separate blockchains, typically by locking or burning an asset on one chain and creating or releasing an equivalent on the other.
MWEB (Litecoin MimbleWimble)
MWEB (MimbleWimble Extension Blocks) is an optional Litecoin upgrade that lets users send transactions with hidden amounts through a separate extension block, while regular Litecoin transactions continue to work as before.
Tokenized Stock
A tokenized stock is a blockchain token that tracks the price of a real-world share or ETF, typically backed by actual shares held by an issuer, letting you trade exposure to stocks on-chain around the clock.
Wrapped Token
A wrapped token is a token on one blockchain that represents an asset from another chain at a 1:1 ratio, backed by the original asset being locked up or held in reserve.
Trading & DeFi
APY (Annual Percentage Yield)
APY (annual percentage yield) is the effective yearly return on a deposit or investment once compounding is included, expressed as a percentage.
Decentralized Exchange (DEX)
A decentralized exchange (DEX) is a trading venue run by smart contracts on a blockchain that lets you swap tokens directly from your own wallet, without depositing funds with a company.
Slippage
Slippage is the difference between the price you expected when you placed a trade and the price at which it actually executes, usually caused by market movement or thin liquidity.
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