Glossary

What is a 51% attack? A 51% attack is an attack on a proof of work blockchain where a group of miners controlling more than 50% of the network’s mining hash use this power to prevent new transactions from being…

The word “altcoin” is an abbreviation of “Bitcoin alternative,” and thus describes every single cryptocurrency except for Bitcoin. Altcoins are referred to as Bitcoin alternatives because, at least to some extent, most altcoins hope to either replace or improve upon…

Bitcoin is a digital currency (also called crypto-currency) that is not backed by any country’s central bank or government. Bitcoins can be traded for goods or services with vendors who accept Bitcoins as payment. Bitcoin-to- Bitcoin transactions are made by…

A bitcoin address is a cryptographic key that “owns” bitcoins. This address is used to uniquely identify bitcoins. The person or persons who know the corresponding private key can send those bitcoins to any other address. The cryptographic keys that…

A Bitcoin wallet is a software program where Bitcoins are stored. To be technically accurate, Bitcoins are not stored anywhere; there is a private key (secret number) for every Bitcoin address that is saved in the Bitcoin wallet of the…

A blockchain—the technology underlying bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies—is a shared digital ledger, or a continually updated list of all transactions. This decentralized ledger keeps a record of each transaction that occurs across a fully distributed or peer-to- peer network, either…

CoinJoin and SharedCoin: CoinJoin is an anonymization method for bitcoin transactions proposed by Gregory Maxwell. The following idea is behind CoinJoin: “When you want to make a payment, find someone else who also wants to make a payment and make…

A cryptocurrency (or crypto currency) is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure the transactions and to control the creation of additional units of the currency. Cryptocurrencies are a subset of alternative…

What is DASH? Dash is an open source altcoin that was created from a fork in the Bitcoin Protocol. Dash was formerly known as Xcoin and Darkcoin, but rebranded itself as Dash (a portmanteau of “digital cash”) in 2015 after Darkcoin…

What is ERC-20? “Ethereum Request for Comments 20,” more commonly known as ERC-20, is a technical standard used to implement smart contracts that create the API for tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. Adhering to this standard allows tokens on Ethereum…