Crypto Glossary
Plain-English definitions of the cryptocurrency, blockchain and trading terms you will meet as you learn.
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Permissionless
Permissionless describes a system, most often a blockchain network, where no authority sets the rules for who can use it or how they can use it.
PoS (Proof of Stake)
Proof of Stake (PoS) is a consensus mechanism based on staking. Participants lock up the network’s coins as collateral for the right to validate…
PoW (Proof of Work)
Proof of Work (PoW) is a consensus mechanism based on computational effort. Miners compete to find a value that makes a block’s hash fall below a…
Private Key
A private key is a secret key granting access to funds on a blockchain. It is a very large number, usually shown as a long string of letters and digits…
Private Key / Secret Key
A private key, also called a secret key, is a secret piece of data generated by asymmetric (public-key) cryptography and paired with a public key.
Proof of Spacetime
Proof of Spacetime (PoSt) is a way for a network participant to prove that they have dedicated a certain amount of storage space to the network over a…
Pseudonymous
Being pseudonymous means using a pseudonym, a consistent made-up name, instead of your real identity.
Public Address
A public address is an identifier derived from a wallet's public key, usually by hashing the key and encoding the result as a string of letters and…