Crypto glossary for Australians

A hostile takeover where one party controls a majority of a network's hash rate or stake.

Free distribution of tokens to wallets, often as a reward for early users.

The highest price an asset has ever reached.

The lowest price an asset has ever reached.

Any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin, ranging from Ethereum to obscure tokens.

A period when altcoins broadly outperform Bitcoin.

Anti-Money Laundering — the regulatory framework crypto exchanges follow.

Automated Market Maker — the algorithm DEXes use to price trades from liquidity pools.

Annual Percentage Rate — yearly return without compounding.

Annual Percentage Yield — yearly return including compounding, used to advertise DeFi rates.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which regulates crypto products that qualify as financial products.

The Australian Tax Office treats crypto as property; most disposals trigger capital gains tax.

The ATO requires Australians to keep crypto transaction records (date, AUD value, counterparty, purpose) for at least five years.

Australia's financial intelligence and AML regulator. All AU crypto exchanges must register with it.

One hundredth of a percentage point. 50 bps means 0.50%.

A sustained period of falling prices and pessimism, usually a 20%+ drawdown.

The first and largest cryptocurrency by market cap, created in 2009 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto.

A distributed, append-only ledger where transactions are grouped into cryptographically linked blocks.

A protocol that moves assets between different blockchains.

Bitcoin's share of the total crypto market cap. Falling dominance often signals altseason.

A sustained period of rising prices and optimism.

Tax on profit when you dispose of crypto. Holding 12+ months may give a 50% individual discount in Australia.

Loss made on disposing of a CGT asset for less than its cost base; can offset capital gains, including future years.

Central Bank Digital Currency — a government-issued digital dollar. The RBA is researching one for Australia.

Centralised Exchange — a company-run crypto trading venue like Binance, Coinbase or Australia's CoinSpot.

An Australian tax concession halving capital gains for individuals who hold an asset more than 12 months.

The number of coins currently in public hands and tradable on the market.

A cryptocurrency with its own native blockchain, like BTC or ETH.

A wallet kept offline (often hardware) for maximum security against online attacks.

The protocol rules that let distributed nodes agree on the next block (e.g. proof-of-work, proof-of-stake).

Software or hardware that stores the private keys controlling your crypto.

Decentralised Autonomous Organisation — a community governed by on-chain token-holder votes.

Decentralised Finance — financial services like lending, trading and yield, run on smart contracts instead of banks.

Financial contracts whose value is derived from an underlying asset such as a cryptocurrency.

Decentralised Exchange — a peer-to-peer marketplace for crypto that runs on smart contracts (e.g. Uniswap).

Buying a fixed dollar amount on a fixed schedule to smooth out volatility.

The Ethereum token standard for fungible tokens, used by most stablecoins and DeFi tokens.

The Ethereum token standard for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), where each token is unique.

The Ethereum Virtual Machine — the runtime that executes smart contracts on Ethereum and compatible chains.

A 0–100 sentiment gauge for the crypto market. Low = fear, high = greed.

First-in-first-out — an ATO-accepted method for matching crypto sold against the cost base of the earliest units bought.

The point at which a confirmed transaction is considered irreversible by the network.

Fear Of Missing Out — buying impulsively because prices are rising fast.

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt — bearish sentiment, often spread to drive prices down.

Periodic payment between long and short perpetual traders that keeps the contract close to spot price.

Contracts that bet on the future price of an asset, often with leverage.

The transaction fee paid to validators on networks like Ethereum, denominated in gwei.

The maximum amount of gas a user is willing to spend on a transaction.

A token whose primary purpose is voting on a protocol's direction.

A small denomination of Ether (1 ETH = 1,000,000,000 gwei) used to price gas fees.

A scheduled Bitcoin event roughly every four years that cuts the new-coin reward in half.

A protocol change that breaks compatibility, requiring every node to upgrade or split off.

A dedicated physical device (e.g. Ledger, Trezor) that signs transactions offline.

A one-way function that turns any input into a fixed-length fingerprint, used to secure blockchains.

Total computing power securing a proof-of-work network like Bitcoin.

Crypto slang for holding through volatility instead of trading. Originally a typo of "hold".

A wallet connected to the internet — convenient for trading, riskier for storage.

Initial Coin Offering — a public token sale used to fund a new project.

Initial DEX Offering — a token launch on a decentralised exchange.

A loss liquidity providers can suffer when the prices of their pooled tokens diverge.

Know Your Customer — identity checks Australian exchanges must perform under AUSTRAC rules.

A base blockchain like Bitcoin, Ethereum or Solana that settles its own transactions.

A scaling network built on top of a Layer 1, processing transactions faster and cheaper (e.g. Arbitrum).

A DeFi app like Aave or Compound where you can lend or borrow crypto against collateral.

Borrowing to take a position larger than your own capital — magnifies both gains and losses.

A wallet or node that verifies block headers without storing the full chain history.

An order to buy or sell only at a specific price or better.

The forced closure of a leveraged position when collateral runs out.

How easily an asset can be bought or sold without moving its price.

A smart-contract pool of paired tokens that powers a DEX, paying fees to depositors.

Total circulating supply multiplied by current price. The standard way to rank crypto by size.

A participant that quotes both buy and sell prices to provide liquidity and earn the spread.

An order to buy or sell immediately at the best available price.

The hard cap on how many coins can ever exist (Bitcoin's is 21 million).

The waiting area for unconfirmed transactions before miners or validators include them.

A tree of hashes that lets a blockchain prove a transaction is included without revealing the whole block.

Maximal Extractable Value — profit a block producer can earn by reordering, including or censoring transactions.

The proof-of-work process of solving puzzles to add new blocks and earn coin rewards.

Non-Fungible Token — a unique on-chain token representing ownership of a specific digital or physical item.

A computer running blockchain software, validating and relaying transactions.

Contracts giving the right (not obligation) to buy or sell an asset at a set price before expiry.

A service that feeds external data (like prices) into smart contracts. Chainlink is the best-known.

The live list of buy and sell orders at every price for a given trading pair.

Real-time AUD payment rails used by AU exchanges for fast deposits and withdrawals.

Australia's instant bank transfer system, supported by most local crypto exchanges for AUD deposits.

A futures contract with no expiry, kept aligned with spot price via a periodic funding payment.

The secret number that proves ownership of crypto and authorises transactions.

A consensus mechanism where validators stake coins instead of burning electricity. Used by Ethereum.

A consensus mechanism where miners compete with computing power. Used by Bitcoin.

The cryptographic key derived from a private key, used to receive funds.

Reusing already-staked ETH to secure additional protocols, popularised by EigenLayer.

A Layer-2 design that batches many transactions into one proof posted to the main chain.

A scam where developers abandon a project and drain its liquidity, leaving holders with worthless tokens.

The smallest unit of Bitcoin: 1 BTC = 100,000,000 sats.

A 12 or 24-word recovery phrase that backs up an entire crypto wallet. Never share it.

The component of a rollup or L2 that orders incoming transactions before they settle on Layer 1.

Splitting a blockchain into parallel shards so it can process more transactions at once.

Profiting from a price drop by selling borrowed crypto and rebuying it later.

A separate blockchain that runs in parallel to a main chain and can move assets back and forth via a bridge.

A penalty that destroys part of a validator's stake for misbehaviour such as double-signing.

The difference between the expected price of a trade and the actual filled price.

Self-executing code on a blockchain that runs when conditions are met.

Holding crypto inside a Self-Managed Super Fund, subject to strict ATO and SIS Act rules.

A backwards-compatible protocol upgrade where old nodes still accept new blocks.

Buying or selling crypto for immediate delivery, as opposed to derivatives.

A cryptocurrency designed to hold a steady value, usually pegged to the US dollar (e.g. USDT, USDC).

Locking up crypto to help secure a proof-of-stake network and earn yield.

A cryptocurrency issued on top of an existing blockchain (often Ethereum) rather than its own chain.

The total AUD/USD value of crypto deposited in a DeFi protocol — a common size metric.

A network participant in a proof-of-stake system who proposes and confirms blocks.

An entity holding enough crypto to move the market with their trades.

A token that represents another asset 1:1 on a different chain (e.g. WBTC on Ethereum).

Moving crypto between DeFi protocols to chase the highest interest or rewards.