Crypto glossary for Australians
Plain-English definitions of 113+ crypto terms, with a focus on what matters to Australian investors — tax, regulation, AUD pricing.
5
A
- AirdropTrading
Free distribution of tokens to wallets, often as a reward for early users.
- All-Time High (ATH)Trading
The highest price an asset has ever reached.
- All-Time Low (ATL)Trading
The lowest price an asset has ever reached.
- AltcoinTrading
Any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin, ranging from Ethereum to obscure tokens.
- AltseasonTrading
A period when altcoins broadly outperform Bitcoin.
- AMLAustralia
Anti-Money Laundering — the regulatory framework crypto exchanges follow.
- AMMDeFi
Automated Market Maker — the algorithm DEXes use to price trades from liquidity pools.
- APRDeFi
Annual Percentage Rate — yearly return without compounding.
- APYDeFi
Annual Percentage Yield — yearly return including compounding, used to advertise DeFi rates.
- ASIC (Crypto Regulation)Australia
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which regulates crypto products that qualify as financial products.
- ATO Crypto TaxAustralia
The Australian Tax Office treats crypto as property; most disposals trigger capital gains tax.
- ATO Record KeepingTax
The ATO requires Australians to keep crypto transaction records (date, AUD value, counterparty, purpose) for at least five years.
- AUSTRACAustralia
Australia's financial intelligence and AML regulator. All AU crypto exchanges must register with it.
B
- Basis Point (bp)Trading
One hundredth of a percentage point. 50 bps means 0.50%.
- Bear MarketTrading
A sustained period of falling prices and pessimism, usually a 20%+ drawdown.
- BitcoinTechnical
The first and largest cryptocurrency by market cap, created in 2009 by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto.
- BlockchainTechnical
A distributed, append-only ledger where transactions are grouped into cryptographically linked blocks.
- BridgeTechnical
A protocol that moves assets between different blockchains.
- BTC DominanceTrading
Bitcoin's share of the total crypto market cap. Falling dominance often signals altseason.
- Bull MarketTrading
A sustained period of rising prices and optimism.
C
- Capital Gains Tax (CGT)Australia
Tax on profit when you dispose of crypto. Holding 12+ months may give a 50% individual discount in Australia.
- Capital Loss (AU)Tax
Loss made on disposing of a CGT asset for less than its cost base; can offset capital gains, including future years.
- CBDCAustralia
Central Bank Digital Currency — a government-issued digital dollar. The RBA is researching one for Australia.
- CEXTrading
Centralised Exchange — a company-run crypto trading venue like Binance, Coinbase or Australia's CoinSpot.
- CGT 50% DiscountAustralia
An Australian tax concession halving capital gains for individuals who hold an asset more than 12 months.
- Circulating SupplyTrading
The number of coins currently in public hands and tradable on the market.
- CoinTechnical
A cryptocurrency with its own native blockchain, like BTC or ETH.
- Cold WalletWallets
A wallet kept offline (often hardware) for maximum security against online attacks.
- Consensus MechanismBlockchain
The protocol rules that let distributed nodes agree on the next block (e.g. proof-of-work, proof-of-stake).
- Crypto WalletWallets
Software or hardware that stores the private keys controlling your crypto.
D
- DAODeFi
Decentralised Autonomous Organisation — a community governed by on-chain token-holder votes.
- DeFiDeFi
Decentralised Finance — financial services like lending, trading and yield, run on smart contracts instead of banks.
- DerivativesDerivatives
Financial contracts whose value is derived from an underlying asset such as a cryptocurrency.
- DEXDeFi
Decentralised Exchange — a peer-to-peer marketplace for crypto that runs on smart contracts (e.g. Uniswap).
- Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA)Trading
Buying a fixed dollar amount on a fixed schedule to smooth out volatility.
E
- ERC-20Standards
The Ethereum token standard for fungible tokens, used by most stablecoins and DeFi tokens.
- ERC-721Standards
The Ethereum token standard for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), where each token is unique.
- EVMBlockchain
The Ethereum Virtual Machine — the runtime that executes smart contracts on Ethereum and compatible chains.
F
- Fear & Greed IndexTrading
A 0–100 sentiment gauge for the crypto market. Low = fear, high = greed.
- FIFO (Crypto Tax AU)Tax
First-in-first-out — an ATO-accepted method for matching crypto sold against the cost base of the earliest units bought.
- FinalityBlockchain
The point at which a confirmed transaction is considered irreversible by the network.
- FOMOTrading
Fear Of Missing Out — buying impulsively because prices are rising fast.
- FUDTrading
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt — bearish sentiment, often spread to drive prices down.
- Funding RateDerivatives
Periodic payment between long and short perpetual traders that keeps the contract close to spot price.
- FuturesTrading
Contracts that bet on the future price of an asset, often with leverage.
G
- Gas FeeTechnical
The transaction fee paid to validators on networks like Ethereum, denominated in gwei.
- Gas LimitBlockchain
The maximum amount of gas a user is willing to spend on a transaction.
- Governance TokenDeFi
A token whose primary purpose is voting on a protocol's direction.
- GweiTechnical
A small denomination of Ether (1 ETH = 1,000,000,000 gwei) used to price gas fees.
H
- HalvingTechnical
A scheduled Bitcoin event roughly every four years that cuts the new-coin reward in half.
- Hard ForkBlockchain
A protocol change that breaks compatibility, requiring every node to upgrade or split off.
- Hardware WalletWallets
A dedicated physical device (e.g. Ledger, Trezor) that signs transactions offline.
- Hash FunctionBlockchain
A one-way function that turns any input into a fixed-length fingerprint, used to secure blockchains.
- Hash RateTechnical
Total computing power securing a proof-of-work network like Bitcoin.
- HODLTrading
Crypto slang for holding through volatility instead of trading. Originally a typo of "hold".
- Hot WalletWallets
A wallet connected to the internet — convenient for trading, riskier for storage.
I
K
L
- Layer 1Technical
A base blockchain like Bitcoin, Ethereum or Solana that settles its own transactions.
- Layer 2Technical
A scaling network built on top of a Layer 1, processing transactions faster and cheaper (e.g. Arbitrum).
- Lending ProtocolDeFi
A DeFi app like Aave or Compound where you can lend or borrow crypto against collateral.
- LeverageTrading
Borrowing to take a position larger than your own capital — magnifies both gains and losses.
- Light ClientBlockchain
A wallet or node that verifies block headers without storing the full chain history.
- Limit OrderTrading
An order to buy or sell only at a specific price or better.
- LiquidationTrading
The forced closure of a leveraged position when collateral runs out.
- LiquidityTrading
How easily an asset can be bought or sold without moving its price.
- Liquidity PoolDeFi
A smart-contract pool of paired tokens that powers a DEX, paying fees to depositors.
M
- Market CapTrading
Total circulating supply multiplied by current price. The standard way to rank crypto by size.
- Market MakerTrading
A participant that quotes both buy and sell prices to provide liquidity and earn the spread.
- Market OrderTrading
An order to buy or sell immediately at the best available price.
- Max SupplyTrading
The hard cap on how many coins can ever exist (Bitcoin's is 21 million).
- MempoolTechnical
The waiting area for unconfirmed transactions before miners or validators include them.
- Merkle TreeBlockchain
A tree of hashes that lets a blockchain prove a transaction is included without revealing the whole block.
- MEVTrading
Maximal Extractable Value — profit a block producer can earn by reordering, including or censoring transactions.
- MiningTechnical
The proof-of-work process of solving puzzles to add new blocks and earn coin rewards.
N
O
- OptionsDerivatives
Contracts giving the right (not obligation) to buy or sell an asset at a set price before expiry.
- OracleTechnical
A service that feeds external data (like prices) into smart contracts. Chainlink is the best-known.
- Order BookTrading
The live list of buy and sell orders at every price for a given trading pair.
- Osko / NPPAustralia
Real-time AUD payment rails used by AU exchanges for fast deposits and withdrawals.
P
- PayIDAustralia
Australia's instant bank transfer system, supported by most local crypto exchanges for AUD deposits.
- Perpetual SwapDerivatives
A futures contract with no expiry, kept aligned with spot price via a periodic funding payment.
- Private KeyWallets
The secret number that proves ownership of crypto and authorises transactions.
- Proof of Stake (PoS)Technical
A consensus mechanism where validators stake coins instead of burning electricity. Used by Ethereum.
- Proof of Work (PoW)Technical
A consensus mechanism where miners compete with computing power. Used by Bitcoin.
- Public KeyWallets
The cryptographic key derived from a private key, used to receive funds.
R
- RestakingStaking
Reusing already-staked ETH to secure additional protocols, popularised by EigenLayer.
- RollupScaling
A Layer-2 design that batches many transactions into one proof posted to the main chain.
- Rug PullTrading
A scam where developers abandon a project and drain its liquidity, leaving holders with worthless tokens.
S
- Satoshi (Sat)Technical
The smallest unit of Bitcoin: 1 BTC = 100,000,000 sats.
- Seed PhraseWallets
A 12 or 24-word recovery phrase that backs up an entire crypto wallet. Never share it.
- SequencerScaling
The component of a rollup or L2 that orders incoming transactions before they settle on Layer 1.
- ShardingScaling
Splitting a blockchain into parallel shards so it can process more transactions at once.
- ShortingTrading
Profiting from a price drop by selling borrowed crypto and rebuying it later.
- SidechainBlockchain
A separate blockchain that runs in parallel to a main chain and can move assets back and forth via a bridge.
- SlashingStaking
A penalty that destroys part of a validator's stake for misbehaviour such as double-signing.
- SlippageTrading
The difference between the expected price of a trade and the actual filled price.
- Smart ContractTechnical
Self-executing code on a blockchain that runs when conditions are met.
- SMSF CryptoAustralia
Holding crypto inside a Self-Managed Super Fund, subject to strict ATO and SIS Act rules.
- Soft ForkBlockchain
A backwards-compatible protocol upgrade where old nodes still accept new blocks.
- Spot TradingTrading
Buying or selling crypto for immediate delivery, as opposed to derivatives.
- StablecoinTrading
A cryptocurrency designed to hold a steady value, usually pegged to the US dollar (e.g. USDT, USDC).
- StakingDeFi
Locking up crypto to help secure a proof-of-stake network and earn yield.