Under MiCA, a crypto asset that references several currencies, commodities or other assets.
Bail-in (englisches Original)
The write-down or conversion of a failing bank's liabilities, including depositors' balances above the guaranteed amount, to absorb losses.
Bank money (englisches Original)
A balance held at a commercial bank; legally a claim against the bank, not the same thing as cash.
Blockchain (englisches Original)
A distributed ledger in which transactions are recorded in cryptographically linked blocks maintained by a network of nodes.
Bridge (englisches Original)
A service or protocol for moving assets, or representations of them, between blockchains.
Cantillon effect (englisches Original)
The observation that newly created money benefits those who receive it first, changing relative prices and the distribution of wealth.
Capital controls (englisches Original)
Government restrictions on moving money across borders or withdrawing it from banks.
CASP (englisches Original)
Crypto-asset service provider: the MiCA category for exchanges, brokers, custodians and similar services, subject to authorisation and listed in the public register.
CBDC (englisches Original)
Central bank digital currency: a digital form of central bank money for the public, such as the planned digital euro.
Central bank money (englisches Original)
Cash and the reserves that banks hold at the central bank; the only money that is not a claim against a private institution.
CEX / DEX (englisches Original)
Centralised exchange: operated by a company that holds customer funds. Decentralised exchange: a protocol that trades without central custody.
Coin (englisches Original)
The native asset of its own blockchain, such as BTC on Bitcoin.
Cold storage (englisches Original)
Custody in which private keys never touch an internet-connected device.
Confidence label (englisches Original)
An indication of how well a rating value is supported by sources: high, medium, low or estimate.
Consensus (englisches Original)
The procedure by which a decentralised network agrees on the valid state of the ledger.
Control (criterion) (englisches Original)
The degree to which the user, rather than an issuer, provider or authority, holds ultimate power over their assets: freeze risk, withdrawal, self-custody.
Custodial wallet (englisches Original)
A wallet in which a provider holds the keys on the user's behalf; the user holds a claim, not the keys.
DeFi (englisches Original)
Decentralised finance: financial applications executed mainly through smart contracts.
Denominator (englisches Original)
The unit in which a price is expressed; the same asset history looks different in EUR, USD, gold or Bitcoin.
Drawdown (englisches Original)
The decline from a peak to a subsequent trough; a measure of the downside experienced.
DXY (englisches Original)
An index of the US dollar against a basket of major currencies, widely used as a gauge of dollar strength.
E-money token (EMT) (englisches Original)
Under MiCA, a crypto asset that references one official currency and is issued by an authorised issuer; the regulatory category for euro and dollar stablecoins in the EU.
ETF / ETP (englisches Original)
Exchange-traded funds and products that give exposure to an asset through a traditional brokerage account.
Fiat currency (englisches Original)
State-issued money that is legal tender by law and not redeemable for a commodity, such as the euro or the US dollar.
Finality (englisches Original)
The point from which a transaction is considered practically or technically irreversible.
Fork (englisches Original)
A split or rule change in a blockchain protocol.
Frontier (englisches Original)
The best value measured for a criterion within a product category, shown next to each rating so that absolute and relative quality stay distinguishable.
Gas fee (englisches Original)
The fee paid to execute a transaction or contract operation on certain networks.
Halving (englisches Original)
The periodic halving of Bitcoin's block subsidy, which fixes its issuance schedule.
Hardware wallet (englisches Original)
A dedicated physical device that keeps private keys isolated from internet-connected computers.
Hash (englisches Original)
A fixed-length cryptographic fingerprint of data.
Holding period (englisches Original)
The length of time an asset is held, which in some jurisdictions determines whether or how a gain is taxed.
Inflation (englisches Original)
A sustained rise in the general price level; equivalently, a fall in the purchasing power of money.
KYC (englisches Original)
Know your customer: identity verification by a regulated service provider.
Layer 1 / Layer 2 (englisches Original)
The base blockchain and the scaling or execution layers built on top of it, such as Lightning on Bitcoin or rollups on Ethereum.
Lightning Network (englisches Original)
A layer-2 payment network for fast, low-cost Bitcoin transactions.
Liquidity (macro) (englisches Original)
The availability of money and credit in an economy or market, as distinct from the market liquidity of a single asset.
Liquidity (market) (englisches Original)
The ability to buy or sell an asset in size without moving its price much.
Market capitalisation (englisches Original)
Price per unit multiplied by circulating supply; a measure of size, not of liquidity or quality.
MiCA (englisches Original)
The EU Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation: the harmonised framework for crypto assets and their service providers in the EU.
Mining (englisches Original)
The use of computing power to produce blocks and secure a proof-of-work network, rewarded with newly issued coins and fees.
Money supply (M1, M2, M3) (englisches Original)
Measures of how much money exists in an economy, from cash and sight deposits (M1) to broader liquid instruments (M3); definitions differ by currency area.
Multisig (englisches Original)
A setup that requires several keys to authorise a transaction, spreading risk across devices or people.
Node (englisches Original)
A computer that stores, verifies and relays a network's data according to the protocol rules.
A central bank's expansion or contraction of its balance sheet by buying or selling securities, changing the reserves in the banking system.
Real interest rate (englisches Original)
A nominal interest rate minus inflation; positive when saving in a currency gains purchasing power, negative when it loses.
Reserve (englisches Original)
The assets backing a stablecoin, held by its issuer.
Seed phrase (englisches Original)
A sequence of words from which a wallet's keys can be restored; the master backup.
Slippage (englisches Original)
The difference between the expected and the executed price, usually caused by low liquidity or large orders.
Smart contract (englisches Original)
Program code on a blockchain that executes defined rules automatically.
Social recovery (englisches Original)
A recovery method in which designated contacts or devices can help restore access without a single seed phrase.
Spread (englisches Original)
The difference between the best buy and sell prices.
Stablecoin (englisches Original)
A crypto asset designed to hold a stable value against a reference such as the US dollar or the euro.
Staking (englisches Original)
Locking assets to participate in validation on a proof-of-stake network, usually for a reward.
Taxable event (englisches Original)
An action, such as a disposal, swap or receipt of rewards, that triggers a tax consequence under a country's rules.
Term premium (englisches Original)
The extra yield investors demand to hold a long-term bond rather than rolling over short-term ones.
Token (englisches Original)
A digital asset issued on an existing blockchain, such as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum.
Tokenomics (englisches Original)
The economic rules of a token: supply, issuance, distribution and incentives.
Travel Rule (englisches Original)
The requirement that sender and recipient data accompany regulated crypto transfers; relevant when withdrawing from a licensed provider to self-custody.
UTXO (englisches Original)
Unspent transaction output: the accounting model Bitcoin uses to track who can spend what.
Volatility (englisches Original)
The intensity of price fluctuation over time.
Wallet (englisches Original)
Software, hardware or a procedure for managing keys and interacting with blockchain assets; a wallet holds keys, not coins.
Whale (englisches Original)
A holder of a very large amount of an asset, whose actions can move the market.
Yield curve (englisches Original)
The relationship between bond yields and their maturities for one issuer; its shape reflects expectations about growth, inflation and policy.
Zero knowledge (englisches Original)
Cryptographic methods that prove a statement without revealing the underlying information.