- Seed phraserecovery phrase / mnemonic
- Twelve or twenty-four English words from which a wallet derives your private keys. It is closer to the asset itself than to a password: whoever holds it can move everything, and there is no recovery.
Why it matters: this is the one thing in self-custody you cannot get wrong. Longer version in seed phrases and private keys. - Private keyprivate key
- A random number used to sign transactions. One key corresponds to one address, while a seed phrase derives many keys.
Why it matters: it determines who can spend. Never hand it to a person or a page. - Public keypublic key
- Data computed from the private key, used to verify that a signature came from that key. You will rarely touch it directly.
Why it matters: it explains why proving your identity never requires surrendering the key. - Addressaddress
- The string computed from the public key — the thing you paste to people to receive funds. It is public by design.
Why it matters: publishing it does not endanger the funds, but it exposes the whole transaction history of that address. See the trio explained. - Gas / network feegas fee
- What you pay for the network to execute and record an operation, going to whoever packages the transaction. It floats with congestion.
Why it matters: it must be paid in that chain's native token. Without it, no amount of stablecoins can be moved. See gas fees. - Native tokennative token
- A chain's own base asset, used to pay that chain's gas. Every chain has a different one.
Why it matters: the classic beginner wall is "there are tokens in the wallet and I cannot move them", and this is why. - Signaturesignature
- A mathematical mark made with your private key, proving a piece of content came from you. Signing happens locally and the key never leaves the device.
Why it matters: legitimate identity checks use signatures and never require your seed phrase. - Approvalapprove / allowance
- Permission for a contract to move a given amount of a given token of yours in the future. Nothing moves when you sign it — the permission is what changes hands.
Why it matters: approvals do not expire and no screen reminds you. See how to read an approval prompt. - Unlimited approvalunlimited allowance
- An approval whose amount is set to an enormous number, meaning the contract may move your whole balance of that token including future deposits.
Why it matters: many applications request this by default, and most wallets let you edit the figure down. - Revokerevoke
- Setting an existing allowance back to zero. It is an on-chain transaction and costs a network fee.
Why it matters: periodic clean-up meaningfully shrinks your exposure. See how to check and revoke. - Chain / networkchain / network
- An independently operated ledger with its own nodes, rules and native token. Chains do not communicate with one another.
Why it matters: choosing the wrong one when sending is among the hardest mistakes to fix. See what happens when you pick wrong. - Mainnet / testnetmainnet / testnet
- Mainnet is the live network where assets have value; testnet tokens are worthless and exist for development.
Why it matters: address prefixes differ, and real assets should never be sent to a testnet address. - Contract addresscontract address
- The address where a program deployed on-chain lives. A token is itself usually a contract, and this is what you enter when adding one manually.
Why it matters: take it from an official site or block explorer, and note that assets sent to a contract address are usually unrecoverable. - Transaction hashtransaction hash / txid
- The unique identifier of an on-chain transaction, a long string. It lets you look the transaction up on a block explorer.
Why it matters: when a withdrawal "succeeded" but nothing shows in the wallet, this is the first thing to check. - Confirmationsconfirmations
- How many further blocks have stacked on top of the one containing your transaction. Platforms usually require a threshold before crediting.
Why it matters: block cadence differs by chain, so the same confirmation count means very different waits. - Block explorerblock explorer
- A website for querying public chain data: a transaction's status, an address's balance and its history.
Why it matters: it is the one source that does not depend on anybody. When something goes wrong, look there first. - Derivation pathderivation path
- The parameters governing how a seed phrase derives specific addresses. Defaults vary between wallets.
Why it matters: when addresses do not match after restoring elsewhere, this is usually why — nothing has been lost. - Connect walletconnect wallet
- Allowing a site to read your public address. Connecting moves no assets and grants no permissions.
Why it matters: connecting can be relatively casual; the signature prompts that follow are what require care. - DAppdecentralized application
- An application built on on-chain contracts, with a web interface for interacting with them.
Why it matters: every "confirm" you press in one is, underneath, signing an instruction to a contract. - Slippageslippage
- How far the executed price of an on-chain swap may drift from the quote before the transaction is rejected.
Why it matters: too tight and the transaction fails while you still pay gas; too loose and it can fill at a poor price. - Airdropairdrop
- A project distributing tokens to a set of addresses under some rule. Also the single most common wrapper for phishing.
Why it matters: genuine distributions rarely require signing an approval. If tapping "claim" raises an approval prompt, treat it as a problem. - Hot wallet / cold wallethot / cold wallet
- Distinguished by whether the private key has sat on a networked device. Hardware wallets are one implementation of cold.
Why it matters: cold only solves "a program read the key" and does not stop a mistaken approval. See the difference. - Passphrasepassphrase
- An optional extra string beyond the seed phrase, needed together with it to derive the wallet; sometimes called the thirteenth word.
Why it matters: forgetting it is equivalent to losing the seed phrase, so it is not recommended on a first wallet. - Noncenonce
- The sequence number of transactions from one address, processed by the network in order.
Why it matters: speeding up or cancelling a stuck transaction works by re-sending with the same nonce at a higher fee.
Quick reference
Glossary
This list contains one kind of word: the ones a beginner will actually encounter on a wallet or exchange screen. One sentence of definition, then one sentence on why it matters to you.
This page has a keyword filter that appears when JavaScript is available. Without it nothing is lost — the full list below is written into the page itself.
Common questions
Why is this glossary so short
Because it only includes terms a beginner will genuinely meet on a wallet or exchange screen. Adding concepts you will never use increases the load and buries the handful that actually matter.
Does the search box send what I type anywhere
No. Filtering happens entirely in your browser, the entries are written into the page's HTML to begin with, and the page makes no network requests.
Does it still work with JavaScript disabled
Yes. The full list is static within the page. Without JavaScript you simply lose the filter box; not a single entry is missing.