Glossary

Add a header to begin generating the table of contents

APR (Annual Percentage Rate)

The annual percentage yield (APY) is the real rate of return earned on a savings deposit or investment but does NOT take into account the effect of compounding interest.

APY (Annual Percentage Yield)

The annual percentage yield (APY) is the real rate of return earned on a savings deposit or investment taking into account the effect of compounding interest.

Banknote

A banknote is generally a promissory note where the issuer is legally obliged to exchange the note for legal tender (typically gold or silver) or enshrined by law to be legal tender despite having no intrinsic value (Fiat money).

Blockchain

It started in 2008 with a bloke called Satoshi Nakamoto who developed bitcoin. (The name is likely to be fake so the actual jokers behind this could remain anonymous.) The blockchain is the encrypted public database developed by this mob to record transactions between two parties openly, efficiently and permanently. This made the middle man in transactions obsolete. Read the middle man here as banks, (and trust me, they hate it!)

Central Bank

A national bank is a financial and banking institution that provides financial and banking services to its country’s government and commercial banking system, as well as implementing the government’s monetary policy and issuing currency.

The Reserve Bank of Australia is our central bank.

Composability

Composability is where shared resources such as data, security and code, can be built upon by developers. Allowing faster and stackable innovation.

Cryptocurrency

This cryptography linked database has inspired a plethora of other currencies besides bitcoin, called cryptocurrencies because of their use of blockchain.

You will have heard of some of these and maybe make use of some.

Currency

A currency is money in any form when in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, especially circulating banknotes and coins.

Dapps

Decentralized Applications (Dapps) are a growing movement of applications that use Ethereum to disrupt business models or invent new ones.

DeFi

DeFi is short for “decentralized finance,” a general term for a variety of financial applications in cryptocurrency or blockchain designed to disrupt financial middle men.

Digital Assets

Basically anything that exists in a digital format and comes with the right for the owner to use. Cryptocurrencies are a digital asset. Any other data that has value can also be a digital asset, like photos, movies, drawings, logos and spreadsheets. In the case of NBA Top Shot the asset is a blockchain token called a Moment.

Ethereum

2014 enter Ethereum. This framework was designed to suit the smart contract protocols and is the most popular blockchain in use today for smart contracts.

Fiat

Fiat money is a currency with no intrinsic value but often established as money by government regulation.

Fungible

In Economic terms fungible refers to good or commodity that can be traded easily for money or another good. Gold is a prime example of a fungible commodity.

Mining

Mining involves adding transactions to the existing blockchain ledger of transactions distributed among all users of a blockchain. While mining is mostly associated with bitcoin, other technologies using a blockchain also employ mining. Mining involves creating a hash of a block of transactions that cannot be easily forged, protecting the integrity of the entire blockchain without the need for a central system.

Minting

Minting is the process of validating information, creating a new block or token and recording that information into the blockchain.

Non Fungible Token

Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are a digital asset that is not mutually tradeable. They are created or minted on the blockchain. The American digital artist Beeple’s work Everydays: The First 5000 Days was the first NFT of an artwork to be listed at auction and sold for USD$69.3 Million on 11 March 2021. NBA Top Shot moments are NFTs.

Smart Contracts

Smart contracts are designed to execute and document a contract based on the agreed terms. Again reducing the need for middle men.

The bitcoin design though was suited to currency not document transactions.

Staking

Staking is a less resource-intensive alternative to mining. It involves holding funds in a cryptocurrency wallet to support the security and operations of a blockchain network. Basically, staking is the act of locking cryptocurrencies to receive rewards.

Wrapped Tokens (Coins)

A wrapped token is an tokenized version of another cryptocurrency hosted on the Ethereum blockchain with a price that is the same as another coin, even if it’s not on the same blockchain or on a blockchain at all. It can be unwrapped or redeemed at any point.

Photo credits: fabio | Unsplash