Cryptocurrency Glossary / dictionary

An "Air-gapped" computing system (such as a computer) is one which is not connected to the internet. You can turn off wifi and/or disconnect your network cable to make your computer air-gapped. Air-gapped usually refers to a computer that is NEVER connected to the internet rather than one which is just temporarily disconnected. But depending on your purpose, the temporary air-gap may fulfill your needs. The intent is to protect you from online hackers. But if you connect back to the internet then they can get in, insert a virus, and the virus will still be there even after you disconnect again.

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An "airdrop" is when cryptocurrency is given away for free. This is often done to promote a new coin and get it into circulation. It can also be the result of a hard-fork of a coin you currently own. These giveaways might go to owners of some existing coins, or they could be given away to some other arbitrary group of people. Sometimes in a coins "pre-release", you can sign up to receive the new coins. Some airdrops are fraudulent - i.e. they are performed by a scammer/hacker to steal some other coin from you. Some airdrops require your private key in order to qualify for and receive the drop. This can be true of both legitimate airdrops and fraudulent ones. You should be especially suspicious whenever private keys are needed to receive the drop. One way to be safe is to move your funds from one private key to another private key that you control. Then you can send in your original private key (now empty of funds) to receive the drop.

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An "alphanumeric" is a combination of letters and numbers. This term is usually used when referring to creating a new password so that the password will contain both letters and numbers. Note that the best passwords will also include one or more special symbols, such as: # $ % & * . @. But some websites do not allow these special characters.

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An "altcoin" is usually used to describe any cryptocurrency that’s not the original bitcoin. Some people feel that "altcoin" is a derogatory term and that a few of the other very large cryptocurrencies should also not be considered "altcoins".  Such as ether, bitcoin cash, ....

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AML - "Anti-Money Laundering" - These are government regulations and reporting requirements to prevent criminal use of currency.

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Application Programming Interface - the predefined methods of communication among software. This allows one software to gain access to the functions of other software. This allows programs to be more effective and useful because it gains the abilities of another program. API's are used by programmers to expose the functions in programs that a programmer may need. It provides users the ability to copy files from one program into another program.

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"ASIC" means "Application Specific Integrated Circuit". This is a computer hardware circuit (1 or more chips) that is designed for a very very specific purpose. In relation to cryptocurrency, an ASIC would be designed and used in a computer mining machine that is specifically designed to mine one currency in the most efficient way. This allows the computer to mine the currency faster and/or with less power consumption, than other computers. These ASICs are usually designed to be dedicated to a specific cryptocurrency (and related currencies). I.e. you could not use the same ASIC for all cryptocurrencies.

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"asymmetric encryption" is a type of encryption that uses one public "key" and one private "key". These two keys are used to encrypt and decrypt messages. Asymmetric Encryption is also called Public Key Cryptography. Keys are just 1's and 0's - and typically there are a lot of them to make the encrypted message more difficult to hack. These 1's and 0's are often presented to the human eye as letters and numbers for convenience and to make them a little less frightening. The term "asymmetric" refers to the fact that only one of the keys, (the private key), needs to be kept a secret in order to protect a message. The other key (the public one) can be broadcast to anyone without endangering the message. Typically a message would be encrypted using the public key. The message can contain information such as "I want to send you 5 bitcoins". Then that encrypted message could be put into a public place (such as on a public blockchain) without fear that the wrong person would decrypt it. Only the person who has the private key can decrypt the message (such as to spend their received cryptocurrency).

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Means "All-Time High". This is the highest price that a cryptocurrency has ever achieved. To some degree, this value will depend on the exchange and country where the price is quoted. This difference can be very small, but up to a few percent.