Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Dictionary

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations

DAO is an abbreviation of ‘Decentralised Autonomous Organization’. This is basically an organisation that runs automatically on itself without any human interventions. The work is automatically excecuted through Smart contracts.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is a digital or virtual cryptocurrency created in 2009 that uses peer-to-peer technology to facilitate instant payments.

Block Reward

The block reward is the payment that is offered to the node that is securing the blockchain. In the case of Bitcoin, which is has a Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm, these would be the miners. The payment is in the form of the native cryptocurrency of that blockchain. The amount is a predetermined reward per block, but often that is supplemented with the fees that are paid for the transactions that block contains. For Bitcoin the current block rewards are cut in half every four years. This is called the ‘halvening’.

Altcoin

An altcoin is any cryptocurrency or token created after the Bitcoin was developed.

51% Attack

A ‘51% attack’ refers to a possible attack on a blockchain by a group of ‘miners’, who hold more than 50% of the hashrate. In such a situation the ‘miners’ have the possibility to deliberately not confirm transactions or to issue transactions twice (double-spend).

2 Factor Authentication (2FA)

2 Factor Authentication is a double layer security measure. Most crypto exchanges use it. In order to log in, you not only need to enter a password, but also a code that you receive from the Google authenticator for example.