Ethereum
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap and the largest smart-contract platform. Ethereum hosts the majority of DeFi, NFTs, stablecoins, and L2 ecosystems. The network…
Glossary
Glossary — crypto terms, defined
80 articles · refreshed Jun 10, 2026
EIP
Ethereum Improvement Proposal — the formal process for proposing changes to Ethereum. Major EIPs become hard-fork upgrades: EIP-1559 (fee burning), EIP-4844 (proto-danksharding for L2…
DYOR
Do Your Own Research — a common disclaimer in crypto content meaning "do not blindly act on what I just said." Often used cynically…
Diversification
The practice of spreading investment across multiple assets to reduce idiosyncratic risk. In crypto, diversification is weaker than in traditional finance — crypto assets…
Difficulty
A measure of how hard it is to mine the next Bitcoin block. Bitcoin's difficulty adjusts every 2016 blocks (~2 weeks) to keep average…
DEX
Decentralized Exchange — a smart-contract-based venue for trading cryptocurrencies without an intermediary. Uniswap (AMM-based) is the canonical example; dYdX and Hyperliquid offer order-book-style DEXes.…
DeFi
Decentralized Finance — financial services built as smart contracts on public blockchains. The major categories are lending (Aave, Compound), DEXes (Uniswap, Curve), derivatives (dYdX,…
DApp
Decentralized Application — a frontend (typically a website) that interacts with smart contracts on a blockchain rather than a centralized backend. Uniswap, Aave, OpenSea…
DAO
Decentralized Autonomous Organization — a structure where token-holder voting governs treasury allocation, protocol parameters, and strategic decisions. MakerDAO, Uniswap, Compound, and Aave operate via…
Custody
Holding cryptocurrency on behalf of someone else. "Self-custody" means you hold your own private keys; "custodial" means a third party (exchange, wallet provider) holds…