Glossary
Glossary
A definition that merely rephrases the word teaches nothing. Each entry explains the mechanism behind the term, and why it matters when you turn a digital asset into money.
45 terms defined, linked to the pages and articles they belong to.
01
By theme
Payment rails
18 terms
Networks and deposits
13 terms
02
Alphabetical index
A
B
- Banking business day
- A day on which settlement systems operate. Not the same thing as a weekday.
- Basis point
- One hundredth of a percent. The standard unit for expressing a rate gap unambiguously.
- BIC / SWIFT code
- Code identifying a financial institution on the international network, still required outside the SEPA area.
C
- CASP / digital asset service provider
- Regulatory status of a digital asset service provider, with its associated duties and supervision.
- Chain reorganisation
- Replacement of a chain segment by a competing branch, cancelling the transactions it contained.
- CLABE
- Eighteen-digit Mexican bank identifier with a check digit, used by the SPEI rail.
- Confirmation
- A block stacked above the one containing your transaction. The more there are, the less likely a reversal becomes.
- Cut-off
- Deadline after which a payment order joins the next business day’s processing cycle.
D
- Deposit address
- Address assigned to an order to receive your send and attach it automatically to your case.
E
- Effective rate
- Net amount received divided by quantity sent. The only figure that absorbs every cost.
- EVM
- Ethereum’s virtual machine, reused by many chains, which therefore share the same address format.
F
- Finality
- The point from which a transaction is treated as definitively settled and non-reversible.
G
- Gas
- The unit measuring computational work on EVM networks, whose price varies with congestion.
I
- IBAN
- International bank account identifier carrying check digits that catch typing errors.
- Irrevocability
- The property of a settled payment that can no longer be unilaterally cancelled by its sender.
K
- KYC (know your customer)
- The identity and consistency checks required before entering a business relationship.
L
- Layer 2
- A network executing transactions on its own chain and periodically publishing its state to a main chain.
M
- Memo / Destination tag
- Data attached to a transaction identifying the final recipient behind a shared address.
- Mempool
- The queue of transactions broadcast but not yet included in a block.
- Mid-market rate
- Midpoint between the best bid and the best ask. A reference, never an executable price.
- Mobile money
- Electronic money account attached to a phone number, distinct from a bank account.
N
- NIP (NIBSS Instant Payment)
- Nigeria’s instant transfer rail, running continuously, connecting commercial banks and electronic money institutions.
- NUBAN
- Ten-digit Nigerian bank account number, specific to each bank and therefore not unique on its own.
O
- Off-ramp
- The exit point from crypto into banking: converting a digital asset into legal tender.
P
- PEP (politically exposed person)
- A person holding or having held a prominent public function, subject to enhanced due diligence.
- Per-payment ceiling
- Maximum amount accepted for a single payment, set by the scheme or by the receiving institution.
- PIX key
- Brazilian identifier — CPF, phone, email or random key — resolved to an account by a central directory.
- Push and pull rails
- A push rail disburses on the sender’s instruction; a pull rail collects at the beneficiary’s request.
R
- Rate lock
- A dated commitment on a net amount, valid for a window calibrated on confirmation time.
- RBF (replace-by-fee)
- Bitcoin mechanism replacing a pending transaction with a higher-fee version.
S
- SEPA (classic transfer)
- European transfer processed in batches, business days only, credited at the latest the next business day.
- SEPA Instant
- European transfer scheme settling in under ten seconds, 24/7, weekends and public holidays included.
- Slippage
- The gap between the expected price and the executed price, caused by limited order book depth.
- Source of funds
- Evidence of where the converted amounts came from, required above certain amounts.
- Spread
- The gap applied to the reference rate. It is the service’s revenue, whether it is shown or not.
- Stablecoin
- Digital asset designed to track a currency’s value, generally backed by reserves.
- Structuring
- Deliberately splitting operations to stay under a control threshold. It is itself a suspicion indicator.
- SWIFT
- International interbank messaging network behind the slow, expensive wires used outside local zones.
T
- Taxable event
- The event that triggers taxation. In several regimes, only the exit into money is one.
- Travel Rule
- Obligation to transmit originator and beneficiary information alongside a digital asset transfer.
U
- UTXO
- Accounting model where a wallet holds unspent transaction outputs rather than a balance.
V
- Verification of payee
- Checking the destination account holder’s name before execution, to avoid a wrong irrevocable transfer.
- VPA (Virtual Payment Address)
- Indian identifier of the form name@bank, resolved by the UPI directory to a real bank account.
03
How this glossary is written
An entry is added when the term genuinely appears in the product or in an article and a reader can trip over it. It gives the mechanism, not a paraphrase, and links to the page where the term is put to work. Terms we do not use are not listed.