Here are common terms in the crypto space. This is not comprehensive but provides you with the common terms that are used. 

All-time-high: Refers to the highest price or market cap (multiplying the number of coins in circulation by the current market price of a single coin) that an asset has reached since its listing or inception. 

All-time-low: This is the lowest price a coin has been since its listing or inception. 

Anti-money laundering (AML): This is a mix of strategies, rules, and regulations to combat money laundering through cryptocurrency exchanges and custodian services. Strong AML programs include KYC (Know-Your-Customer) processes. 

Circulating supply: This is the total number of coins or tokens that are actively available for trade and are being used in the market. When a company creates a particular number of tokens, only a portion of it instead of the whole supply is made available for circulation.

Delegator: When you delegate your currency on proof-of-stake networks, you let someone else use your tokens (a validator) to produce blocks. You still own the currency, and you get a slice of any rewards they generate. The reward depends on the cryptocurrency’s annual percentage yield, or APY. 

So for example, if a coin gives 10% APY and you staked 1000 coins, after a year you would get 105 free coins as a reward for a total of 1105 coins. And the value of those coins can go up or down over time. 

Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD): This can refer to news or information that spreads doubt about a particular token in an attempt to manipulate the price downward or skepticism about a particular cryptocurrency. Examples of FUD:  

• A country banning Bitcoin 
• An influencer criticizing a certain crypto project 
• A famous financial investor who believes cryptocurrencies are not safe  investments 

51% attack: This refers to an attack on a blockchain where a group of miners control more than 50% of a network’s mining hash rate (producing blocks) or computing power. If this happened, the attackers could act maliciously and prevent new transactions from gaining confirmations and reverse transactions, which means they could double spend coins. They could also interrupt the recording of new blocks by preventing other miners from completing blocks. 

HODL: This word is a deliberate misspelling of “hold” to refer to buying and holding cryptocurrencies. People say they are HODLING too. This term originated in a Bitcointalk forum when a user GameKyuubi posted “I AM HODLING” to talk about his desire to hold Bitcoin. Within hours, HODL became a meme.   

Know Your Customer (KYC): Many crypto exchanges or services require verification of a customer’s identity in order to access all of the features of the exchange or service. KYC is required for many services to comply with regulatory laws. The goal of KYC is to minimize illegal activities or detect suspicious behaviour as early as possible. 

Liquidity provider: An investor who stakes their cryptocurrency tokens on a decentralized exchange to earn transaction fees. 

Market capitalization: The total value of all the coins that have been mined. It’s calculated by multiplying the number of coins in circulation by the current market price of a single coin. For example, if the price of Cardano is $1.34 and the circulating supply is 33,526,734,363 coins, then the market cap is $449,258,240. 

Miner: With blockchains that use proof-of-work, a miner creates new cryptocurrencies and verifies transactions on a blockchain. Miners have to solve a cryptographic puzzle and whoever is able to solve the cryptographic puzzle first earns fees from the transactions in each block and a block reward, like earning Bitcoin. Every time the puzzle is solved, a new puzzle is generated for someone else to solve and validate a new block of transactions. 

NFT: A non-fungible token (or NFT) is a unique and non-interchangeable unit of data that is stored on a blockchain. NFTs can be made from digital files like photos, videos, and audio. 

Unlike a physical item, NFTs are indestructible because all of the NFT data is stored on the blockchain through smart contracts. Because NFTs have historical ownership data on the blockchain, they can be traced back to the original owner. The digital assets can be authenticated without the need for third party verification. 

Node: A Node is a part of cryptocurrency that is needed to make most of the popular tokens like Bitcoin or Dogecoin function. It’s a fundamental part of the blockchain network, which is the decentralised ledger that is used to maintain a cryptocurrency.

Private key: When you first buy cryptocurrency, you are given two keys, a public key (which works like an email address) and a private key, which is usually a string of numbers and letters. The private key should never be shared with anyone. The private key is the password that gives you access to your crypto assets.

Proof-of-stake: This is a consensus mechanism used to determine whether a transaction is valid or not to add to a blockchain ledger. Proof-of-stake uses validators who add a stake into the network (like a security deposit) and check if all of the transactions are valid. If everything checks out, the block is added to the chain. As a reward, the validator receives the fees associated with each transaction. 

The more cryptocurrency a validator stakes, the more likely they will be chosen to process transactions and create the next block. If you think about a group of friends who put money in a box, the one who put the most money has the highest chance of getting a vote. Proof of Stake uses an election process which chooses a random computer to validate the next block.

Proof-of-work: This is a consensus mechanism used to determine whether a transaction is valid or not to add to a blockchain ledger. 

With proof of work, miners have to solve a cryptographic puzzle to slow down the creation of blocks. To effectively tamper with a blockchain, you would need to tamper with all of the blocks in the chain, redo the proof of work for each block, and take control of more than 50% of the peer to peer network. Only then will the tampered block become accepted by everyone, which is almost impossible to do. If there’s a faulty transaction, the blockchain temporarily forks and all the other computers continue building on the longest chain.

People are incentivized financially to validate transactions properly. The miner who is able to solve the cryptographic puzzle first earns fees from the transactions in each block and a block reward, like earning Bitcoin. Every time the puzzle is solved, a new puzzle is generated for someone else to solve and validate a new block of transactions. 

Staking: Staking cryptocurrencies is a process that involves committing crypto assets to support a blockchain network and confirm transactions. People who stake their cryptocurrencies on a blockchain receive rewards. The reward depends on the cryptocurrency’s annual percentage yield, or APY. 

So for example, if a coin gives 10% APY and you staked 1000 coins, after a year you would get 105 free coins as a reward for a total of 1105 coins. And the value of those coins can go up or down over time. 

Let’s say at the beginning of the year, if you got 1000 coins at $1.00 per coin, then the assets will be worth $1000. If at the end of the year, the price goes up to $3.00 per coin, the 1,105 coins would be worth $3315. 

1000 coins at 20% APY

# of coins	Number of days staked	# of coins earned	Total number of coins at time of redemption
1000	30	16.6	1016.6
1000	100	56.3	1056.3
1000	250	146.8	1146.8
1000	365	221.3	1221.3

Validator: Someone who is responsible for verifying transactions on a blockchain. Once transactions are verified, they are added to the distributed ledger. 

Yield Farming: Yield farming is the practice of staking or lending crypto assets in a smart contract-based liquidity pool in order to generate high returns or rewards in the form of additional cryptocurrency. People can earn by getting a percentage of transaction fees, interest from lenders, or a governance token depending on the annual percentage yield (APY).