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Crypto Acronyms

The abbreviations that fill crypto research, chat and documentation, written out in full. This is a lookup list rather than an encyclopedia: if you want the concept explained instead of the letters expanded, the glossary is the page you want.

231 acronyms. Free to read. No account needed.

Want the terms defined, not just expanded? Browse the Crypto Glossary

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2FA
Two-factor authentication

A

ABCI
Application BlockChain Interface
ABI
Application binary interface
ACH
Automated clearing house
ADAM
Association for Digital Asset Markets
ADCA
Australian Digital Commerce Association
ADL
Auto-deleveraging
AFS
Available for sale
AGS
Australian Government Securities
AML
Anti-money laundering
AOFM
Australian Office of Financial Management
AON
All or none
API
Application programming interface
APR
Annual percentage rate
APRA
Australian Prudential Regulation Authority
ASIC
Application-specific integrated circuit
ASIC
Australian Securities and Investments Commission
ATH
All-time high
ATL
All-time low
ATO
Australian Taxation Office
AUM
Assets under management

B

BB
Bollinger Band
BCBS
Basel Committee on Banking Supervision
BEA
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
BFT
Byzantine Fault Tolerance
BIP
Bitcoin Improvement Proposal
BLS
Boneh-Lynn-Shacham
BTC
Bitcoin

C

CL
Consensus layer
CPU
Central processing unit
CSV
Comma-separated values
CTF
Counter-terrorism financing

D

DA
Data availability
DAC
Data availability committee
DAG
Directed acyclic graph
DAICO
Decentralised autonomous initial coin offering
DAO
Decentralised autonomous organisation
DAS
Data availability sampling
DBFT
Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance
DCA
Dollar-cost averaging
DD
Due diligence
DeFi
Decentralised finance
DePIN
Decentralised Physical Infrastructure Network
DEX
Decentralised exchange
DHT
Distributed hash table
DIF
Deposit Insurance Fund
DKG
Distributed key generation
DOJ
Department of Justice
DOV
DeFi option vault
DPoS
Delegated Proof of Stake
DVT
Distributed validator technology
DXY
U.S. Dollar Index
DYOR
Do your own research

E

EBA
European Banking Authority
ECC
Elliptic-curve cryptography
ECDSA
Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm
EEA
Enterprise Ethereum Alliance
EF
Ethereum Foundation
EIP
Ethereum Improvement Proposal
EL
Execution layer
EMA
Exponential moving average
ENS
Ethereum Name Service
ESMA
European Securities and Markets Authority
ETF
Exchange-traded fund
ETH
Ether
ETP
Exchange-traded product
EVM
Ethereum Virtual Machine

F

FA
Fundamental analysis
FASB
Financial Accounting Standards Board
FATF
Financial Action Task Force
FDIC
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
FDV
Fully diluted value
FHE
Fully homomorphic encryption
FIDO
Fast IDentity Online
FinCEN
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network
FINRA
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority
FOK
Fill or kill
FOMO
Fear of missing out
FOSS
Free and open-source software
FSA
Financial Services Agency
FSOC
Financial Stability Oversight Council
FUD
Fear, uncertainty and doubt
FVEY
Five Eyes

G

G-SIB
Global systemically important banks
G20
Group of Twenty
G7
Group of Seven
GAN
Generative adversarial network
GDPR
General Data Protection Regulation
GHOST
Greediest Heaviest Observed Subtree
GOO
Gradual Ownership Optimization
GPU
Graphics processing unit
GRANDPA
GHOST-based Recursive ANcestor Deriving Prefix Agreement
GST
Global stabilisation time

H

HSM
Hardware security module
HTLC
Hashed Timelock Contract
HTM
Held to maturity

I

IBC
Inter-Blockchain Communication
IC
Integrated circuit
ICO
Initial coin offering
IDI
Insured depository institution
IDO
Initial DEX offering
IEO
Initial exchange offering
IFO
Initial futures offering
IICO
Interactive initial coin offering
IPFS
InterPlanetary File System
IRA
Individual Retirement Account
IRL
In real life
IRS
Internal Revenue Service

K

KFTC
Korea Fair Trade Commission
KYC
Know your customer
KZG
Kate-Zaverucha-Goldberg

L

L1
Layer one
L2
Layer two
L3
Layer three
LARP
Live action role-play
LN
Lightning Network
LND
Lightning Network Daemon
LRT
Liquid restaking token
LSAP
Large-scale asset purchase
LSD
Liquid staking derivative

M

MACD
Moving average convergence/divergence
MAST
Merkelised Abstract Syntax Tree
MAU
Monthly active users
MAV
Maximum aggregated value
MC
Market cap
MEV
Maximal extractable value. (Learn about MEV.)
MiCA
Markets in Crypto-Assets
MMF
Money market fund
MMORPG
Massively multi-player online role-playing game
MoE
Medium of exchange
MPC
Multi-party computation
MTO
Micro token offering
MVM
Move Virtual Machine
MVP
Minimum viable product
MVRV
Market value to realised value

N

NAS
Network-attached storage
NFT
Non-fungible token
NGU
Number go up
NVT
Network value to transactions

O

OCO
One-cancels-the-other
OFAC
Office of Foreign Assets Control
OTC
Over the counter
OTP
One-time password

P

P2E
Play to earn
P2P
Peer to peer
P2SH
Pay to Script Hash
P2TR
Pay to Taproot
P2WPKH
Pay to Witness Public Key Hash
P2WSH
Pay to Witness Script Hash
PBFT
Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance
PBS
Proposer/builder separation
PBT
Physical Backed Token
PEPC
Protocol-enforced proposer commitment
PFOF
Payment for order flow
PFP
Profile picture
PGP
Pretty Good Privacy
PKI
Public key infrastructure
PMF
Product-market fit
PnD
Pump and dump
PoA
Proof of authority
PoH
Proof of humanity
POL
Protocol-owned liquidity
PoS
Proof of stake
PoW
Proof of work
PSD2
Payment Services Directive
PvE
Player versus environment
PvP
Player versus player
PWA
Progressive web app
PWG
President’s Working Group on Financial Markets

Q

QC
Quorum certificate
QoQ
Quarter-over-quarter

R

REST
Representational state transfer
RFQ
Request for quote
RLE
Run-length encoding
RNG
Random number generator
ROI
Return on investment
RPC
Remote procedure call
RPG
Role-playing game
RSA
Rivest-Shamir-Adleman
RSI
Relative strength index

S

SaaS
Software as a service
SAFT
Simple agreement for future tokens
SBR
Strategic Bitcoin reserve
SBT
Soulbound token
SEC
Securities and Exchange Commission
SegWit
Segregated Witness
SHA
Secure Hash Algorithm
SIB
Systemically important bank
SIWE
Sign In With Ethereum
SMA
Simple moving average
SMR
State machine replication
SMSF
Self-Managed Superannuation Fund
SoV
Store of value
SPL
Solana Program Library
SPV
Simple payment verification
SSLE
Secret single-leader election
SSV
Shared Secret Validator
STF
State transition function
STM
Software transactional memory
STO
Security token offering
SVM
Solana Virtual Machine

T

TA
Technical analysis
TBC
Token bonding curve
TBTF
Too big to fail
TCR
Token-curated registry
TEE
Trusted execution environment
TGE
Token generation event
TL;DR
Too long; didn’t read
TLS
Transport Layer Security
TOTP
Time-based one-time password
TPM
Trusted platform module
TPS
Transactions per second
TTF
Time to finality
TWAP
Time-weighted average price
TXID
Transaction ID

U

UASF
User-activated soft fork
UGC
User-generated content
UI
User interface
UoA
Unit of account
USPTO
United States Patent and Trademark Office
UTXO
Unspent transaction output
UX
User experience

V

VDF
Verifiable delay function
VPN
Virtual private network
VWAP
Volume-weighted average price

W

WETH
Wrapped ether
WTS
Wanting to sell

Y

YoY
Year-over-year
YTD
Year to date

Z

ZKP
Zero-knowledge proof
zkSNARK
Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge

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