Cryptocurrency Terms and Definitions

Compilation issues are errors in converting a smart contract's source code into an executable form. Because of them a crypto exchange may reject a token when a listing application is submitted if the code fails verification.

A payment service provider (Payment Service Provider, PSP) is a service that allows payments to be accepted and sent by various methods, combining many payment methods in a single interface for businesses and users.

Slippage is the difference between the expected and the actual execution price of an order on a cryptocurrency exchange. It arises from market movement and a lack of liquidity.

A stale block is a block or unit of a miner's work that has lost relevance because the network or pool has already accepted another result. Such work brings no reward.

Profit is the gain obtained as a result of trading, investing or participating in a cryptocurrency project. It indicates a positive financial result of activity.

A public key is the open part of a cryptographic key pair that can be freely shared. A receiving address for cryptocurrency is formed on its basis.

A mining pool is an association of miners who jointly search for a new block and split the reward in proportion to the power they contribute. This increases the chances of a stable income.

A dust transaction is a transfer of an extremely small amount of cryptocurrency, almost devoid of financial value. Such tiny amounts clutter the blockchain and can be used for deanonymization.

A paid poster is a user who, for payment, publishes laudatory messages about a project or negative ones about competitors. Such reviews create an artificial backdrop and mislead.

Data partitioning, or sharding, is a way of scaling a blockchain in which the network is divided into segments (shards), and nodes store and process only part of the data, increasing overall throughput.