Glossary
Altcoin
Any cryptocurrency that is not Bitcoin, used loosely to mean everything beyond the majors.
Altcoin means any coin other than Bitcoin, and the word is usually stretched to mean anything other than the largest and most liquid assets.
The category is extremely uneven. It includes both long-running infrastructure projects with real usage and freshly launched tokens whose entire market cap depends on a message channel.
The practical distinction is not the ticker, it is liquidity. How much volume the pair actually trades at, how deep the order book is, and whether you can exit at a price close to the screen price tell you more about risk than the project category does.
Related terms
Airdrop
Free tokens distributed to wallet addresses, usually to reward early users of a protocol.
AMM
Automated Market Maker — a protocol that prices assets with a formula instead of an order book.
APR vs APY
APR is the yearly rate without compounding; APY includes compounding and is always higher.
ATH
All-Time High — the highest price an asset has ever traded at.
Bear Market
A prolonged decline, conventionally 20% or more from recent highs.
Bull Market
A prolonged rise driven by new demand, easy credit and rising confidence.