Glossary
Oracle
A service that feeds off-chain data like prices into a smart contract that cannot read the internet.
A smart contract cannot look up a price by itself. An oracle is the service that supplies that figure on-chain, which makes every contract that depends on a price dependent on the oracle's accuracy.
Decentralised oracles aggregate multiple data sources with economic incentives designed to keep them honest. That design reduces the trust in a single provider but adds latency, cost, and failure modes.
If a protocol's headline number depends on an oracle, the real risk surface is the contract that consumes the data. Liquidation thresholds with a stale price are where those failures usually show up.
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.