Bitcoin Stack Exchange
Bitcoin Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [terminology]

Questions concerning terminology, jargon, abbreviations, acronyms and phrases that are essential to the cryptocurrency community.

Questions concerning terminology, jargon, abbreviations, acronyms and phrases that are essential to the cryptocurrency community.

Questions about tags should rather be asked in Meta.

202 questions
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6 answers

What are "bitcoin days destroyed"?

The concept of bitcoin days destroyed has been proposed as a measure of bitcoin volume. However, I don't think the bitcoin wiki really explains the idea very well. What is the purpose or advantage of knowing this statistical value?
z7sg Ѫ
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158
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6 answers

What is a 'Satoshi'?

I am aware that Satoshi Nakamoto is the author of the paper that originated Bitcoin and the creator of the original bitcoin client. However, I often hear the term Satoshi as if it was a monetary unit. What is a Satoshi?
nmat
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74
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2 answers

What is an SPV client?

I've seen SPV client mentioned in several places. What exactly is a SPV client? How is it different from a standard client?
kirian
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65
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5 answers

What is a soft fork? What is a hard fork? What are their differences?

When people talk about possible changes to how Bitcoin works they sometimes say a particular change can be implemented as a soft fork. What does that mean? How does this compare to a hard fork?
Dr.Haribo
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64
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6 answers

What is meant by Bitcoin dust?

I've seen the term "dust" used to describe small transactions that might be considered as spam by the Bitcoin network. Is there is a generally accepted definition of this term?
David Ogren
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59
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3 answers

What are bitcoin "confirmations"?

When I receive bitcoins I see a certain number of "confirmations" in the client. What do these mean? Why do most sites make me wait for 6 "confirmations" before a purchase will go through?
lemonginger
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58
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4 answers

What is the difference between kH/s, MH/s, and GH/s?

I started mining on a friend's computer and it shows 300 kH/s. But when I research other peoples' hash rates I usually see MH/s. Are these speeds the same as kilobytes and megabytes? Also, when I say 300 kH/s does that mean 300,000 Hashes generated…
Exploit
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54
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1 answer

What are Channel Factories and how do they work?

One of the open research questions for Lightning Network is that it will take a massive amount of on-chain transactions to create enough payment channels for all the Lightning Network users. Lately, I've seen the term "Channel Factories"¹ pop-up in…
Murch
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What is a share? Can I find it while mining solo, or only when pool mining?

In mining, what is "a share"? When mining solo, do I "find shares"?
ripper234
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39
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4 answers

What are orphaned and stale blocks?

If I understand it right, a stale block is a block for which an earlier confirmation has been found and was accepted by majority of people. This block is considered invalid and is later never used. But what is a orphaned block. How is it created?…
Salvador Dali
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4 answers

What are checkpoints?

I often read that checkpoints protect the network from a 51% attack because an attacker cannot reverse transactions made before the last checkpoint. How exactly does this checkpoint mechanism work? And who creates the checkpoints?
nmat
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33
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What are tainted coins exactly?

I've come across the term of a tainted coin several times now. I understand that coins, or better, the origin of a coin can be traced throughout the blockchain. I've read that bitcoins can be disassociated from an address, by sending it to a…
btctb
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31
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1 answer

What are colored coins?

What exactly are colored coins? I've tried understanding, but I don't quite get it yet . . . Do any examples exist?
Kinnard Hockenhull
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28
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2 answers

What does the term "Longest chain" mean?

What does the term "Longest chain" mean, as there is only one 'right' blockchain exists? How another longer chain would make the 'right' chain invalid?
vi.su.
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24
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What is the difference between BitCoin, Bitcoin, and bitcoin?

I've seen several capitalizations of the term "bitcoin". What do all these mean?
ripper234
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