Crypto 101
Evergreen explainers — start here.
Beginner
24 pieces- Beginner
What is Bitcoin?
The original cryptocurrency: a peer-to-peer cash system secured by proof-of-work and a capped supply of 21 million coins.
#bitcoin#proof-of-workRead → - Beginner
What is Ethereum?
A programmable blockchain that executes smart contracts and powers most of DeFi, NFTs, and the rollup ecosystem.
#ethereum#smart-contractsRead → - Beginner
What is DeFi?
Decentralized finance rebuilds lending, trading, and stablecoins as open-source smart contracts — no bank, no paperwork, no intermediary.
#defi#lending#ammRead → - Beginner
What is an ICO?
An initial coin offering is a token sale used to bootstrap a crypto project — famous for funding Ethereum in 2014 and notorious for the 2017 bubble.
#ico#fundraisingRead → - Beginner
What is a Stablecoin?
Dollar-pegged tokens have become the plumbing of crypto — issued by private firms, algorithms, and on-chain protocols, with very different risk profiles.
#stablecoins#tether#usdcRead → - Beginner
What is Staking?
Locking up tokens to help secure a proof-of-stake network — in exchange for rewards, and at the risk of being slashed for misbehavior.
#staking#proof-of-stakeRead → - Beginner
What is an NFT?
Non-fungible tokens are unique, blockchain-verified digital assets — art, game items, credentials, membership passes, and sometimes pure speculation.
#nft#digital-goodsRead → - Beginner
What is a Smart Contract?
Code that runs on a blockchain and executes exactly as written — the building block of DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, and most of crypto beyond bitcoin.
#smart-contracts#evmRead → - Beginner
What is a wallet?
A crypto wallet does not store coins. It stores the private keys that let you sign transactions moving coins recorded on the blockchain.
#wallet#custodyRead → - Beginner
What is a seed phrase?
A seed phrase is a human-readable backup of the private keys behind a wallet. Whoever has it has the money.
#wallet#securityRead → - Beginner
What is gas?
Gas is the metered fee you pay to use Ethereum. It prices computation, prevents spam, and rewards validators for including your transaction.
#ethereum#feesRead → - Beginner
What is mining?
Mining is how proof-of-work blockchains like Bitcoin add new blocks: specialized hardware burns electricity guessing hashes until one wins the round.
#bitcoin#proof-of-workRead → - Beginner
What is a blockchain explorer?
A blockchain explorer is a search engine for the public ledger. It turns opaque hashes and addresses into readable transaction histories.
#toolsRead → - Beginner
What is a hard fork?
A hard fork is a backwards-incompatible upgrade to a blockchain. Nodes that do not upgrade stop following the main chain.
#protocol#governanceRead → - Beginner
What is decentralization?
Decentralization is a spectrum, not a binary. It describes how power, data, and decision-making are distributed across a network.
#philosophyRead → - Beginner
CEX vs. DEX: what's the difference?
Centralized exchanges hold your funds and run an order book. Decentralized exchanges are smart contracts you trade against directly.
#exchanges#defiRead → - Beginner
What is custody?
Custody is about who actually controls the private keys. Every crypto position fits somewhere on the self-custody to full-custody spectrum.
#custody#walletRead → - Beginner
What is slippage?
Slippage is the difference between the price you expected and the price you got. In crypto it can silently eat whole percentage points of a trade.
#trading#defiRead → - Beginner
What is a hardware wallet?
A hardware wallet is a dedicated device that keeps your private keys offline and signs transactions in isolation from your computer.
#wallet#securityRead → - Beginner
What is KYC/AML?
KYC and AML are the compliance regimes that require financial services to verify who their customers are and monitor suspicious activity.
#regulationRead → - Beginner
What is a rug pull?
A rug pull is a crypto scam where the team behind a project drains the liquidity or mints unlimited tokens, disappearing with the funds.
#security#scamsRead → - Beginner
What is a governance token?
A governance token gives holders the right to vote on protocol decisions — and sometimes the claim to protocol revenue that comes with ownership.
#dao#tokensRead → - Beginner
What is tokenomics?
Tokenomics is the study of how a token's supply, distribution, and utility shape its economics. Most crypto projects live or die by theirs.
#tokensRead → - Beginner
How do halvings work?
Every 210,000 blocks, Bitcoin's block reward is cut in half. The mechanism shapes Bitcoin's supply curve and, often, its market cycles.
#bitcoinRead →
Intermediate
21 pieces- Intermediate
What is an STO?
A security token offering is the compliant cousin of the ICO — real securities, issued on-chain, inside the existing regulatory perimeter.
#sto#securities#tokenizationRead → - Intermediate
What is a DAO?
A decentralized autonomous organization coordinates capital and decisions through on-chain voting — governance where the org chart is a smart contract.
#dao#governanceRead → - Intermediate
What is a Rollup?
Layer-2 networks batch thousands of transactions off-chain and settle them on Ethereum — the backbone of crypto's scaling strategy.
#l2#scaling#optimistic#zkRead → - Intermediate
What is Yield Farming?
Moving capital between DeFi protocols to capture the highest rewards — part strategy, part incentives arbitrage, part flashing-red gambling.
#defi#yieldRead → - Intermediate
What is MEV?
Maximum extractable value is the profit a blockchain actor can earn by reordering, including, or excluding transactions in a block.
#mev#mempoolRead → - Intermediate
Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake
The two dominant consensus mechanisms in crypto — one burns electricity, the other locks up capital. Both are about making attacks expensive.
#consensus#pow#posRead → - Intermediate
What is Tokenization (RWA)?
Representing real-world assets — Treasuries, real estate, private credit — as on-chain tokens. The bridge the traditional finance world actually cares about.
#rwa#tokenizationRead → - Intermediate
What is a hash function?
A hash function turns any input into a fixed-length fingerprint. In crypto, it is the math that links blocks, secures signatures, and makes proof-of-work possible.
#cryptographyRead → - Intermediate
What is public-key cryptography?
Public-key cryptography lets anyone verify a signature without being able to forge one. It is the mathematical core of every wallet.
#cryptography#walletRead → - Intermediate
What is a bridge?
A bridge moves assets and messages between blockchains. It is also one of the most dangerous parts of the stack.
#interoperability#securityRead → - Intermediate
What is an AMM?
An automated market maker is a smart contract that quotes prices from a formula against a pool of tokens, replacing the traditional order book.
#defi#ammRead → - Intermediate
What is impermanent loss?
Impermanent loss is the opportunity cost an AMM liquidity provider pays when the prices of the pooled assets diverge.
#defi#ammRead → - Intermediate
What is a flash loan?
A flash loan lets you borrow any amount of capital with no collateral, as long as you pay it back within the same transaction.
#defi#lendingRead → - Intermediate
What is a validator?
A validator is a node that stakes capital to propose and attest to blocks in a proof-of-stake network, earning rewards and risking slashing.
#proof-of-stakeRead → - Intermediate
What is restaking?
Restaking lets staked ETH be reused to secure additional services — earning extra yield and creating new systemic risks.
#proof-of-stake#defiRead → - Intermediate
What is a liquid staking token?
A liquid staking token represents staked ETH that you can still trade, lend, or use as collateral while the underlying earns yield.
#proof-of-stake#defiRead → - Intermediate
What is a zero-knowledge proof?
A zero-knowledge proof lets you prove a statement is true without revealing why. It is the cryptographic primitive behind zk-rollups and private transactions.
#cryptography#zkRead → - Intermediate
Optimistic vs. ZK rollups: what's the difference?
Both rollup types scale Ethereum by batching transactions off-chain. They differ in how they prove the batches are valid.
#rollups#scalingRead → - Intermediate
What is a multisig?
A multisig wallet requires multiple signatures to authorize a transaction, eliminating single-point-of-failure risk for serious holdings.
#wallet#securityRead → - Intermediate
What is account abstraction?
Account abstraction lets Ethereum accounts be smart contracts, enabling features like social recovery, gasless transactions, and spending limits.
#wallet#ethereumRead → - Intermediate
What is a mempool?
The mempool is the waiting area for pending transactions. What happens there determines fees, ordering, and most of MEV.
#protocolRead →