Crypto glossary

Crypto glossary

Alt or alternative coins: Any cryptocurrency other than the original cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, is known as an alt-coin. Alt-coins range from relatively well-established and popular coins like Ether through to joke currencies like dogecoin. The term is also sometimes applied to stablecoins or to tokens that represent a stake of ownership, such as a security token.

Automated Market Maker: An actor that encourages buyers and sellers in a decentralised market. Like market makers on traditional markets, they aim to make money from discrepancies in pricing on different markets, until the asset price falls into line across all markets. An automated market maker deposits their own pair of cryptocurrencies into a smart contract and lets computer code handle buying and selling with interested parties, who are also using their own smart contracts. Owners of assets are incentivised by sharing in the pool of fees that are generated through trading activity. The process has been compared to YouTube because investors can generate and upload their own content.

Basel Committee on Banking Supervision: The world’s most powerful standards setter for banks. It determines how banks control risks and how much equity they should hold to protect themselves if markets or customers blow up. It has proposed