A Glossary of Technical Terms Used by the Crypto Community

The interface/client that you use to manage your account(s).

Example: MyEtherWallet.com, MEW Mobile, Enkrypt browser wallet, a hardware wallet (i.e. Ledger, Trezor).

A public & private keypair that controls access to your funds.

Your funds are actually stored on the blockchain, not "in" the wallet or account.

Just like your Reddit account has a username (public) and password (private), so does your Ethereum account.

While crypto wallets frequently refer to 'user accounts', a non custodial wallet crypto address is not the same as an email or bank account because only the user has access and control of the funds.

You use this to send tokens to an account.

Sometimes referred to as the “public key”, which is not accurate (as explained below).

A string made up of 0x + 40 hexadecimal characters (42 total characters).

In Ethereum, the address begins with ‘0x’.

Example: 0x06A85356DCb5b307096726FB86A78c59D38e08ee

In cryptography, you have a keypair: the public and private key.

You can derive a public key from a private key, but cannot derive a private key from a public key.

In Ethereum, the address “acts” like the public key, but it’s not actually the public key. Most users don't need to get this technical, but the public key is derived from the private key and is 128 hex characters. You then take the “SHA3” (Keccak-256) hash of this (64 characters), take the last 40 characters, and prefix with 0x, give you your 42-character address.

The secret half of your address / public key pairing.

A string of 64 hexadecimal characters.

If you hand-type a private key differently by even one character, you will access a completely different wallet.

This is the key you need to keep safe. Without it you cannot access your funds. Although, you don’t need to save this raw, unencrypted private key in this format. Most of the time, you will receive an encrypted version of it (the keystore file or mnemonic/recovery phrase).

Example: afdfd9c3d2095ef696594f6cedcae59e72dcd697e2a7521b1578140422a4f890

Encrypted version of your private key in JSON format (though it does not have a JSON extension).

A fancy version of your private key that is protected by a password of your choosing.

Safer than a private key because you need the password.

File name usually is in the format:
​UTC + -- + DATE_CREATED + -- + YOUR_ADDRESS_WITHOUT_THE_Ox, looks something like this
​UTC--2017-07-02T20-33-09.177Z--06a85356dcb5b307096726fb86a78c59d38e08ee

Another fancy version of your private key, and can be used to derive multiple private keys.

Usually, a 12 or 24-word phrase that allows you to access an infinite number of accounts.

Sometimes includes an extra 13th or 25th word chosen by the user, for added security.

Used by Ledger, Trezor, the MEW Mobile, Enkrypt browser wallet, and many others.

Originates from BIP 39 Spec.

The accounts you can access with this phrase are determined by the “derivation path”.

Example 12-words:
​brain surround have swap horror body response double fire dumb bring hazard

Example 24-words:
​card enrich gesture connect kick topple fan body blind engine lemon swarm venue praise addict agent unaware equal bean sing govern income link leg

A device that generates and stores your private key(s), ensuring these keys are safe. Considered the best safety standard for managing large amounts of crypto.

Generally uses a 24-word phrase (also known as the seed or mnemonic phrase). This phrase you should write down on paper (not on your computer) and store separately from your hardware wallet, in multiple locations.

If you lose your hardware wallet, you can still gain access to your accounts & funds via the mnemonic phrase you wrote down.

Never type the recovery phrase on your computer. It defeats the purpose of your hardware wallet.

The colorful blob of colors that corresponds to your address.

It is a quick way to see if the address you are seeing in the wallet or sending to os correct.

Different wallet interfaces will style and represent the identicon slightly differently, so you should still always double-check any address you are sending to.

Used all over Ethereum for a variety of things, a hexadecimal string is comprised of the numbers 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 and A B C D E F. 'Hexa' stands for the 6 letters, and 'decimal' is for the 10 numbers.

The input given to derive a private key.

Some use this as another way of saying ‘recovery phrase’ or ‘mnemonic phrase’.

The seed phrase should only be generated by a specialized crypto interface or hardware wallet.

An account generated from a seed/password/passphrase of your choosing.

Humans are not capable of generating enough entropy, so the wallets derived from these phrases are insecure.

Brain wallets can generally be brute-forced easily by super-fast computers.

Don’t use brain wallets.

Also known as “randomness”.

The more random something is the more entropy it has, and the more secure it is.

Usually defined in “bits of entropy”, or the number of years it would take to brute-force an encryption derived with that much entropy.

Ethereum private keys and 24-word mnemonic phrases are 256-bit keys.

To derive something is to obtain it from an original source.

For example, if we were to derive a keystore file rom a private key and a password, this means that the keystore is made from these two sources. The keystore is a product of the two, thus it is derived from them.

Encryption is the act of taking a string of letters/numbers, like your private key, and turning them into another string of letters/numbers through a method of private translation.

There are various different encryption methods.

Encryption offers protection against the brute forcing of secret information.

An unencrypted private key is 64 characters long, and it is used to restore wallets.

An encrypted key is also 64 letters long and is a regular private key that has gone through the process of encryption, as defined above.

Example: If the world ‘Apple’ was your shortened private key, then it was encrypted three letters down the alphabet, your new shortened encrypted key would be ‘Dssoh’. Since you know the way to encrypt this key, you could derive the original private key from it by reversing the method of encryption.

Usually, encrypted private keys are kept within the extension or device they are encrypted by, and they remain out of sight from the user. This is meant to add another layer of security to keep a user’s wallet information safe.

The process of transferring authority from a single entity (ex. government or large corporation) to multiple smaller entities.

Blockchains like Ethereum are decentralized because it takes many node runners, miners, and validators, spread out throughout the world, to maintain the blockchain and make it run. If one node is taken down, it will not stop or damage the blockchain.

A piece of code (or program) that is stored on the blockchain network and executes predetermined conditions automatically, without oversight.

Conditions of the contract are predefined by the users, if all conditions are met, certain actions are executed by the contract (program).

A decentralized, publicly-owned ledger.

Immutable, unable to be edited, permanent.

Maintained by remote miners all over the world.