Crypto glossary

An audit is somebody checking the notebook — and the word literally means "a hearing", because accounts used to be read out loud.

Authorization is the second in which your bank looks at your line, says yes, and freezes the amount — it's the word "pending" in your app.

A bank is not a vault — it's a giant notebook (a ledger) of who has what, kept by an institution you trust.

A bank run is when everyone stops trusting the bank's notebook at the same time and lines up to pull their money out at once.

A blind signature is signing a sealed envelope with carbon paper inside: the signature lands on the sheet, and the signer never sees what they signed.

Deflation is the opposite of inflation: money that gets stronger over time, which makes people wait to spend and makes every debt heavier.

Double-entry bookkeeping is writing every transaction twice, on two sides that have to agree — so a lie has to grow in order to stay hidden.

Double-spending is promising the same money to two different people — and it only becomes possible when nobody checks in between.

A fiat currency isn't backed by anything you can touch — it exists because a government declares it money, and because all of us keep treating it as money.

Inflation is your money losing power — measured by how much stuff one unit of it can buy.

A ledger is just a notebook that keeps track of who has what.

Money is shared trust, wearing a convenient costume.

Purchasing power is how much real stuff a unit of money can actually buy.