Blockchain glossary in plain words

In plain words

A free handout of tokens, like free samples. Scammers use it as bait.

In detail

A free distribution of tokens to addresses, to launch a project or reward early users. Fake airdrops are classic scam bait.

See also: Token, Phishing link

In plain words

A big public ledger: every money transfer is written in it, page after page, and nobody can erase it.

In detail

A ledger shared by thousands of computers: every transaction is written into a block, and each block chains onto the previous one. Anyone can read it, nobody can rewrite it. It's the “ledger” you investigate.

See also: Block, Address

In plain words

A bridge between two blockchains: it moves money from one to the other.

In detail

A service that moves assets from one blockchain to another, often by locking them on one side and issuing a copy on the other. A frequent hacking target.

See also: Wrapped token

In plain words

Each new page added after the one holding your payment: the more there are, the safer it is.

In detail

Each block added after the one holding a transaction confirms it a little more. After a few confirmations, undoing it becomes practically impossible.

See also: Block, Double spend, Unconfirmed transaction

In plain words

An online club that manages a shared fund: members decide by voting, with no boss.

In detail

Decentralized Autonomous Organization: an organization whose treasury and rules are run by programs, and whose decisions are made by a vote of its token holders.

See also: Treasurer, Multisig address

In plain words

Decentralized finance: lending, borrowing or trading without a bank, directly between users.

In detail

Decentralized Finance: financial services (trading, lending, saving) run by smart contracts, with no bank or middleman.

See also: DEX, Smart contract

In plain words

Trying to pay two people with the same money.

In detail

Trying to pay twice with the same coins by sending two competing transactions. Only one ends up in the chain: hence waiting for confirmations.

See also: Confirmation, Unconfirmed transaction

In plain words

The fee paid to get a transaction through, like a stamp on a letter.

In detail

The fee paid to the network for a transaction to be processed. Paying more gas gets a transaction ahead of others.

See also: Priority transaction

In plain words

The waiting room for payments, before they get written into a block.

In detail

The public queue of transactions that were sent but aren't in a block yet. Validators pick the ones paying the most gas first.

See also: Gas, Validator, Confirmation

In plain words

Creating a token or an NFT, like striking a new coin.

In detail

Creating (“minting”) new tokens or an NFT. A hyped mint draws crowds, and scams.

See also: NFT, Token

In plain words

A unique digital certificate, often tied to a picture: like an online collectible.

In detail

Non-Fungible Token: a unique, non-interchangeable token used as a certificate of ownership for artwork, a game item or a ticket.

See also: Mint, Token

In plain words

The list of words that unlocks a whole wallet: the ultimate password, never to be shared.

In detail

A list of 12 or 24 words that recreates every key of a wallet. Whoever knows it owns the funds: no legitimate service ever asks for it.

See also: Wallet, Seed fragment

In plain words

A program living on the blockchain that runs on its own as written, like a vending machine.

In detail

A program deployed on a blockchain that runs automatically according to its code: swapping, lending, voting. A flaw in that code can drain its funds.

See also: DeFi, Unlimited approval

In plain words

A token meant to always be worth the same, usually 1 dollar.

In detail

A token designed to hold a steady value, usually 1 dollar, thanks to a reserve or a buyback mechanism.

See also: Peg, Token

In plain words

Locking up tokens to help the network run, in exchange for a reward: a bit like a savings account.

In detail

Locking tokens to help secure a network (proof of stake) or a protocol, in return for a reward. The tokens stay locked for a while.

See also: Validator, Vault

In plain words

A currency or voucher created on the blockchain, traded like coins.

In detail

A digital asset issued on a blockchain: a currency, a voting right, a share of a project. It moves from one address to another.

See also: Stablecoin, Mint

In plain words

The app that holds the keys to your crypto accounts, like a digital purse.

In detail

The app or device that holds the private keys of one or more addresses and lets you sign transactions.

See also: Address, Seed phrase

In plain words

An account, here a suspect. One address per row and per column.

In detail

A playable suspect: an on-chain identity shown as a card and a token. One address per row (hop) and per column (block), like sudoku.

See also: Block, Hop, Victim, Culprit

In plain words

A column of the grid. Left to right, it's the order in which the transfers happened.

In detail

On the grid, a column. Blocks follow the chronological order of signatures, left (older) to right (newer). When a clue says “she signed in block 3”, look at column B3.

See also: Hop, Address

In plain words

A cell crossed out: nobody can go there.

In detail

A cell marked with a cross: either automatically (a row or column already taken by an address) or manually with the Block tool. You cannot note or place on it.

See also: Orphan block, Address

In plain words

A colored zone: a place the money goes through (a bank, an exchange office…). The culprit shares the victim's.

In detail

A colored region on the board: a label shared by several addresses (Vault, CEX, DEX…). It is not a sudoku placement constraint: it is an on-chain affiliation tag. The culprit is the address that shares the victim’s cluster.

See also: Victim, Culprit, Address

In plain words

The only other address in the victim's zone, once the grid is full.

In detail

The sole address that shares the victim’s cluster when every piece is placed. That is the win condition of every case.

See also: Victim, Cluster

In plain words

An account frozen by a currency's issuer. On the grid, a cell that's off limits.

In detail

A dead cell with a different story: a stablecoin issuer can freeze (blacklist) an address, which can no longer sign anything. On the grid it works like an orphan block: hatched cell, no address can be placed there.

See also: Orphan block, Blocked cell

In plain words

He or she: some clues target all the men or all the women.

In detail

Every suspect card shows ♂ or ♀, and clues follow suit (he/she, his/her). Some clues target a whole group: “before every man” covers each ♂ address, “every other woman” each ♀ address except the clue's own, and “the accomplice … was a woman” pins the culprit's gender.

See also: Address, Culprit

In plain words

A row of the grid: the number of steps since the money left. The lower, the further.

In detail

On the grid, a row. Hops measure fund-flow depth: hop 1 at the top (near the origin), deeper hops further down. “A shallower hop” means a higher row.

See also: Block, Address

In plain words

The cell facing across the center of the grid, like a rotated mirror.

In detail

The cell symmetric about the board's center: on a 10×10, hop 1 · block 1 ↔ hop 10 · block 10, hop 3 · block 7 ↔ hop 8 · block 4. “Her cell is the mirror image of X's”: the two addresses face each other through the center.

See also: Hop, Block, Vanity address

In plain words

A turn where nobody wrote a page in the ledger. On the grid, a cell that's off limits.

In detail

In proof-of-stake, a slot where the designated validator proposed no block. On the grid it works like an orphan block: hatched cell, no address can be placed there.

See also: Orphan block, Double vote

In plain words

A hatched cell, off limits from the start.

In detail

A cell dead from the start (hatched): never confirmed on-chain, no address can be placed there. It shrinks the search space without being a player block.

See also: Blocked cell, Block, Frozen address

In plain words

An account on an official blacklist. On the grid, a cell that's off limits.

In detail

An address on a sanctions list: platforms refuse any funds coming from it, so launderers steer clear. On the grid it works like an orphan block: hatched cell, no address can be placed there.

See also: Orphan block, Frozen address

In plain words

A damaged square of a QR code. On the grid, a cell that's off limits.

In detail

A square of a QR code no reader can decode: torn off, covered or deliberately blacked out. On the grid it works like an orphan block: hatched cell, no address can be placed there.

See also: Orphan block, QR code

In plain words

The person who vanished in the case.

In detail

The address marked as the case victim (often tagged VICTIM on its card). Once the grid is complete, exactly one other address shares its cluster: that is the culprit.

See also: Culprit, Cluster, Address

In plain words

A classic exchange platform with a company in the middle, like a bank.

In detail

Centralized Exchange. As a board zone it is a cluster label shared by addresses tied to that venue of activity.

See also: DEX, OTC, Cluster

In plain words

An exchange with no company in the middle: users trade with each other.

In detail

Decentralized Exchange: a market without a central custodian (AMM, on-chain order book). On the board, the colored zone is a cluster label.

See also: CEX, Liquidity, Cluster

In plain words

The pool of money that makes buying and selling easy.

In detail

The pool of assets that lets trading happen without blowing up the price. In Chaindoku plots, pulling liquidity (a rug) or moving it is often the motive.

See also: Rug pull, DEX, Cluster

In plain words

Private, person-to-person trades, away from the public market.

In detail

Over-The-Counter: privately negotiated trades off the public book. Often the stage for large tickets (whales) kept off a CEX.

See also: CEX, Whale, Cluster

In plain words

A token actually being worth what it promises, say 1 dollar.

In detail

A stablecoin's anchor to its target value, often $1. When the price drifts away for good, that is a depeg; when redemptions themselves feed the fall, it is called a death spiral.

See also: Price oracle, Burn address, Cluster

In plain words

A safe where money is deposited.

In detail

Typical cluster: a protocol vault holding assets (staking, treasury, collateral). Several addresses can be labeled there without “entering” physically: it is a cluster tag.

See also: Cluster, CEX, DEX

In plain words

The person who checks a project's code before launch.

In detail

The person who reviewed the code or the flows before the disaster. Often the victim: too close to the truth, too early.

See also: Victim, Address

In plain words

The person who created the project.

In detail

The figure who launched the protocol or token. Often close to the treasury, multisig keys, or team decisions: a natural suspect when the vault drains.

See also: Multisig address, Treasurer

In plain words

The one who keeps buying and selling so the market stays active.

In detail

The actor who supplies liquidity and tightens spreads. In a rug or pool case, their path across Liquidity / DEX cells is often decisive.

See also: Liquidity, DEX

In plain words

The person who keeps the project's money.

In detail

Keeper of the protocol or DAO funds. Access to multisigs, vaults, timelocks: a central role whenever money goes missing.

See also: Multisig address, Vault, Founder

In plain words

The one who checks and adds pages to the ledger, for a reward.

In detail

A node that proposes or attests blocks (proof of stake). It can be slashed for cheating or faults. In staking / consensus cases it is often at the heart of the motive.

See also: Hop, Block

In plain words

A very large investor whose every move shakes the market.

In detail

An address that holds (or moves) outsized amounts. Its transfers move markets and leave heavy traces in the ledger.

See also: OTC, Address

In plain words

The vote by which a validator confirms a page of the ledger is correct.

In detail

Furniture marker: the vote by which a validator confirms the block it deems valid. Aggregated, these votes justify and then finalize an epoch.

See also: Double vote

In plain words

A hidden access to get back into a system without a password.

In detail

Floor marker: a hidden access left in a system. Whoever planted it can come back at will, without a password.

See also: Encrypted server, Ransom note

In plain words

A bottomless bin: anything sent there is destroyed forever.

In detail

Floor marker: an address nobody holds the key to; sending tokens there destroys them for good. Algorithmic stablecoins burn their token on each redemption to mint another.

See also: Price oracle, Peg

In plain words

A round where several people pool their money to cover their tracks.

In detail

Furniture marker: a collective transaction where several participants mix identical amounts, so no input can be linked to an output. A dishonest coordinator can still keep those links.

See also: Mixer

In plain words

A wallet kept offline, out of hackers' reach.

In detail

Floor marker: a wallet kept offline (hardware key, paper). Out of hackers' reach, but lost forever if nobody knows its seed phrase.

See also: Wallet, Seed phrase, Last will

In plain words

A machine that turns cash into crypto.

In detail

Furniture marker: a kiosk that turns cash into cryptocurrency sent to whatever address it is given. Hijacked by fake-advisor scams, which dictate the destination address to the victim.

See also: QR code, Mixer

In plain words

A vote handed to someone else to cast on your behalf.

In detail

Floor marker: a governance vote entrusted to a delegate who votes on behalf of several holders. Splitting votes across unrelated-looking addresses fakes far broader support than there really is.

See also: Multisig address

In plain words

The secret ticket that lets you get back money left in a mixer.

In detail

Floor marker: the secret handed to whoever deposits funds into a mixer; it later lets them withdraw to another address, with no visible link to the deposit. Whoever holds the note holds the funds.

See also: Mixer

In plain words

An account left untouched for ages that suddenly wakes up.

In detail

Floor marker: a long-inactive address that wakes up to sign. Often a timing clue (“she is a dormant address”) pointing at a cell that bears this flag.

See also: Rug pull, Address

In plain words

A validator voting twice in the same turn: cheating, harshly punished.

In detail

Floor marker: a validator signing two competing blocks for the same slot. A serious proof-of-stake offense, punished by slashing (part of the stake is destroyed); often the sign of keys duplicated on two machines.

See also: Attestation vote, Missed slot

In plain words

A tiny, worthless transfer, sent to slip into someone's history.

In detail

Floor marker: a tiny, worthless transfer meant to slip an address into a victim's history. The classic first step of address poisoning.

See also: Vanity address

In plain words

A machine whose files were locked by ransomware.

In detail

Furniture: a machine whose files were made unreadable by ransomware.

See also: Ransom note

In plain words

A wallet key left visible online: bots find it and drain the funds within seconds.

In detail

Floor marker: a private key left in plain text in a published file (code repository, screenshot, message). Bots comb these places nonstop: an exposed key gets drained within seconds.

See also: Wallet, Seed phrase

In plain words

A fake announcement put out to pump a price.

In detail

Floor marker: a made-up announcement (listing, partnership, acquisition) spread to pump a price. The insiders behind it sell while the rumor spreads, before the rebuttal.

See also: Pump spike

In plain words

A copycat investment app. Money deposited goes to the scammer.

In detail

Floor marker: an investment app imitating a real platform. Deposits go straight to the scammer.

See also: Fake gains, Sweet message

In plain words

Displayed profits that do not exist, to get more deposited.

In detail

Floor marker: profits shown by a fake app to push the victim to deposit more. They vanish when trying to withdraw.

See also: Fake app

In plain words

A fake transfer screenshot, to pretend you've paid.

In detail

Floor marker: a doctored transfer screenshot, shown to get funds released in a peer-to-peer sale. In P2P, only release once the funds have landed in your own account.

See also: Multisig address

In plain words

A five-star rating written by bots to look trustworthy.

In detail

Furniture: a five-star rating bought or written by bots. Thousands of fake reviews are enough to pass a rigged extension off as the real one.

See also: Fake update

In plain words

A fake update window that asks for your seed phrase.

In detail

Floor marker: an “urgent update” window shown by a rigged extension, asking you to type your seed phrase again. A real wallet never asks for it again.

See also: Fake review, Exposed key, Phishing link

In plain words

Fees demanded upfront to “recover” stolen funds: a second scam.

In detail

Floor marker: “recovery fees” demanded upfront by a fake firm that promises to find stolen crypto. Nobody can get it back for a fee: it is a second scam, aimed at the victims of the first.

See also: Fake payment receipt

In plain words

A purchase made by a bot in the very first second of a sale.

In detail

Floor marker: a purchase placed by a bot in the very first blocks of a launch, before the public could even click. “Snipers” sweep up the supply at the floor price this way, then dump it on the next buyers straight away.

See also: Mixer

In plain words

A mistake in a contract's program that someone can exploit.

In detail

Furniture: a mistake in a smart contract's code. The contract obeys its code, mistake included: whoever finds it first can use it.

See also: Smart contract, Auditor

In plain words

A payment that paid a higher fee to skip the line.

In detail

Furniture: a transaction that paid more gas to overtake the ones waiting in the mempool. Set your fee too low, and you get overtaken.

See also: Gas, Mempool

In plain words

The promise of a fixed gain no matter what: the mark of a Ponzi scam.

In detail

Furniture marker: the promise of a fixed, high return whatever the market does. It is the hallmark of a Ponzi scheme: early investors are paid with later investors' money, until new deposits run out.

See also: Rug pull

In plain words

A trap: a token you can buy but never sell.

In detail

Furniture marker: a trapped token contract anyone can buy but nobody can sell, a hidden function blocking the sale. The developer eventually pulls the liquidity.

See also: Rug pull, Mixer

In plain words

A fake job offer used as bait to get a rigged file run.

In detail

Furniture: an enticing posting, often in Web3, used as bait. The “coding test” to download is the real weapon.

See also: Rigged file

In plain words

The document that says who inherits. Without the seed phrase, it is not enough.

In detail

Furniture: the document that says who inherits. For crypto it is not enough: without the seed phrase, heirs cannot recover anything.

See also: Cold wallet, Seed phrase

In plain words

The pot an exchange draws from to swap two tokens.

In detail

Floor marker: the reserve of two tokens a DEX draws from to make swaps. Anyone can create one, including for a fake token.

See also: DEX, Liquidity, Stablecoin

In plain words

A machine that crunches numbers to earn crypto rewards.

In detail

Furniture marker: a machine (often GPUs or ASICs) computing hashes to find blocks. In a pool, each rig gets a share of the rewards based on the work it contributed.

See also: Mixer

In plain words

A service that blends many people's money so nobody can tell where it came from.

In detail

Furniture marker: a service that blends many users' funds to hide where they came from (also called a tumbler). Launderers use it to cut the thread between where funds enter and where they leave.

See also: RPC node, Multisig address

In plain words

A safe that only opens with several keys held by several people.

In detail

Furniture marker: a vault controlled by several keys (multi-signature). Often tied to DAO treasuries. Not the same as a “Multisig” zone label: here it is an object sitting on a cell.

See also: RPC node, Mixer

In plain words

A link to a fake site imitating a real one, to steal your access.

In detail

Floor marker: a link to a fake site imitating a legitimate service, to steal a seed phrase or get a trapped transaction signed. No real support ever asks for a seed phrase.

See also: Honeypot, Address

In plain words

A seed phrase already written in the box: someone else knows it.

In detail

Floor marker: a card slipped into a hardware wallet's box, with a seed phrase already written on it. A real maker never supplies these words: the device creates them on first start-up, and only you write them down.

See also: Seed phrase, Cold wallet

In plain words

The secret code that unlocks a swap between two people.

In detail

Floor marker: the secret whose hash locks an atomic swap (HTLC). Revealing it to claim one's funds makes it public, letting the other party claim theirs on the other chain before the timeout expires.

See also: Multisig address

In plain words

The service that tells programs a currency's price, like a price board.

In detail

Furniture marker: the service that publishes an asset's price on-chain for protocols. A lagging or manipulated oracle skews liquidations and redemptions: a DeFi exploit classic.

See also: Burn address, Peg

In plain words

A transfer that pays more to jump the queue, like a fast pass.

In detail

Floor marker: a transaction paying a high gas tip to be included ahead of the others. During a hyped mint, these bidding wars trigger a “gas war” where fees skyrocket.

See also: RPC node

In plain words

A code change published for everyone: its content stays readable forever.

In detail

Furniture: a code change saved to a repository open to everyone. Whatever it contains stays readable in the history, even after deletion.

See also: Exposed key

In plain words

The peak of a deliberately inflated price, just before the organizers sell.

In detail

Floor marker: the moment an artificially inflated token hits its peak. In a pump and dump, the organizers sell right there, to the last buyers lured in by the rally.

See also: Mixer

In plain words

A square to scan that holds a payment address.

In detail

Floor marker: an address encoded as an image. Handy to avoid typos, and to make a victim scan an address she cannot read.

See also: Crypto ATM

In plain words

The message demanding a crypto payment to give the files back.

In detail

Floor marker: the message left by ransomware. Files are encrypted, the key is promised against a crypto payment.

See also: Encrypted server, Backdoor

In plain words

A file hiding a spy program that can steal a wallet's keys.

In detail

Floor marker: a program or document hiding spyware. Run on a computer that holds a wallet, it can read its keys.

See also: Job offer, Wallet

In plain words

A computer that gives access to the network, like an access point.

In detail

Furniture marker: network access infrastructure (Remote Procedure Call). On the board the icon sits at the top-right of the cell. Clues may require an address to be adjacent to an RPC node.

See also: Multisig address, Mixer

In plain words

When a project's creators run off with the till.

In detail

Floor marker: the signal that a project drained liquidity or abandoned investors. On the grid the icon is quieter (lower / faded). Global constraints may limit how many addresses sit on these cells.

See also: Dormant address

In plain words

The date when locked tokens finally become sellable.

In detail

Floor marker: the date when a tranche of locked (vested) tokens becomes sellable. These dates are public: a wave of sales right after an unlock often gives away an insider in a hurry.

See also: Multisig address

In plain words

A hidden auction bid, revealed only at the end.

In detail

Floor marker: a bid submitted hidden (only its fingerprint, its hash, is published at first), then revealed once bidding closes. Nobody should know the others' offers before the reveal.

See also: Preimage

In plain words

One piece of a password split into several parts.

In detail

Floor marker: a piece of a recovery phrase split by secret sharing (Shamir's method). A single fragment reveals nothing; a minimum number, set in advance, is needed to rebuild the key.

See also: Multisig address

In plain words

The phone chip that carries the number. A fraudster can get your number moved to them.

In detail

Floor marker: the chip that carries a phone number. In a “SIM swap”, a fraudster convinces the carrier to move the victim's number to a new card, and receives their SMS codes.

See also: SMS code

In plain words

A login code received by text: whoever hijacks your number gets it too.

In detail

Furniture: a login code sent by text message (two-factor authentication). Handy, but whoever hijacks the number receives the codes: an authenticator app or a hardware key is safer.

See also: SIM card

In plain words

The tender words of a fake profile, setting up the scam.

In detail

Furniture: the tender words of a fake profile. In a romance scam, the trust gained is then used to sell a crypto “investment”.

See also: Fake app

In plain words

A payment sent but not yet written in the ledger: it can still change.

In detail

Floor marker: a transaction visible in the mempool but not in a block yet. Until it has a confirmation, it can be replaced.

See also: Confirmation, Double spend

In plain words

Permission given to a program to drain your account, with no limit.

In detail

Furniture marker: a signature that lets a contract spend every token in a wallet, with no cap and no deadline. Drainers get it signed under a false pretext (a free mint, an airdrop), then empty the wallet. It can be revoked, if you know you gave it.

See also: Phishing link

In plain words

A “custom” account number, which can be used to mimic someone else's.

In detail

Floor marker: an address brute-forced to start and end with chosen characters. Handy for a branded address, or for forging the lookalike of a genuine one.

See also: Dust transfer, Mirror image

In plain words

An alert when a very large investor moves money.

In detail

Floor marker: a signal fired when a very large wallet (a “whale”) moves funds. Public bots track these moves, which on their own can shift a market.

See also: Multisig address

In plain words

A token standing for another currency kept elsewhere, like a cloakroom ticket.

In detail

Furniture marker: a token standing for another asset held elsewhere (bitcoin on Ethereum, for instance). It is only worth something if the reserve behind it truly exists; stacking wrappers stacks the risks too.

See also: Multisig address