Glossary
Satoshi
The smallest quantifiable amount of Bitcoin, one-billionth of a single Bitcoin or 0.000000001 BTC.
Scrypt
"Scrypt" is a power efficient hashing algorithm that is more RAM intensive than SHA-256, it saw its debut in the cryptocurrency market as the algorithm of choice for the Litecoin blockchain.
Seed Phrase
"Seed Phrase" is used as a point of origin for certain wallets, it uses a mnemonic phrase to generate a wallet ID which can then be used to regenerate the wallet in the case it gets erased or misplaced.
Satoshi Nakamoto
The pseudonymous name used by the original inventor of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency.
SEC
“Securities and Exchange Commission” is a US government agency responsible for regulating the securities markets.
SegWit
“Segregated Witness” also known as "SegWit" refers to separating transaction signatures from Bitcoin transactions to increase the number of transactions recorded in one block.
Selfish Mining
"Selfish Mining" refers to when a miner strategically withholds or releases new blocks to the blockchain to create a competitive advantage for himself.
Sell Wall
"Sell Walls" happens when an accumulation of sell orders at a certain price level reaches a very large amount.
Secure Hashing Algorithm (SHA)
"Secure Hashing Algorithm" is a standard of hashing algorithm developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the latest iteration being labeled SHA-3.
Sharding
"Sharding" is a scalability solution for the Ethereum blockchain that validates the blockchain in a parallelized manner.
Sharpe Ratio
"Sharpe Ratio" is a measurement created in 1966 and used by investors to evaluate the return on investment.
Sidechain
"Sidechain" is a separate blockchain, attached to a parent blockchain that allows assets to be interchangeable, in turn increasing the scope, throughput and availability of their parent chains.
Skein
One of the five finalists of the NIST hash function competition, based on the Threefish tweakable block cypher. Skein allows for a modular package size and can operate as drop in replacement for the SHA family of hash functions.
Smart Contracts
"Smart Contract" is a digital protocol used to facilitate and enforce the negotiation of a contract without use of a third party.
Soft Fork
"Soft Fork" is a change to the software or protocol that allows for backwards compatible with previous versions.
Soft Wallet
"Soft Wallet" is a software based wallet that is able to be hosted as a desktop, mobile or web application, many providing cross-platform integration with all three.
Solidity
A programming language based around EMCA Script and by extension JavaScript, created specifically for writing Smart contracts.
Stablecoin
"Stablecoin" is a type of cryptocurrency that is backed by reserve assets and therefore can offer price stability.
Staking
"Staking" is a way of earning passive income from cryptocurrencies. When investors stake their coins, they don’t sell them and can’t trade them. In return, the staked coins generate rewards (similar to earning interest from a deposit account).
Staking Pool
"Staking Pools" are created by miners to increase their chance of successfully validating a new block.