Ledgers AcademyLedgers Academy Reference
Thirty focused definitions covering crypto markets, infrastructure, security, DeFi, and Bitcoin.
Trading & Market Structure
A Fair Value Gap (FVG) is a three candlestick price pattern that occurs during aggressive buying or selling, leaving an imbalance where only one side of market liquidity was delivered. The market frequently retests these zones to restore price balance.
Read definition →Bitcoin
The Genesis Block, also known as Block 0, is the very first block of transactions mined on the Bitcoin network on January 3, 2009, by Satoshi Nakamoto, officially launching decentralized peer to peer digital cash.
Read definition →Wallets & Security
A BIP39 Passphrase, commonly referred to as the 25th word, is an optional custom string of characters added on top of a standard 12 or 24 word recovery phrase to generate a completely separate, hidden cryptographic wallet.
Read definition →Trading & Market Structure
An Order Block (OB) is the specific candlestick price range where institutional market participants placed large accumulation or distribution orders prior to an aggressive market breakout.
Read definition →DeFi & Token Mechanics
Impermanent Loss is the difference in value between holding tokens in your personal private wallet versus depositing them into an Automated Market Maker (AMM) liquidity pool when the relative price of the paired tokens diverges.
Read definition →Bitcoin
The Bitcoin Halving is a hardcoded event occurring every 210,000 blocks (roughly every four years) that permanently cuts the issuance rate of new Bitcoin rewarded to miners in half, enforcing absolute monetary scarcity.
Read definition →Trading & Market Structure
A Liquidity Sweep, also known as a liquidity grab or stop run, occurs when price briefly pierces above a key high or below a key low to trigger resting retail stop orders before reversing aggressively in the opposite direction.
Read definition →Trading & Market Structure
Funding Rates are recurring periodic payments exchanged directly between long and short traders on perpetual futures contracts to keep the derivative price pegged to the underlying spot index price.
Read definition →Consensus & Security
Proof of Work (PoW) uses physical computational power and electricity to validate transactions and secure the network, while Proof of Stake (PoS) uses deposited cryptocurrency capital and economic incentives to select transaction validators.
Read definition →Blockchain Infrastructure
Maximum Extractable Value (MEV) refers to the maximum value that block producers and automated searcher bots can extract from users by arbitrarily including, excluding, or reordering transactions within a blockchain block.
Read definition →Blockchain Infrastructure
Account Abstraction is a blockchain upgrade standardized by ERC4337 that transforms traditional user crypto accounts into programmable smart contracts, enabling biometric logins, social recovery, automated recurring payments, and gasless transactions without seed phrase vulnerability.
Read definition →DeFi & Token Mechanics
Liquid Staking is a mechanism where users deposit Proof of Stake tokens into a staking protocol and receive a synthetic Liquid Staking Token (LST) representing their underlying stake plus accrued rewards, allowing capital to remain liquid across DeFi.
Read definition →Trading & Market Structure
Slippage is the difference between the expected price of a trade and the actual executed price at which the transaction is finalized on the blockchain, caused by market volatility, low liquidity, or high network latency.
Read definition →Blockchain Infrastructure
Gas Fees are computational transaction fees paid in native cryptocurrency (such as ETH, SOL, or AVAX) by users to compensate network validators for the processing power, storage, and bandwidth required to execute transactions.
Read definition →Blockchain Infrastructure
A Smart Contract is a self executing digital agreement with the terms of the contract directly written into lines of code, deployed immutably on a decentralized blockchain network that executes autonomously without human intermediaries.
Read definition →DeFi & Token Mechanics
A Bonding Curve is a mathematical smart contract algorithm that automatically calculates and sets the price of a token based on its circulating supply, creating instant, automated liquidity without requiring centralized market makers.
Read definition →Blockchain Infrastructure
A Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) is a cryptographic protocol that allows one party (the prover) to prove to another party (the verifier) that a specific statement is mathematically true without revealing any underlying confidential information.
Read definition →Trading & Market Structure
The US Dollar Index (DXY) is a benchmark financial index that measures the exchange value of the United States Dollar relative to a basket of six major global currencies: the Euro, Japanese Yen, British Pound, Canadian Dollar, Swedish Krona, and Swiss Franc.
Read definition →Bitcoin
An Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) is a distinct, indivisible chunk of Bitcoin created by a past transaction that remains unspent on the blockchain, ready to be used as an input for a future transfer.
Read definition →Trading & Market Structure
Wash Trading is an illegal form of market manipulation where a single entity simultaneously buys and sells the exact same asset to itself, creating the false illusion of high trading volume, liquidity, and organic market interest.
Read definition →Bitcoin
Taproot is a major soft fork upgrade activated on the Bitcoin network in November 2021 that introduced Schnorr Signatures and Merkelized Alternative Script Trees (MAST), dramatically enhancing transaction privacy, efficiency, and smart contract capability.
Read definition →Bitcoin
The Lightning Network is a decentralized Layer 2 scaling protocol built on top of Bitcoin that uses bidirectional offchain payment channels to enable instant, high throughput transactions with near zero network fees.
Read definition →DeFi & Token Mechanics
Restaking is a mechanism pioneered by EigenLayer that allows users with staked Ethereum (or Liquid Staking Tokens) to repurpose their capital to secure secondary protocols, bridges, and oracle networks simultaneously, earning additional yield.
Read definition →Wallets & Security
Multi Party Computation (MPC) is an advanced cryptographic protocol that divides a private key into multiple encrypted mathematical shares distributed across separate devices or parties, allowing transactions to be authorized without reconstructing the master key in any single place.
Read definition →Trading & Market Structure
The Wyckoff Method is a classical technical analysis framework developed by Richard Wyckoff that identifies how institutional smart money manipulates market supply and demand through four distinct cycle phases: Accumulation, Markup, Distribution, and Markdown.
Read definition →Governance
A Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) is an internet native, community led entity governed by immutable smart contracts rather than centralized corporate hierarchies, where members vote on proposals using governance tokens.
Read definition →Blockchain Infrastructure
A Cross Chain Bridge is a software protocol connecting two distinct blockchain networks, allowing users to transfer digital assets, smart contract calls, and liquidity securely between independent distributed ledgers.
Read definition →Wallets & Security
A Dusting Attack is an analytical exploit where an attacker sends tiny, microscopic amounts of cryptocurrency (known as dust) to thousands of personal wallet addresses to track fund movements and unmask the real identity of the owner.
Read definition →Consensus & Security
Slashing is an automated protocol mechanism on Proof of Stake blockchains that permanently burns or confiscates a portion of a validator staked cryptocurrency if they act maliciously, double sign blocks, or experience severe network downtime.
Read definition →Consensus & Security
Proof of Reserves (PoR) is an independent cryptographic auditing procedure that uses Merkle Trees and onchain verification to prove that a centralized exchange or custodian holds 100 percent of the actual customer assets listed on its balance sheet.
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