This page provides concise definitions of terms that are used in the technology space and on this site.
Request the definition of a technical term
| Bearer Instrument One whose ownership is not recorded by a central authority and is instead held in physical form by whomever the holder is. While a blockchain may have a record of a wallet address and count of units, it does not have identifiable information of the owner. Practical – The simple act of holding or bearing the asset makes you its presumed owner. |
| Bitcoin Bitcoin is a digital asset and the world’s oldest first true hard money. It is a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value depending on the needs of its possessor. It does not have a headquarters, a CEO, or a central storage facility making it decentralized. It is scarce and has a finite capped verifiable amount of 21 million coins. |
| DevOps DevOps is a combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that combine software development with information technology operations. These combined practices enable companies to deliver new application features and improved services to customers at a higher velocity. |
| DevSecOps DevSecOps integrates security into DevOps. With DevSecOps, you can deliver secure and compliant application changes rapidly while running operations consistently with automation. |
| Economies of Scale The idea that as a business grows, it can produce its product or services at a lower cost. |
| Hypervisor Software that allows computing resources to be shared as separate instances. The hypervisor treats resources—like CPU, memory, and storage—as a pool that can be easily shared between existing guests or to new virtual machines. |
| Lightning Network The Lightning Network is a second-layer solution for Bitcoin that allows off-chain transactions where any peer on the network can pay any other peer even if they don’t directly have a channel open between each other. Transactions happen faster and are less expensive than on the Bitcoin network/base layer/blockchain. Practical – It is a technology that can be used to send or receive Bitcoin. Similar to how CashApp can send or receive cash. |
| Millisatoshi A Millisatoshi is 1/1000th of a Satoshi and is the smallest denomination of a Satoshi on the Lightning Network only. Millisatoshis do not exist outside of the Lightning Network, nor can they be settled on the Bitcoin network without being rounded down into a Satoshi. |
| Metaverse Practical – A virtual universe/world that exists on the internet or other digital network. |
| Money Consists of three primary properties which are Store of Value, Medium of exchange, and a unit of account. Additional attributes of money are divisibility, durability, portability, recognizability, and scarcity. Practical – A method of exchanging value between people or entities. |
| MVP MVP stands for Minimal Viable Product. A version of the product that offers the most return with the least effort investment. Practical – a version of a product that is limited in functionality but works well enough for customers to evaluate its value. |
| NFT NFT stands for Non-fungible token which means something unique that can’t be replaced with something else. An item that has been minted/hashed/tokenized / uniquely identified on a blockchain is a one-of-a-kind item. Today, popular NFTs are digital art. Practical – a quarter is fungible because if you trade one for another quarter you’ll have exactly the same thing. A Cryptopunk is an NFT of a piece of digital art that is unique because it has been minted on the Etheruem blockchain. |
| On-Chain Generative Art Art that is created partially or completely autonomously and minted on a blockchain. Practical – An application such as photoshop generates a random pattern that is then placed on the Ethereum blockchain. |
| Ponzi Scheme A tiered network marketing system that rewards the few at the top at the risk of the many at the middle and bottom of the system. Practical – A system of followers built on promises made by the builders to make the builders rich at the follower’s expense. |
| Satoshi The smallest denomination of a Bitcoin. There are 100 Million Satoshis in a single Bitcoin. Practical – Satoshis are to Bitcoin what pennies are to one dollar. |
| UTXO Stands for Unspent Transaction Output. Cryptocurrency transactions are made of inputs and outputs (receiving and sending). When you send Bitcoin, someone else is receiving it and vice versa. What remains in your possession following a transaction is a UTXO. Practical – If we used traditional money. You have 1 dollar in your pocket. Your UTXO is 1 dollar. You want a soda that costs .80 cents. You give the vending machine 1 dollar. The machine keeps .80 cents and returns .20 to you. The .20 is now your unspent transaction output. The .80 cents becomes the vending machines UTXO. |
References 1. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5239694.msg54201398#msg54201398 , https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd/blob/master/lnwire/msat.go#L13-L18 2.https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/devops/building-end-to-end-aws-devsecops-ci-cd-pipeline-with-open-source-sca-sast-and-dast-tools/