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Glossaire des échanges crypto

Des définitions claires des termes qui déterminent le coût d'un échange, son niveau de confidentialité et le moment où une pièce d'identité vous sera demandée. Chaque entrée possède son propre lien, afin que les guides et les réponses du support puissent pointer vers une définition précise.

33 termes ·

Swapping & routing

How an instant swap is quoted, routed and settled.

Instant swap
A one-step exchange where you send asset A to a deposit address and asset B is delivered to your own wallet, with no account balance in between. There is no order book and no withdrawal step — the trade and the payout are the same operation.En savoir plus : How to swap crypto
Swap aggregatorÉgalement appelé: exchange aggregator
A service that requests quotes from many liquidity providers for the same pair and routes your trade through whichever one returns the best executable output. The aggregator itself does not hold inventory; it compares and forwards.En savoir plus : Best crypto exchange comparison
Liquidity providerÉgalement appelé: provider, venue
The exchange or market maker that actually fills your swap and sends the destination asset. Providers differ by asset coverage, minimums, refund policy and whether they ever ask for identity documents.En savoir plus : No-KYC exchanges compared
Fixed rateÉgalement appelé: locked rate
A quote where the output amount is locked at quote time for a short window (typically a few minutes). You are protected from price movement while your deposit confirms, and you pay for that protection through a slightly wider spread.
Floating rateÉgalement appelé: estimated rate, variable rate
A quote that settles at the market rate when your deposit confirms rather than when you clicked. Usually returns a better output than a fixed rate, but the final amount can move up or down with the market.
Deposit addressÉgalement appelé: payin address
The one-time address generated for your specific swap. It is tied to that order only — sending a second payment to the same address, or sending the wrong asset, requires manual recovery by the provider.
Memo / destination tag
An extra identifier required by chains such as XRP, XLM, TON, ATOM and EOS. Omitting it on a deposit or payout address means the funds land at the right address but cannot be credited to the right account without support intervention.
Confirmation
A block that includes your transaction. Providers require a chain-specific number of confirmations before releasing the payout — one for fast chains, several for Bitcoin — which is why swap times differ by asset rather than by service.
Network mismatchÉgalement appelé: wrong chain
Sending or receiving an asset on a different chain than the one the order was created for — for example USDC on Ethereum when the order was for USDC on Optimism. Funds are usually recoverable only if the receiving party controls the address on both chains.En savoir plus : USDT TRC-20 to ERC-20
Refund address
The address a provider returns funds to when a swap cannot complete — an amount below the minimum, an expired rate, or a failed compliance check. Supplying one at order time is the difference between an automatic refund and a support ticket.

Rates & fees

What you actually pay, and which part of it goes where.

Spread
The gap between the mid-market price and the rate you are quoted. On instant swap services the spread — not a visible commission — is where most of the cost lives, which is why comparing quoted output beats comparing advertised fee percentages.
Effective rateÉgalement appelé: net rate
The rate implied by what actually lands in your wallet, after spread, provider fee and payout network fee. It is the only number worth comparing across services.
Network feeÉgalement appelé: gas, miner fee
The fee paid to the blockchain itself, set by the chain and its congestion rather than by any exchange. You pay it on the deposit you send; the provider pays it on the payout it delivers.
Slippage
The difference between the expected and executed price, caused by the market moving or by an order being large relative to available depth. On floating-rate swaps it shows up as an output that differs from the estimate.
Minimum amount
The smallest deposit a provider will accept for a pair, set so the payout network fee does not consume the trade. Minimums are per-provider, so an aggregator's floor is the lowest minimum among providers that support the route.

Privacy

Terms that decide how traceable a transaction is.

No-KYCÉgalement appelé: KYC-free, no verification
A service that completes a crypto-to-crypto trade without collecting identity documents or requiring an account. It does not mean no compliance: providers still run blockchain analytics and may hold flagged funds pending review.En savoir plus : No-KYC crypto exchange
Anonymous swap
A swap performed without an account, email address or ID. It is pseudonymous rather than anonymous: the on-chain trail still links the deposit and payout addresses unless you take further steps.En savoir plus : Anonymous crypto swap
Pseudonymity
The property of most blockchains: addresses are not names, but every transaction between them is public and permanent. Once one address is tied to an identity, its history is tied to it too.
Chain analysisÉgalement appelé: blockchain analytics
Clustering and attribution of on-chain activity by firms that sell risk scores to exchanges. It is what causes a deposit of previously mixed or sanctioned funds to be frozen even at a service that never asked for your ID.
Ring signature
The Monero mechanism that hides which of several possible inputs actually funded a transaction, making the sender ambiguous by construction rather than by obfuscation.En savoir plus : Monero vs Zcash
Stealth address
A one-time destination address derived for each payment so that a published receiving address cannot be used to link payments together on-chain. Used by Monero for every output.
View key
A Monero key that lets a third party see incoming transactions to a wallet without being able to spend from it. Useful for proving a payment to an accountant or support agent without surrendering control.En savoir plus : Best Monero wallets
Address reuse
Receiving multiple payments to the same address, which merges otherwise-unrelated activity into one public history. Using a fresh receiving address per swap is the cheapest privacy improvement available.

KYC & compliance

The rules that trigger identity checks, and when they apply.

KYCÉgalement appelé: Know Your Customer
The identity-verification process a regulated financial service must run before providing certain services: name, address, government ID and often a selfie. In crypto it is legally attached to fiat rails and custody, not to every trade.En savoir plus : What is KYC in crypto?
AMLÉgalement appelé: Anti-Money Laundering
The set of controls a service applies to detect and stop illicit funds — transaction screening, risk scoring and reporting. AML screening can apply to a swap even where KYC does not.
Travel Rule
The FATF requirement that regulated crypto businesses pass originator and beneficiary details alongside transfers above a threshold. It applies between regulated intermediaries, which is why sending to your own self-custody wallet behaves differently from sending to an exchange account.En savoir plus : No-KYC exchange in the USA
VASPÉgalement appelé: Virtual Asset Service Provider
The regulatory label for a business that exchanges, transfers or custodies crypto on behalf of others. Whether a non-custodial routing service qualifies varies by jurisdiction and is actively contested.
Sanctions screening
Checking an address against sanctioned-entity lists before accepting or releasing funds. Every credible provider does it, including ones that never ask for identity documents.

Wallets & custody

Where your keys live and what that means for a swap.

Self-custodyÉgalement appelé: non-custodial
Holding the private keys to your own funds, so no service can freeze, lend or lose them. A non-custodial swap never takes possession of a balance: assets pass through the provider and settle to your address.En savoir plus : No-KYC crypto wallets
Seed phraseÉgalement appelé: recovery phrase
The 12 or 24 words that derive every key in a wallet. Anyone with the phrase controls the funds; no legitimate exchange, wallet or support agent ever needs it.En savoir plus : Wallet setup without KYC
Hardware wallet
A dedicated device that signs transactions offline so keys never touch an internet-connected computer. It works as a swap destination like any other address — the swap service only ever sees the public address.
Custodial exchange
A platform that holds your assets in its own wallets against an account balance. Custody is what triggers the heaviest regulation, and therefore mandatory identity verification.
Watch-only wallet
A wallet loaded with a public key or address so it can display balances and incoming payments without holding spending keys. Handy for monitoring a swap payout on a device you don't fully trust.

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