Crypto swap glossary
Plain-English definitions for the terms that decide what a swap costs, how private it is, and when someone will ask for your ID. Every entry has its own link, so guides and support answers can point at an exact definition.
49 terms ·
Start here: the basics
The words everything else is built from. If you have never made a crypto transaction, read this section first.
- BlockchainAlso known as: chain, network
- A shared public ledger that thousands of independent computers keep identical copies of. Because no single company owns it, a transaction cannot be edited or reversed once it has been recorded — which is why accuracy matters more here than on a bank transfer.
- Coin vs token
- A coin is the native asset of its own chain (BTC on Bitcoin, ETH on Ethereum, SOL on Solana). A token is issued on top of somebody else's chain, so it needs that chain's coin to pay transfer fees — you cannot move USDT on Ethereum without holding a little ETH.Read more: All supported assets
- Ticker symbolAlso known as: symbol
- The short code an asset trades under, such as BTC or XMR. Tickers are not unique or protected: several unrelated projects can share one, so confirm the full asset name and the chain before sending anything.
- Private key
- The secret number that authorises spending from an address. Whoever holds it owns the funds, permanently and without appeal. Everything called "wallet security" is really about keeping this one value out of other people's hands.Read more: Crypto wallets explained
- Public addressAlso known as: receiving address
- The string of characters you give someone so they can pay you — safe to share, useless for spending. Always copy and paste it rather than typing it, and check the first and last few characters after pasting.
- Stablecoin
- A token designed to hold a steady value, usually one US dollar, by being backed with reserves or collateral. Useful as a resting place between trades, but the backing is only as good as the issuer behind it — a stablecoin is a promise, not a law of nature.
- Volatility
- How sharply a price moves over short periods. High volatility is why a quote expires in minutes, why a fixed-rate swap costs slightly more, and why the amount you see at the start of a trade can differ from the amount that lands.
- Market capitalisationAlso known as: market cap
- Price multiplied by the number of units in circulation, used as a rough measure of an asset's size. It says nothing about how much can actually be sold at that price — a small-cap asset can move several percent on a single ordinary trade.Read more: Compare assets
- Liquidity
- How much of an asset can be bought or sold without shifting its price. Deep liquidity gives tight quotes and reliable swaps; thin liquidity is why an obscure token can look cheap on a chart and expensive at checkout.
- CEX vs DEXAlso known as: centralised exchange, decentralised exchange
- A centralised exchange holds your funds in its own accounts and verifies who you are; a decentralised exchange runs as code on a chain and trades directly from your wallet. An instant-swap aggregator sits beside both: no account balance, no identity check on crypto-to-crypto routes, and one address in, one address out.Read more: Exchange comparison
- On-ramp / off-rampAlso known as: fiat ramp
- The bridge between ordinary money and crypto: an on-ramp turns dollars or euros into an asset, an off-ramp turns it back. Ramps involve banks and card networks, which is where identity verification legally attaches.Read more: Fiat to crypto
- Block explorer
- A public website that shows every transaction on a chain. Paste a transaction ID into one and you can see for yourself whether a payment was broadcast, how many confirmations it has, and exactly where it went — no support ticket required.
- Transaction IDAlso known as: TXID, transaction hash
- The unique fingerprint of a transaction, generated the moment it is broadcast. It is the single most useful thing to keep from any swap: with it, anyone can verify what happened without trusting either party's account of it.
- Wrapped token
- A token that represents an asset from another chain, such as WBTC standing in for bitcoin on Ethereum. It tracks the original's price but depends on whoever holds the real asset, so it carries a risk the original does not.
- Bridge
- A service that moves value between two chains by locking an asset on one side and issuing a claim on the other. Bridges have been the single most exploited part of crypto; a swap that settles natively on the destination chain avoids the problem entirely.
- Phishing
- A fake site, message or "support agent" built to collect your seed phrase or trick you into approving a transaction. The two habits that defeat almost all of it: never enter a recovery phrase anywhere, and reach services by a bookmark rather than a search ad.Read more: Wallet setup without KYC
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.Read more: How to swap crypto
- Swap aggregatorAlso known as: 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.Read more: Best crypto exchange comparison
- Liquidity providerAlso known as: 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.Read more: No-KYC exchanges compared
- Fixed rateAlso known as: 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 rateAlso known as: 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 addressAlso known as: 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 mismatchAlso known as: 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.Read more: 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 rateAlso known as: 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 feeAlso known as: 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-KYCAlso known as: 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.Read more: 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.Read more: 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 analysisAlso known as: 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.Read more: 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.Read more: 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.
- KYCAlso known as: 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.Read more: What is KYC in crypto?
- AMLAlso known as: 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.Read more: No-KYC exchange in the USA
- VASPAlso known as: 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-custodyAlso known as: 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.Read more: No-KYC crypto wallets
- Seed phraseAlso known as: 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.Read more: 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.
Put the terms to work
Compare live quotes across providers and see the spread, network fee and effective rate before you commit to anything.
Get a live quoteLearn more
- Non-custodial crypto exchange (2026)What a non-custodial crypto exchange is, how it differs from a custodial exchange and a DEX, and the strongest options in 2026.
- How to swap BTC to XMRConvert Bitcoin to Monero privately — no account, no KYC, with wallet tips, providers, fees and privacy best practices.
- Monero vs Zcash (XMR vs ZEC)Privacy coin comparison for swapping — RingCT vs zk-SNARKs, shielded adoption, speed, fees and exchange availability.
Compare exchanges
- Best crypto exchange (2026)How the major no-account swap venues stack up on rates, fees, coverage and custody.
- Monivo vs ChangellyAggregated best-of-N quotes versus a single-provider exchange — rates, KYC and coverage.
- Monivo vs ChangeNOWSide-by-side on pricing transparency, privacy-coin support and account requirements.