4MP Metaverse Glossary

by | Mar 19, 2022 | 0 comments

A 4M Performance Exclusive Reference Source
This glossary is a continuous work in progress and will be constantly growing as the Web3 and Metaverse evolve. It is a time of great explorations, with many problems to solve, and many opportunities to be achieved. 4MP endeavors to be part of this new frontier in human evolution. 

Airdrops: Crypto projects send free tokens, in mass, to their communities in a bid to encourage adoption of a new project or initiative – they are used as part of a broader marketing scheme. The idea is to send newly minted tokens to hundreds or thousands of different wallet addresses with the hope recipients will be more inclined to engage with a corresponding project. Even if it’s only to learn how to cash out the free tokens into something else.

 Alice: an Ethereum token that powers ‘My Neighbor Alice‘, a blockchain-based multiplayer game that lets players build virtual homes, farms, etc

AMM Model (Automated Market Maker): part of the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem of Web3 which allows digital assets to be traded in a permissionless and automatic way, replacing the legacy financial Order Book Model

ApeCoin: a DAO entity on the Ethereum blockchain used to fund games, events, merch, media. These coins were given as airdrops to Bored Ape Yacht Club original buyers. All new products from Yuga Labs will be sold via ApeCoins.

Attestation: evidence or proof of something

Aza Finance: a fintech offering a full range of financial services primarily to African nations using both fiat and cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin: a digital (virtual) currency that operates free of any central control or oversight by governments or banks. It resides on a peer-to-peer software called a blockchain. BTCs can be bought, sold, and exchanged. Founded as an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust. These are 100 million satoshis (SATS) to one BTC.

BitGo: A digital asset trust company that offers institutional and individual hot wallets. Their wallets are multi-coin (trade-in over 100 coins/tokens). Multi-signature, three-key management removes any single-point-of-failure, and advanced security ensures the security of assets. The largest company in terms of crypto volume trading – over 20% of the total crypto market, at this time.

Blockchain (BC): a system of recording information in a way that makes it impossible (or very, very difficult) to change, hack, or alter. It is a digital ledger of transactions that is duplicated and distributed across a network of computer systems (nodes) running the same computer program which authenticates each transaction. Once placed on the chain there is no way to alter, delete, or destroy the data. 

Blockchain Consortia: Companies that join forces to develop and work on BC solutions. Used to make the development of the use of BC more relevant and valuable. To date, these consortia have had mixed results.

Blockchain Bridge: Allows users to move crypto or NFTs from one blockchain to another.

CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency): tokens, like cryptocurrencies, to be issued and used by Central Banks that are pegged to the value of that country’s fiat currency. The goal of CBDCs is to provide businesses and consumers with privacy and convenience while decreasing the complexities of the current financial systems, reducing costs, and increasing speed.

In the U.S., the Federal Reserve is undertaking a study, to be issued by the Boston branch of the Fed in conjunction with MIT, which will model what a U.S. CBDC would look like. The Fed has already stated that it would need Congressional authorization to proceed with the implementation of a CBDC.

CeFi: Before DeFi emerged, all crypto platforms operated under a centralized finance model. Meaning one single entity was in charge of operating the platform. Using CeFi apps the borrower pays interest in crypto. Whichever platform you are using will handle all payments and match borrowers and lenders. Leading CeFi platforms are BlockFi, Nexo, and Ledn. Drawback: You must have complete faith in the third party with your coins so you will need to complete a KYC (know-your-customers) process.

Chain Analysis: a comprehensive crypto investigation and transaction monitoring service via blockchain analysis.

Checkpointing: a technique that provides fault tolerance for computing systems.

Claimed Stake: when crypto holders lock up their coins in a wallet to engage in the validation of transactions on a BC. Doing so the ‘stakeholder’ receives rewards in return. You stake your coins and at times you are chosen to validate the next block. Staked coins earn staking rewards but you can not sell or trade those coins during the time they are ‘staked’.

Coin Swap (using BC Bridge): Used when lending or staking cryptos/tokens to get rewards in the form of transaction fees or (yield farming) internet.

How It Works:

  • Deposit BTC to a network (BC Bridge) that supports BTC. You would use a ptoken app for this.
  • You then receive pBTC which can be swapped for WBTC (wrapped BTC).
  • WBTC can now be swapped for ETH. For example ETH into Solana crypto
  • Lock ETH in a smart contract (a contract where terms are executed as code running on a BC) on the ETH BC. Then using a BC Bridge, mint an equivalent amount of wrapped ETH ( a coin/token whose value is tied to the underlying crypto).

Cosmos SDK: an open-source framework for building multi-asset public Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchains. Generally referred to as application-specific blockchains.

Create (Mint) an NFT: upload jpeg image to, for example, OpenSea, you’ll need to pay a gas fee and transaction fee. 

NFTs as Art

Crickets: slang, when you advertise online and you get no engagements or traction.

Crypto IRAs: a self-directed IRA which holds digital assets. The IRA provider, for example, iTrustCapital, AltoIRA, Bitcoin IRA, will work with one or more crypto-exchanges, ie. Coinbase in a trustee-2-trustee transfer. The IRS permits unlimited T-2-T transfers. Today only solo 401Ks and SEP-IRAs can be set up to hold cryptocurrencies.

Cryptojacking: a cyberattack (using parasite malware) in which a hacker co-opts the computing power of a target to illicitly mine cryptocurrency. The malware most often used is called, Coinhive. Jacking only works with proof-of-work blockchains and Monero is the coin most often mined by hackers.

Crypto Slam: a website that lists many NFT collections and their statistics.

Crypto-Vigilantes: Ethical hackers that seek out and reveal illegal hackers and scammers in an effort to retrieve monies and not necessarily to jail or prosecute. It is conducted to impede and punish monetarily and deter others from committing phishing, ransomware, or other hacking schemes.

DApps: Decentralized applications that operate on a BC network of computers

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs): organizations that allow people to pool resources to reach a common goal, share in its creations, and reap the benefits. DAOs run on blockchain networks, organize with tokens, and their rules are encoded in a smart contract. They exhibit a flat organizational structure.

Decentralized Financial Sites: DeFi Saver, Curve, Aave, Toaken Sets, Yearn.

Decentralized Identities: based on a trust framework for identity management, it allows the user to generate and control their own digital identity without depending on a specific service provider. D-IDs can be stored in a digital wallet called an ‘identity wallet’ which the user can present proof of their identity or revoke access to any third party they choose. 

DeFi Lending: an alternative to CeFi lending, DeFi lending allows crypto holders to earn interest by lending their cryptos to others via decentralized lending pools. On lending apps (decentralized apps) smart contracts match lenders and borrowers without the need for credit checks, and collateral is posted to reduce default risk. Drawback: Prone to hacking, so stick with a reputable and established DeFi lender.

DEXs (decentralized digital exchanges): used for trading and swapping, ie. Uniswap, 1Inch, Paraswap, Solana Orce, Polygon, Ethereum etc.

Discord: a free voice, video, text app that is used by minions (NFT communicators) on a 24/7/365 basis. Buyers/sellers visit discords to get information on NFTs. They normally are free of charge. Many are invite-only and are topic-based channels. Somewhere to ‘hang out’.  They can be voice-connected. and currently have 350 million daily users. Keep your Discord exciting, relevant, timely, and with good rules of conduct.

Doxing: publishing personal details online so as to inflict social punishment against another (the target).

e-CNY: China’s digital currency. Not a cryptocurrency (which are banned in China), e-CNYs are issued by the Peoples Bank of China as a means to serve as a digital version of the yuan. Still in the pilot program stage, as of this writing, an e-CNY wallet can be downloaded through a mobile app via an exchange of Yuan into e-CNY.

EIP-1559 (Ethereum Improvement Protocol): sets a ‘base fee” for gas, which is based upon the size of the block. For example”: if a block is 100% full the base fee increases 12.5%, if it is 50% full the base fee will be the same if it is 0% full the base fee would decrease by 12.5%.

Empire DAO: a we-work type facility for working on crypto blockchain network build-outs.

Emrit: a distribution blockchain infrastructure company. Emrit offers crypto mining to retail and business clients. Clients pay a one-time fee of $199 and receive 50% of earnings, which are deposited into their wallets monthly. Emrit has a collaboration with PlanetWatch, a global air-quality monitoring system using blockchain and IoT (traditional internet). Emrit funded the deployment of thousands of air quality monitors to be hosted by Emrit hotspots. This allows PlanetWatch to save climate data on the blockchain increasing transparency and security.

Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM): is a software platform that developers can use to create decentralized applications on the Ethereum blockchain.

Flipppening: an event where a smaller, less-valuable token overtakes a larger rival

FOMO: slang for ‘Fear of Missing Out’

Friends With Benefits: a DAO comprised of NFT creators, designers, developers, and collectors.

FUD: slang for ‘Fear – Uncertainty – Doubt’. Used in marketing and PR to sell ‘stuff’

Gas: transaction fee paid to the nodes as a service charge for use of the blockchain. They are determined by how full a block is – > 50% utilization gas is more, block < 50% utilized gas is lower. Gas has Base Fees, Priority Fees, and Max Fees.

Gas Fee Structure:

  • Base Fee: the minimum gas required for a transaction to be completed in a block.
  • Priority Fee (aka Miners’ Tip): added gas that can be edited by the user, it represents part of the transaction fee (base fee) that goes to the miner for the running of the blockchain.
  • Max Fee: The max amount a user is willing to pay for their transaction

Gas Limit: Max amount of gas in a given transaction.

G-money: an electronic money transfer using mobile technology.

Greenwashing: a fraud meant to conceal corporate environmental misconduct.

Gwei: the smallest unit of an Ethereum coin (1 billionth of an ETH). Used for gas fees or payments made by users to compensate for computing energy required to process and validate transactions on the ETH BC.

Hard Fork: when the protocol of a blockchain is radically changed resulting in two branches. Holders of tokens in the original BC will be granted tokens in the new fork. With a hard fork, both versions of the BC remain. Under a ‘soft fork,‘ only one BC (the new one) remains valid. Any profits made due to a ‘fork’ are treated by the IRS as ordinary income.

Helium Network: a crypto-powered distributed network of long-range wireless hotspots. A Helium hotspot is a small device that plugs into a regular electrical outlet, taps into an existing internet service, and extends that WiFi service for miles. It provides connections for local devices and acts as a node on the network. Hotspot owners are rewarded in cryptos (HNT tokens) for operating the hotspot.

HODL: slang (pronounced ‘Hoddle’) meaning to buy and hold for the long-term no matter what happens.

IP: internet protocol or a set of rules governing the format of data sent via the internet or local network. 

Jump Crypto: an adjunct entity to Jump Trading a firm with a focus on high-frequency trading of futures, options, cryptocurrencies, and equities.

K-Culture: Korean culture as it relates to the Metaverse. K-Culture and K-POP (pop culture) is very prominent in the Metaverse.

Key Stretching: used to make a weak key (password) more secure against attack by increasing the resources (time and space) it takes to test each possible key.

Layer1 – Layer2 – Layer3 Blockchains

Layer1 blockchain is a set of solutions that improve the base protocol itself to make the overall system more scalable. Layer1 chains tackle the scalability problem as blockchains space expands at its rapid rate – often referred to as the “scalability trilemma”: security, scalability, and decentralization.

Layer1 blockchains have three approaches to implementation: Proof-of-Work (PoW), Proof-of-Stake (PoS), and Sharding. Examples of Layer1 blockchains include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance, Litecoin, etc. Bitcoin is the most impacted by scalability issues, as the network relies on the increase in the number of miners to ensure higher transactions throughput and volumes. To achieve this scalability issue networks use various methodologies. 

Layer2 blockchain is used in a combination of on-chain and off-chain processing elements to enhance their functional capabilities. These are built on top of Layer 1 and solve the speed and cost inefficiencies of the Layer1 networks.

Layer3 refers to the protocols that enable DApps on the blockchain, such as decentralized finance (lDeFi) apps, games, or distributed storage apps. Many Layer3s have cross-chain functionality, helping users access various blockchain platforms via a single app.

Summary: Blockchain platforms may have three distinct layers. Layer1 – the actual underlying blockchain. Layer2 – protocols built on top of Layer1 networks that extend the functionality of the underlying blockchain (L1) with faster speed and lower transaction costs. Layer2 can be a combination of on-chain and off-chain operations to offer their extended functionalities. Layer3 refers to the protocols that enable DApps on the blockchain.

Lighting Network: provides instant payments via blockchain smart contracts between two parties.

Magic Eden: Solana-based NFT marketplace built as an alternative to Ethereum. NFT series include: Stoner Cats and Gimmicks.

Market Information Sites: CoinDesk (BTC news), CoinGecko (crypto prices and market caps), DeCrypt (news about BTC, Web3), DeFiPause (analytics for DeFi), Popula (news about ETH), CoinStat (pricing and trading volume on coins – realtime. There are many, many others.

MetaMask: crypto wallet and gateway to blockchain apps. Available as a browser extension or mobile app. Provides key wallet, secure login, token wallet, and token exchange. ETH based. Buy, sell, swap store, access tokens.

Wallets allow you to trade in different cryptocurrencies

Metaverse: virtual worlds which will infiltrate and change every sector of the economy and in ways unimaginable – it will change how we all live, work, play, and communicate. There will be many Metaverses. Instead of going to a website, one would enter a metaverse of that business’s operation.

MetaMetaverse: a play-to-earn game where you can explore and build metaverses – earning in-game currency as you develop your metaverse.

Matria: an underdevelopment network that is chain-agnostic. It supposedly will be able to solve issues of scalability and interoperability – and the seamless transfer of digital assets across chains. 

MemeCoin: Dogecoin is the original memecoin, it is a cryptocurrency based on a meme that was popular when it was minted.

MiDAO: a company that assists in the incorporation of DAOs. Set up in the Marshall Islands (the first country to recognize the registration of DAOs as legal entities) MiDAO sets up LLCs for those wishing to incorporate their businesses.

Middleware: software that acts as a bridge between an operating system or database and apps, especially on a network like a blockchain.

MOON: slang, when crypto is experiencing strong upward momentum.

NFT (non-fungible tokens): an NFT is a unique digital asset.

  • They place the power of ownership and sale into the hands of the creators and purchasers.
  • They can be human and program generated
  • They can have built-in utility with incentives and perks
  • Represent a very collaborative and community-centric device
  • The way to buy and sell objects in the Metaverse. 
  • Provide freedom for creators, artists, musicians as they exclude middleman

NFT Collectable sites: marketplaces where NFTs are bought and sold and provide the complete history of all tokens. Examples are OpenSea, Blockchain Cuties, Clovers Network, CryptoKittens, Mintbase, Super Rare, Raribles.

NFT Ticketing: event organizer mints the required number of NFT tickets on a blockchain platform. They set a sale price or run an auction and take bids for the NFTs. Buyers keep the ticket in their digital wallers until going to the event (or they can resell the NFT).

  • There are no fake tickets, they are unforgeable.
  • Lower cost to event coordinator
  • NFT tickets can be minted and sold in less than a minute
  • Performers can go directly to users
  • Ticket holders can receive additional perks and incentives
  • An event organizer can earn a royalty every time the NFT ticket is resold.

NFT Value: every NFT minted can have both asset value (what is the NFT worth in dollar value) and a utility value (what benefits are assigned to that NFT, ie. airdrops, exclusive perks, etc).

NSFW: slang for ‘Not Safe To Work’

On-chain Transactions: transactions that occur on a blockchain that is reflected on the distributed, public ledger. They are validated/authenticated and update the blockchain network.

OpenSea: Amazona and eBay rolled into one. Used to purchase/sell NFTs. You will need to link your OpenSea account to a MetaMask (or another wallet account provider).

Order Book Model: in securities trading, an order book is a list of buy/sell orders which is a means of identifying the trader, number of securities, and price. In Web3 this model is replaced with the Automated Market Maker (AMM) model.

Public Address (public key): your crypto account identifier (think a bank account number).

Pump and Dump: to artificially inflate the price of an asset and then cash out before its price drops

Pre-selling: a practice performed by a crypto project ahead of an initial coin offering, in which tokens are sold to interested parties at a certain price. Cryptocurrency crowd sales are legal in the U.S. – but they are fraught with risk.

Proof-of-Work (PoW): aims to achieve both consensus protocol and security by using miners to decode complex cryptographic algorithms – however PoW is slow and resource-intensive. What the BTC blockchain is based upon.

Proof-of-Stake (PoS): a mechanism that features a distributed consensus over the blockchain network. PoS wins over PoW in terms of transaction speed but loses in terms of security. For example, the Ethereum blockchain is transitioning from PoW to PoS through ‘Ehtereum 2.0’, which is a collective term for a set of upgrades necessary to make the ETH blockchain more scalable and sustainable.

ReCaptcha: a technology that seeks to distinguish human users from bots by requesting them to check a box or solve a puzzle to prove you are not a bot.

REKT: slang for ‘to lose badly’.

REN: a catalog exchange designed to be a secure DEX cross-chain that allows users to swap assets across popular networks at a minimal cost.  Allows cryptos to be held in an account without needing to stake or participate in liquidity pools. Additionally, it offers users the ability to link a bank account for easy deposits and withdrawals.

Rug Pulls: an exit scam or DeFi exploit whereby a fraudulent developer of cryptos or NFTs pumps up the price of these assets and then pulls out as much value as possible before abandoning them as the price drops to zero. 

Sandwich Trade: a programmed bot-initiated crypto trade that places a buy trade on a coin which pushes the price up fractionally and then instantaneously sells the coin at the fractionally higher price to the person who had originally wanted to purchase the coin. This trade places the original trader (buyer) in a sandwich.

Satoshi Nakamoto: the name of a fictitious person who developed the bitcoin and blockchain technology to affect its use. Each bitcoin is composed of 100 million satoshis. 

Scrutiny Ratcheting: collecting more and more private data on people at lower and lower value points. 

Secret NFT: allows creators to choose who has access to their content. An artist can make a watermark or thumbnail version of the image but the full resolution of the image is private and must be purchased to be viewed.

Sharding: an experimental approach to blockchain space that involves the breaking up of a network into a series of separate database blocks – known as ‘shards’. This makes the blockchain more manageable. It eases the requirements for all nodes to process transactions in order to maintain the network by allowing for greater capacities to be freed up for other processes.

Slippage: the difference between the expected price of a trade and the price at which the trade is executed. Occurs when there is high volatility and orders are placed ‘at market’.

Smart Contract: a contract that is self-executing with the terms of the agreement between buyer and seller being directly written into lines of code. The code and the agreements detailed in the contract exist across a distributed, decentralized BC network, The code controls the execution, and transactions are trackable and irreversible. Smart contracts permit trusted transactions and agreements to be carried out among disparate, anonymous parties without the need for a central authority, legal system, or external enforcement mechanism.

  • Smart contracts are self-executing with the terms of the agreement between buyers and sellers being directly written into lines of code
  • Smart contracts render transactions traceable, transparent, and irreversible.

Social Club & Communities: have member contribution rails centered around NFTs which allow members to participate in the Club, Restaurant, etc. Members can exit by selling their NFT. They can also rent it, lease it, give it to others to use.

Solana Orca: a DEX (decentralized exchange) that currently is the best performing blockchain. Currently, the best performing blockchains are Solana, Polygon, Avalanche, Cilo, and then Ethereum.

Species: money in the form of coin vs. notes.

Stable Coins: cryptocurrencies that are pegged to the U.S.$ (or other external references) to keep the value steady and minimize fluctuations. Stable coins are backed by assets – such as gold or cash. These cryptos offer traders a way to enter and exit positions in more volatile cryptos as they work as a store of value.

Investing in stable coins is a great way for investors, with moderate risk appetites, to profit from the surge in the crypto market’s growth, without the volatility risks associated with typical cryptocurrencies. Stable coins, like USDT and USDC, constantly maintain their value at one U.S. $, as opposed to more volatile moves by Bitcoin or Ethereum.

  • USDC: are stable cryptos that can be issued and redeemed by member institutions. It is pegged at 1:1 to the U.S. $. All USDC tokens are backed by assets or U.S. $s.
  • USDT: also referred to as Tither, is a widely recognized stable coin that is pegged 1:1 to the U.S.$. A USDT can be transferred, spent, and traded just like any other cryptocurrency.

Staking NFTs (NFT Farming): earning yield by staking non-fungible tokens. Any number of Dapps allow you to stake NFTs and receive stake rewards in the form of protocol tokens. The difference between staking NFTs and yield framing is that yield framing requires you to deposit assets into a liquidity pool and get token rewards.

Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs

Tezos: an open-source proof-of-stake blockchain governed by token holders. Run as a DAO community, decisions must be ratified by 85% of token holders. It is harder to coordinate but everyone participates.

Third-party Doctrine: If a person provides personal information to a 3rd party (telephone carrier, social media network, bank, etc.)  the government can obtain that information without a warrant.

Tokenization: the process of conveying rights and benefits to a digital asset that goes on the blockchain.

Unicorn Status: when a privately funded startup is valued at $1 billion or more upon inception.

USDT: crypto that is pegged to the US$ (1:1) and backed by actual assets. It resides on the Tither platform

Vampire Attack: when a DeFi platform entices users (and liquidity) away from a competing platform by offering an incentive for switching to its platform. The incentive is viewed as a ‘user acquisition cost’.

Vitalik Buterin: the founder of the Ethereum blockchains.

Wash Sale: when an investor seeks to maximize tax benefits by selling a losing asset to take a tax loss and then repurchasing the same asset. Under the IRS ‘wash rule’, the repurchase cannot be made before 30 days of the sale or it will be considered ordinary income on any profit made.

WGMI: slang for ‘ We’re gonna make it’

Whale: slang, for a big holder of cryptos or NFTs who have the potential to move a market.

Yield Farms: when a crypto holder ‘stakes’ some or all of their digital assets in a lending or DeFi trading pool and in return receives pool tokens that can be staked in a yield farm to earn further yield besides the liquidity pool fees. Popular yield farms are Sovryn, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, and Yearn.

Yuga Labs: creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club series of NFTs. They also run a virtual club that requires the original BAYC NFT for membership.

Zero-day: the number of days since a new piece of software was released and obtained by hacking into the developer’s computer before release. It is the term applied to the vulnerabilities that allow the hacking and to the days that the victim has to ‘fix’ it.

Zero-Knowledge Proof: in cryptography, a ZKP is a method by which one party (the prover) can prove to another (the verifier) that a given statement is true while the prover avoids conveying any additional information apart from the fact that the statement is indeed true. Proving that you know or possess something to someone without actually revealing it – it remains private. Used in Web3 to protect data privacy. The transparency of public blockchain data enables public verification of transactions.  However, it also implies that a private key exists. ZKP is a way of authentication where no passwords are exchanged. No (zero) information about the secret is revealed to another party.

 

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By Jim Lavorato

Jim Lavorato is the founder of 4M Performance which is designed to assist businesses to survive and thrive in these uncertain times. Jim launched an entertainment-related company in 1988. He was at the forefront in cinema technology and helped spearhead the movie industry's transition to digital presentation and distribution. He also co-founded the Arboreal Group, an environmental consultancy. He has published articles on the motion picture and media industries and is a contributing editor for ScreenTrade magazine and writes a blog "Cinema Mucho Gusto". He is a certified SCORE Mentor in the SCORE Greater Phoenix Chapter and lives in Scottsdale, AZ. Learn more about Jim in his "About" page.

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