Peer to Peer (P2P)
The decentralized interactions between parties in a distributed network, partitioning tasks or workloads between peers.
Permissioned Ledger
A ledger designed with restrictions, such that only people or organizations requiring access have permission to access it.
Platform
On CoinMarketCap, platform refers to the parent blockchain of tokens. It may also refer to a cryptocurrency exchange on which you may trade cryptocurrencies.
Ponzi Scheme
A fraudulent investment involving the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors.
Portfolio
A collection of cryptocurrencies or crypto assets held by an investment company, hedge fund, financial institution or individual.
Pre-mine
When some or all of a coin’s initial supply is generated during or before the public launch, rather than being generated over time through mining or inflation. They may be used for legitimate purposes, such as crowdfunding or marketing.
Private Key / Secret Key
A piece of code generated in asymmetric-key encryption process, paired with a public key, to be used in decrypting information hashed with the public key.
Proof-of-Authority (PoA)
A blockchain consensus mechanism that delivers comparatively fast transactions using identity as a stake.
Proof-of-Burn (PoB)
A blockchain consensus mechanism aiming to bootstrap one blockchain to another with increased energy efficiency, by verifying that a cost was incurred in “burning” a coin by sending it to an unspendable address.
Proof-of-Developer (PoD)
Any verification that provides evidence of a real, living software developer who created a cryptocurrency, in order to prevent an anonymous developer from making away with any raised funds without delivering a working model.
Proof-of-Stake (PoS)
A blockchain consensus mechanism involving choosing the creator of the next block via various combinations of random selection and wealth or age of staked coins or tokens.
Proof-of-Work (PoW)
A blockchain consensus mechanism involving solving of computationally intensive puzzles to validate transactions and create new blocks
Protocol
The set of rules that define interactions on a network, usually involving consensus, transaction validation, and network participation on a blockchain.
Public Address
A public address is the cryptographic hash of a public key, allowing the user to use it as an address to request for payment.
Public key
This value does not have to be kept secret because the public key reveals nothing about the private key.
Pump and Dump (P&D) Scheme
A form of securities fraud involving the artificial inflation of the price of a cryptocurrency with false and misleading positive statements in order to sell previously-cheaply purchased stock at a higher price.
P