A price table can contain more unfamiliar words than numbers. Here are common terms grouped by topic. Knowing them makes it easier to understand what you are comparing on an exchange or CoinMadang.
Terms that identify an asset
- Coin: Usually a cryptocurrency that serves as the native asset of its own blockchain, such as BTC on Bitcoin or ETH on Ethereum.
- Token: An asset issued on an existing blockchain. Tokens with the same name may be different assets if their networks or contract addresses differ.
- Ticker: A short symbol such as BTC or ETH. It is a label, not a unique identifier that prevents duplicates.
- Contract address: An address identifying a program, such as a token contract. It is a more precise check than a name or logo.
- Trading pair: Indicates which assets are exchanged, such as BTC/KRW. In this example, Bitcoin's price is quoted in Korean won.
Terms for price and market size
- Market capitalization: Usually the current price multiplied by circulating supply. It does not mean that this amount of cash has flowed into the asset.
- Circulating supply: The quantity counted as circulating in the market. Data providers may use different exclusion rules.
- Total supply: The issued quantity after accounting for burns and similar adjustments.
- Maximum supply: The maximum quantity that can be issued. Some assets have no fixed cap.
- Trading volume: The quantity of an asset actually traded over a specified period.
- Traded value (turnover): The sum of each trade's quantity multiplied by its execution price. A screen may label either quantity or monetary value as “volume”, so check both the period, such as 24 hours, and the displayed unit.
Terms you will see when trading
- Bid or ask: A proposed buying or selling price, distinct from the last executed price.
- Execution: A trade taking place when buying and selling conditions match.
- Spread: The difference between the highest bid and the lowest ask.
- Liquidity: How readily a desired quantity can be traded without moving the price substantially.
- Gas fee: A network charge for processing an operation on a blockchain. It differs from an exchange's trading fee.
For example, an imaginary token priced at ₩100 with 100 million tokens circulating has a market cap of ₩10 billion. A lower per-token price than another coin priced at ₩10,000 does not necessarily mean a smaller overall market size. Start by reading price, supply and trading volume separately.
Comments 0
Sign in with Google · Share a respectful, relevant opinion.