Cryptocurrency
A digital asset recorded on a blockchain that can be transferred between participants.
Cryptocurrency is like digital money whose ownership is tracked by a shared ledger instead of one bank database.
A customer might pay with cryptocurrency, or a company might hold crypto as a treasury asset.
Crypto introduces new payment, custody, accounting, volatility, tax, and compliance questions.
Treating all cryptocurrencies as the same. Bitcoin, stablecoins, utility tokens, and governance tokens behave differently.
Related Terms
A shared digital ledger where transactions are recorded in linked blocks and verified by a network.
The first major cryptocurrency, designed as a decentralized digital asset and payment network.
A crypto asset designed to track the value of another asset, often the U.S. dollar.