Glossary Terms Starting with C

Centralization Risk

Centralization risk is the exposure created when critical authority, infrastructure, data, liquidity, or decision-making depends on too few parties. A score for…

Centralized Exchange (CEX)

A centralized exchange is an operator-managed platform that matches or intermediates digital-asset trades and commonly controls customer accounts and custody. For reliable…

Centralized Stablecoin

A centralized stablecoin is a token intended to maintain a stable value through an identifiable issuer or administrator that manages reserves, minting,…

Centralized Treasury

A centralized treasury is a treasury model in which liquidity, funding decisions, risk management, and financial controls are coordinated by one central…

CEO Fraud

CEO Fraud is a form of business email compromise or impersonation in which an attacker poses as a senior executive to pressure…

Certificate Authentication

Certificate Authentication is an authentication method that verifies a client, server, device, or workload through possession of a private key associated with…

Certificate Management

Certificate Management is the lifecycle control of digital certificates and their associated keys from request and issuance through deployment, monitoring, renewal, revocation,…

Certificate Pinning

Certificate Pinning is a client security technique that restricts a connection to an expected certificate or public key instead of trusting any…

Chain

A chain is an ordered, consensus-accepted sequence of blocks or states representing a blockchain network's canonical transaction history. Nodes can temporarily observe…

Chain Halt

A chain halt is a period when a blockchain stops finalizing or producing valid new blocks, preventing normal transaction settlement. Causes include…

Chain Head

The chain head is the latest block a node currently considers canonical under its fork-choice rule, though it may not be finalized.…

Chain Hopping

Chain Hopping is the movement of virtual assets across different blockchains, often through bridges, swaps, exchanges, or intermediary assets. It is used…

Chain ID

A chain ID is a network-specific identifier used to distinguish blockchain environments and prevent transactions from being valid on unintended chains. The…

Chain Indexing

Chain indexing transforms raw blockchain blocks, transactions, logs, and state into searchable records optimized for application queries and monitoring. Indexed data is…

Chain Recovery

Chain recovery is the coordinated process of restoring valid blockchain progress after a halt, corruption, exploit, or severe consensus failure. Recovery can…

Chain Reorganization

A chain reorganization replaces one previously accepted block branch with another, potentially removing or reordering transactions near the chain head. Short reorganizations…

Chain Rollback

A chain rollback moves accepted ledger state back to an earlier block, discarding later state changes before operation continues. Transactions after the…

Chain Tip

The chain tip is the newest known block at the end of a blockchain branch, which may be canonical, competing, or unfinalized.…

Chain TVL

Chain TVL estimates the current value of assets deposited in tracked decentralized-finance contracts across a particular blockchain network. TVL is an analytical…

Chain-Specific Address

A chain-specific address is encoded or scoped for one blockchain's account, script, checksum, and network rules rather than universal use. Some ecosystems…

Chainlink (LINK)

Chainlink is a decentralized oracle platform connecting smart contracts with external data and services, while LINK supports payments and network security. LINK…

Chainlink Node

A Chainlink node is operator-run software that executes oracle jobs, communicates with external systems, and submits verified results to blockchains. Nodes vary…

Change Address

Change Address is an address controlled by the sender that receives the unspent remainder of transaction inputs in UTXO-based systems. It is…

Change Output

A change output is a transaction output that returns the unspent remainder of selected UTXOs to an address controlled by the sender.…