The rules a blockchain's participants follow to agree on a single, shared transaction history without a central authority.

The confidence that the data needed to verify a block was actually published and is available to network participants.

Cryptographic proof, generated with a private key, that a transaction was authorized by the account owner and hasn't been altered.

The stack-based, deterministic runtime that executes smart contract code identically across every Ethereum node.

An encryption scheme that allows computation directly on encrypted data, producing an encrypted result without ever decrypting the inputs.

A one-way function that turns any input into a fixed-size fingerprint, used to chain blocks and detect tampering.

A tree of hashes that commits to a large dataset in one root hash, letting anyone verify a single item with a short proof.

A rollup that assumes off-chain transactions are valid by default and relies on a fraud-proof challenge window instead of cryptographic proofs.

A consensus mechanism where validators lock up the network's asset as a bond and are chosen to propose blocks in proportion to their stake.

A consensus mechanism where miners compete to solve a computational puzzle to earn the right to add the next block.

A layer 2 scaling technique that executes transactions off the main chain and posts the compressed data and result back to it.

A cryptographic technique letting several parties jointly compute a result from their private inputs without revealing those inputs to each other.

A scaling technique that splits a blockchain's validation work across multiple parallel subsets of nodes instead of one.

A hardware-isolated region of a processor that runs code and holds data securely, shielded from the rest of the system including the operating system.

A portable, near-native-speed binary instruction format that several blockchains use as their smart contract execution engine.

A cryptographic method that lets one party prove a statement is true without revealing any information beyond its validity.

A rollup that submits a cryptographic validity proof with every batch of transactions instead of relying on a fraud-proof challenge window.

An HTTP status telling browsers and search engines that a page has permanently moved to a new URL.

A registrar approved by ICANN under a Registrar Accreditation Agreement to sell gTLD domains.

A US law letting trademark owners sue cybersquatters in federal court, an alternative to the UDRP.

The resale market for already-registered domains, where names are bought and sold between owners.

Anti-Money-Laundering — the ongoing transaction monitoring and reporting regulated services use to detect illicit funds.

The visible, clickable words of a hyperlink, a signal search engines use to understand the target.

An inbound hyperlink from another website to yours; the primary driver of search ranking and domain authority.

A service that tries to register a domain the instant it drops, so you can claim an expiring name.

Registering or using a domain to exploit a trademark, a required element to win a UDRP case.

Rerouting internet traffic by falsely announcing IP routes, a network-layer attack that sits below DNS.

A shared, append-only ledger maintained across many computers, the foundation of tokenized ownership.

A short, catchy, often invented name that works as a memorable brand, like a made-up word.

A fixed instant-purchase price on a domain listing — meet it and the sale completes immediately, no negotiation.

A two-letter top-level domain assigned to a country or territory, such as .uk, .de, or .jp.

Past sales of similar domains used as benchmarks to estimate what a name is worth.

A protocol that moves tokens or messages between blockchains that cannot natively talk to each other.

Registering a domain matching someone else's trademark in bad faith, hoping to profit from it.

Redirecting a domain's traffic by tampering with DNS resolution rather than its registration.

The delay before a DNS change is seen everywhere, as cached old records expire across resolvers.

The entries in a zone that map a domain to addresses and services — A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, and more.

The server that takes a domain lookup and walks the DNS hierarchy to return the matching address.

Estimating a domain's market value from comparable sales, keyword demand, length, and extension.

A reputation signal estimating how well a domain ranks, driven largely by quality inbound links.

An intermediary who negotiates a domain sale between buyer and seller, usually for a commission.

The date a domain's registration ends; if not renewed, it begins a lapse process toward deletion.

Paying for a domain over time in installments instead of a single upfront sum.

Sending visitors from one domain automatically to another address, often via a 301 redirect.

A name that spans the dot to spell a word using the TLD, like del.icio.us or examp.le.

The theft of a domain by gaining unauthorized control of its registrar account or registration.

The single page shown on a parked or for-sale domain, often with ads, search, or a purchase offer.

How quickly a domain can be sold near its estimated value — high for great names, low for niche ones.

Placing ads or a for-sale notice on an undeveloped domain to earn revenue or signal availability.

A collection of domains held by one owner, managed as an investment with renewals, sales, and valuation.

Paying to extend a domain's registration before it expires, often automatically each term.

A largely defunct tactic of registering domains then cancelling within the free add-grace period.

The unauthorized transfer of a domain out of its rightful owner's control, often via account compromise.

The practice of investing in domain names — registering, buying, and selling them for profit.

A buyer who wants a domain to actually use for a business or project, not to resell it.

The standardized flags on a domain that show its state — locked, on hold, pending transfer, and more.

The standard protocol registrars use to register and manage domains with a registry.

The Ethereum standard for fungible tokens like stablecoins, complementing the ERC-721 NFT standard.

The leading smart-contract blockchain, and the network most tokenized domains are issued on.

A domain that exactly matches a search keyword, like besthotels.com, once highly prized for SEO.

A short window right after a domain expires when you can still renew it at the normal price.

A top-level domain not tied to a country, such as .com, .org, or .xyz, run under ICANN contract.

The ongoing renewal fees an investor pays to keep a domain until it sells.

The function that maintains the DNS root zone and allocates IP address blocks and protocol numbers.

A domain using non-ASCII characters, encoded for DNS as ASCII Punycode beginning with xn--.

The numeric address that identifies a device on a network, which DNS maps a domain name to.

A peer-to-peer protocol that addresses files by their content, used to host decentralized web data.

A domain built around a valuable search keyword or phrase, valued for descriptive clarity.

Know Your Customer — the identity-verification checks a regulated financial or crypto service runs before onboarding a user.

A network built on top of a blockchain to make transactions faster and cheaper, like Base on Ethereum.

Acquiring a domain through recurring payments that build toward full ownership, a sibling of rent-to-own.

A domain listing that invites buyers to submit a bid the seller can accept, counter, or decline.

Creating a new token on a blockchain — for a domain, issuing the NFT that represents its ownership.

A server that answers DNS queries for a domain; its NS records name the authoritative servers.

A generic top-level domain introduced by ICANN's expansion program, such as .app, .xyz, or .shop.

The final status before an unrenewed domain is released back to the public for registration.

Tricking people into revealing credentials or funds via fake sites and messages that impersonate trusted brands.

An ad model where the owner earns each time a visitor clicks an ad, used to monetize parked domains.

A high-value domain priced above standard rates for its memorability, brevity, or keyword strength.

The secret number that controls a blockchain account and signs its transactions; it must never be shared.

The shareable half of a blockchain key pair, derived from the private key; used to receive funds and verify signatures.

A post-expiration window where a lapsed domain can be recovered, usually for a steep redemption fee.

The person or organization that holds the rights to a registered domain name — the owner of record.

A high-security service where the registry freezes a domain so changes need manual out-of-band approval.

The organization that operates the authoritative database and nameservers for a top-level domain, delegating retail sales to registrars.

A company that sells domains under a larger registrar's accreditation rather than holding its own.

The lowest price a seller will accept, often hidden, below which an offer or auction bid is rejected.

Domains a registry withholds from open registration, such as premium, policy, or protected labels.

The price an end user pays for a domain they intend to use — typically far above the wholesale investor floor.

Abusing the UDRP in bad faith to try to seize a domain from its legitimate owner.

The top of the DNS hierarchy, listing every TLD and the servers authoritative for it.

The label directly left of the TLD — the "example" in example.com — the part you actually register.

The share of a domain portfolio that sells in a given period — a key liquidity metric for investors.

The page of results a search engine returns for a query, where domains compete for visibility.

Very short domains — three to four letters or all-digits — prized for brevity, especially in some markets.

A prefix added to a domain to create a separate address, such as blog.example.com or app.example.com.

How a domain's extension does and doesn't affect search rankings — content and links matter more.

ICANN's central trademark database powering Sunrise pre-registration and brand claims in new gTLDs.

A real DNS domain whose ownership is represented as a blockchain token you hold in a wallet.

A legally protected mark identifying a brand's goods or services, central to many domain disputes.

A status that blocks a domain from transferring to another registrar until it is explicitly unlocked.

How long, in seconds, a DNS record may be cached by resolvers before it must be looked up again.

Visitors who reach a site by typing a guessed domain directly, the basis of domain parking revenue.

Registering misspellings of popular domains to catch mistyped traffic, often for ads or phishing.

A fast, low-cost remedy that suspends a clearly infringing domain, complementing the UDRP.

A service that masks a registrant's personal contact details in public WHOIS or RDAP records.

The investor-to-investor floor price for a domain — what a domainer accepts to liquidate quickly, below retail.

The UN agency whose arbitration center decides many UDRP domain-name disputes.

The text file holding all the DNS records for a domain, including glue records for its nameservers.

Software powered by an AI model that acts on a user's behalf — making purchases, calling APIs, and increasingly transacting with other agents.

A short per-domain secret a registrar issues to authorize moving a domain to another registrar, also called an EPP code or transfer code.

Decentralized Finance offers lending, borrowing, and trading through smart contracts on public blockchains, without banks or brokers as intermediaries.

Cryptographic signatures on DNS records that let resolvers verify a response is authentic and was not forged or tampered with in transit.

The Ethereum Name Service maps human-readable names like alice.eth to wallet addresses and records, managed entirely by on-chain smart contracts.

The Ethereum standard interface for non-fungible tokens that lets wallets and marketplaces handle any unique token, including tokenized domains, alike.

The fee paid to process a transaction on a blockchain, priced in the network's native asset and rising with congestion; Layer 2s charge far less.

A dedicated offline device that stores a wallet's private keys and signs transactions on-device, so the keys never touch an internet-connected computer.

A list of 12 or 24 words that encodes a wallet's master key; anyone holding it controls the wallet, so it is the one thing you must back up.

A cryptocurrency designed to hold a steady value against a reference like the US dollar, used to pay and settle without crypto price volatility.

A top-level domain (TLD) is the rightmost label in a domain name, such as .com, .org, or .de, delegated through the IANA root zone under ICANN oversight.

WHOIS and its successor RDAP are the public lookup services for a domain's registration details, such as its registrar and expiration date.

An open protocol that uses the HTTP 402 Payment Required status to let servers and AI agents request and receive on-chain payments inline with requests.

A transaction that completes fully or not at all, never in a partial state, so an asset and its payment swap in one indivisible on-chain step.

A competitive sale format where buyers bid to set the price, run as English (ascending), Dutch (descending), or dynamic timed auctions.

Handing control of a domain or its records to a smart contract that enforces rules automatically, with no human approving each change.

A property where no single authority can unilaterally seize, block, or alter ownership, because control rests with the holder's keys on a public ledger.

An asset pledged to secure a loan that the lender can claim on default; a tokenized domain can serve as collateral in NFT-aware lending.

The ability to combine independent on-chain components like building blocks, so a tokenized domain can plug into lending, trading, and other protocols.

Moving a domain's registration from one ICANN registrar to another using an auth code, while keeping the same owner and the same name.

Protection based on public-key cryptography, where only the holder of a private key can authorize actions, rather than a password a server could leak.

An arrangement where a third party holds the private keys to your assets for you, so you depend on their security and their permission to transact.

A Decentralized Autonomous Organization run by smart-contract rules and member voting rather than a central executive, often managing a shared treasury.

A Decentralized Identifier is a globally unique ID controlled by its owner's keys rather than a central registry, used to prove identity across services.

The hierarchical naming system that translates human-readable domain names into the IP addresses computers use to route traffic across the internet.

A group of related domain names sold or managed together as one package, often covering multiple TLDs or spelling variants of a single brand.

Buying and selling domain names to profit from price differences, ranging from quick flips to long-term holds in a managed portfolio.

A neutral third party or smart contract that holds funds or assets until both sides meet the agreed terms, then releases them, cutting counterparty risk.

A decentralized social network built on Ethereum where accounts, identities, and social graphs live on-chain rather than on one company's servers.

Splitting a single high-value asset into smaller tradable shares so several people can own portions of it, enabled on-chain by token standards.

The nonprofit that coordinates the global domain name system, IP allocation, and protocol identifiers, and accredits domain registrars worldwide.

An asset that originates and lives on the internet itself, like a domain or token, rather than being a digital record of a physical or legal object.

Renting the use of a domain for a recurring fee while keeping ownership, with smart contracts able to enforce terms and automate the payments.

A smart-contract platform where users supply assets to earn interest and borrowers take loans against collateral, with no bank as intermediary.

Lens Protocol is a decentralized social graph where profiles, follows, and posts are owned by users as on-chain assets they can carry between apps.

An online venue where buyers and sellers trade assets; for NFTs and tokenized domains, examples include OpenSea and Blur.

A wallet that needs several private keys to approve a transaction, such as two of three signers, so one compromised key cannot move funds alone.

A Non-Fungible Token is a unique, indivisible blockchain token used to represent ownership of a specific item such as a tokenized domain.

A system anyone can use or build on without a gatekeeper's approval, because the rules are enforced by open protocols rather than a central authority.

An asset whose existence and rules are defined by an open protocol's smart contracts, so it works the same for everyone without a controlling company.

An ICANN-accredited company authorized to register domain names on behalf of the public, acting as the interface between registrants and registries.

A purchase arrangement where the buyer pays in installments while using the domain and gains full ownership once the agreed total is paid.

An arrangement that automatically splits income from an asset among parties by preset percentages, enforceable on-chain by smart contracts.

Search Engine Optimization is the practice of improving a site's content and structure so it ranks higher in search results and draws more visitors.

A program stored on a blockchain that runs exactly as written when its conditions are met, enabling agreements that execute without an intermediary.

ICANN's mandatory policy for resolving domain disputes, mainly trademark and cybersquatting claims, as a faster, cheaper alternative to court.

Software or a device that stores the private keys controlling your on-chain assets and signs transactions, such as MetaMask or a hardware wallet.

A vision of the internet on public blockchains where users own their data, assets, and identity through their own keys, not platform accounts.

The rights to control, use, and transfer a domain; tokenization records those rights on-chain in a wallet instead of only in a registrar account.

Describes data or actions recorded directly on a blockchain, where they are public, verifiable, and secured by the network rather than a private server.

To represent ownership of an asset like a domain as a transferable token on a blockchain so it can be held in a wallet and traded on-chain.