Markets & investing
Bitcoin's price vocabulary is borrowed from equities and does not always transfer cleanly. Market cap is the clearest example. It is price multiplied by circulating supply, so it measures what the last trade implies rather than money that has ever gone in, and coins whose keys were lost a decade ago still count toward it.
Volatility is the number that should decide position size for anyone thinking about it properly. Bitcoin's has fallen as the market has grown, and it remains far above any major currency, which is what makes the difference between buying once and buying on a schedule material rather than cosmetic.
Spot ETFs changed who can hold bitcoin without holding keys. A share is exposure to the price through a brokerage account, with a management fee, no self custody, and no way to spend what you own. Whether that trade is worth making depends entirely on why you are buying, which is a question this glossary can frame and cannot answer for you.
Stablecoins are here because they are the on ramp inside most exchanges, the pair bitcoin usually trades against, and a distinct set of risks worth understanding on their own. Nothing in this section is investment advice, and none of it predicts a price.
16 terms. Last reviewed 2026-09-24.
Terms in Markets & investing
- Bear marketalso Crypto winterBear markets are the long stretches when bitcoin's price falls and stays down, and they are when the businesses holding other people's coins tend to break.
- Bitcoin dominanceBitcoin dominance is bitcoin's share of the combined market capitalization of every crypto asset a data provider chooses to track, quoted as a percentage.
- Bitcoin treasury companyA bitcoin treasury company is a listed business whose main activity is borrowing or issuing shares to buy bitcoin, so its stock is a leveraged wrapper around the coin.
- Bull marketA bull market in bitcoin is a sustained stretch of rising prices, and it is a label the market only awards in hindsight, usually after the easy part is over.
- Coin days destroyedalso CDDCoin days destroyed weights every spend by how long the coins had been sitting still, so one bitcoin untouched for 100 days destroys 100 coin days when it moves.
- Market capitalizationalso Market capMarket capitalization is bitcoin's circulating supply multiplied by its latest traded price, a headline number that measures the market's current valuation rather than money invested.
- MVRV ratioalso Market value to realized valueThe MVRV ratio divides bitcoin's market capitalization by its realized capitalization, giving a single number for how far the price sits above what holders collectively paid.
- NVT ratioalso Network value to transactionsThe NVT ratio divides bitcoin's network value by the value settled on chain each day, borrowing the logic of a price-to-earnings ratio for a network with no earnings.
- Order book depthalso Market depthOrder book depth is the quantity of bitcoin resting in orders near the top of a market, and it decides how large a trade the venue can absorb without moving.
- Realized capitalizationalso Realized capRealized capitalization values every coin at the price it last moved on chain and adds those figures up, producing an estimate of what the whole market paid.
- Spot bitcoin ETFalso Bitcoin ETF, Spot ETFA spot bitcoin ETF is a listed fund that holds real bitcoin in custody and issues shares tracking its value, so brokerage accounts can hold exposure without keys.
- StablecoinA stablecoin is a token that promises to stay worth one unit of a national currency, usually a dollar, by holding reserves an issuer controls off the blockchain.
- Stock-to-flowalso S2FStock-to-flow divides an asset's existing supply by the amount produced each year, and PlanB's 2019 model used that single number to forecast bitcoin's price.
- Unrealized gainalso Paper gainAn unrealized gain is the profit shown in your account before you sell anything, a number that exists only at today's price and can vanish without you doing a thing.
- VolatilityVolatility is the size and speed of bitcoin's price swings, routinely large enough that double-digit percentage moves in a single day arrive several times a year.
- Wrapped bitcoinalso WBTCWrapped bitcoin is an Ethereum token that a custodian issues against real bitcoin it holds, so the price tracks BTC while the ownership is a claim on a company.
The other 13 sections
- BasicsWhat bitcoin is, what a satoshi is, and the handful of ideas the rest of the glossary is built on.
- Addresses & keysWhere coins get sent, what a private key actually controls, and how one seed produces thousands of addresses.
- Wallets & custodyHot, cold, custodial and multisig, and what each one changes about who can move your coins.
- Privacy & securityThe attacks that take people's bitcoin, and the habits and tools that stop them.
- Transactions & feesWhat a bitcoin transaction is made of, why it costs what it costs, and how to unstick one.
- Buying & exchangesOrder types, spreads and fee schedules: the vocabulary an exchange uses while it is charging you.
- Mining & consensusHow new blocks get made, what difficulty adjusts, and why the rules hold with nobody in charge.
- Protocol & upgradesSegWit, Taproot, soft forks and BIPs: how bitcoin changes and who gets to decide.
- Lightning & layer 2Payment channels, invoices and routing, for moving bitcoin without paying for space in a block.
- Regulation & taxKYC, the Travel Rule, MiCA and capital gains: the rules that reach your account and your tax return.
- Culture & historyMt. Gox, the genesis block, HODL, and the events and slang that shaped how people talk about bitcoin.
- Nodes & softwareBitcoin Core, full nodes, pruning and RPC: the software that enforces the rules.
- Developer referenceP2P message types, opcodes and script terms: the field names you meet reading bitcoin code.
Frequently asked questions
Does market capitalization mean money invested?
No, and the confusion is an expensive one. It is the last traded price multiplied by circulating supply, so a single thin trade re-prices every coin in existence. Coins whose keys were lost a decade ago still count toward the total.
Is dollar-cost averaging better than timing the market?
It is more achievable. Buying a fixed amount on a schedule removes the decision most people get wrong, and it costs less in regret than waiting for a bottom that is only obvious afterwards. Nothing here accounts for your own circumstances.
How does a spot bitcoin ETF differ from owning coins?
It is a fund holding bitcoin that trades like a share, so it fits inside a brokerage or pension account. You get the price exposure and none of the keys, which means none of the custody work and none of the control either.
Why are on-chain metrics like MVRV quoted so often?
Because bitcoin's ledger is public, so analysts can measure what no equity market exposes: what holders paid, how long coins have sat still, how much supply last moved. They describe behaviour well and predict prices unreliably.