Vault - An organization's workspace that manages your funds. It has a unified governance layer, containing mechanisms such as transaction and compliance policies, and admin quorum management for all its underlying assets held in wallets. A vault typically contains multiple wallets, and you can use the vault across many blockchains.
Wallet - An entity that virtually stores digital assets. A wallet contains a set of enabled blockchain addresses, and each blockchain has the stored asset balance.
Blockchain - A blockchain is a decentralized digital ledger that securely stores transactions across a network of computers in a way that is transparent, cannot be changed, and is resistant to tampering. The blocks are linked in a chronological "chain", hence the name.
Asset - A digital currency, known as cryptocurrency that is recorded on a digital ledger that becomes part of a blockchain.
Balances - The token or $USD equivalent amount of the assets in a wallet.
Transaction - An asset transfer or a key signature action. A transaction can appear in different stages: created, approved, signed, published, mined and completed.
Admin quorum - The minimum number of administrators needed to approve certain administrative actions. Different administrative actions can have different quorums.
Co-signer - A tool that allows you to sign transactions automatically by accessing a secure private key share.
Multi-party computation (MPC) - A cryptographic technique that splits a private key into multiple shares across parties, enabling secure signing without ever reconstructing the full key.
Transaction policy - A set of rules that govern the approval process for transactions.
Vault keys - The underlying cryptographic material for each vault consists of 3 distinct keys.
ECDSA: Used for signing transactions on blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum
EdDSA: Used for signing transactions on blockchains such as Solana and TON
Security Key: This key is used to ensure the validity of certain admin actions, such as adding a new device or whitelisting an address. These operations are signed with the security key to protect against the highly unlikely case of successful backend exploitation or compromise.
Personal Backup - A mechanism that ensures that you never lose access to your key shares. Your shares are protected by a personal recovery phrase, known only to you.
For terms used in swap and bridge, see Swap/Bridge basic terms.