What a bank does here: it hides the jargon behind a friendly app. What you do instead: you learn the words, because each one maps to a real risk or a real cost. This glossary is short on purpose — one plain-English definition per term.
Glossary
| Term | Plain-English meaning |
|---|---|
| APY vs APR | APR is the simple yearly rate. APY includes the effect of compounding, so it is higher for the same underlying rate. Compare APY with APY. |
| LTV (loan-to-value) | Loan size divided by collateral value. A $4,000 loan on $10,000 of collateral is 40% LTV. |
| Health factor | A DeFi safety score for a loan. Above 1 is safe; at or below 1 the position can be liquidated. |
| Liquidation | Automatic sale of some or all collateral when a loan becomes too risky, usually with a penalty. |
| Utilization | The share of a lending pool that is currently borrowed. Higher utilization means higher rates — and slower withdrawals. |
| Stablecoin | A token designed to hold a steady value, usually one US dollar, such as USDC or USDT. |
| Self-custody | Holding your own keys so no company can freeze or lose your coins. |
| Seed phrase | The 12 or 24 words that back up a wallet. Anyone with them controls the funds. |
| Multisig | A wallet that needs several keys (for example 2 of 3) to approve a transaction. |
| Liquid staking | Staking through a protocol that gives you a tradeable receipt token, such as stETH or JitoSOL. |
| Slashing | A penalty that destroys part of a validator’s stake for misbehaviour or certain failures. |
| Restaking | Re-using staked assets to secure additional services for extra rewards — and extra slashing risk. |
| Impermanent loss | The shortfall a liquidity provider can suffer versus simply holding the two tokens when their prices diverge. |
| Bridge | A tool that moves tokens from one blockchain to another, usually by locking them on one side and issuing a copy on the other. |
| L2 (layer 2) | A network built on top of a base chain, such as Base or Arbitrum on Ethereum, to make transactions cheaper. |
| Gas | The fee paid to process a transaction, in the chain’s native coin. |
| TVL (total value locked) | How much money is deposited in a protocol or chain. A rough size gauge, not a safety rating. |
| Oracle | A service that feeds outside data, such as prices, into smart contracts. |
| Depeg | When a stablecoin trades meaningfully away from its target value. |
| Tokenized T-bill | A token that represents a share of short-term US Treasury bills held by an issuer or fund. |
| GENIUS Act | The US stablecoin law signed July 18, 2025. It requires 1:1 reserves in cash or short-term Treasuries and bars issuers from paying holders interest just for holding. |
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
Is CoinPayBank a bank?
No. We are an education site. We do not hold funds, take deposits, make loans or give personal financial advice.
Why is my USDC not earning anything by itself?
Under the GENIUS Act, stablecoin issuers cannot pay you yield just for holding. Interest comes from lending the coins to borrowers, for example through a DeFi protocol, which adds risk.
Are crypto savings insured like a bank account?
No. There is no FDIC or SIPC protection for stablecoins supplied to DeFi protocols or most crypto platforms. You can lose everything.
Where do your rates come from?
Mostly from public on-chain data via DefiLlama and from providers’ own published pages. Each rate is dated and variable; see the Rates page.
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Education only, not financial advice. Rates change and are not guaranteed. CoinPayBank is not a bank.