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Basis trading, or cash-and-carry arbitrage, means buying an asset on spot and shorting the same amount in futures that trade at a premium. Price exposure nets to roughly zero, and the trader earns the basis, the gap between the futures and spot price, as the two converge.

The funding rate is a periodic payment between traders on a perpetual futures contract. When it is positive, longs pay shorts; when it is negative, shorts pay longs. It exists to keep the perpetual's price close to the spot price.

A liquidation cascade is a chain reaction in leveraged markets where forced closures of positions move the price far enough to trigger the next round of liquidations. It turns a modest price move into a much larger one, in either direction.

Open interest is the total number, or dollar value, of futures and perpetual contracts that are still open. It rises when new positions are opened and falls when positions are closed, so it measures how much leverage is in the market rather than how much is traded.

Impermanent loss is the difference between the value of a liquidity pool position and the value the same tokens would have if you had simply held them. It appears whenever the prices of the two pooled tokens move apart, and it is measured before trading fees.

A MEV sandwich attack is when a bot sees your pending DEX swap, buys the same token just before it and sells just after it in the same block. Your swap fills at a worse price, up to your slippage tolerance, and the difference goes to the bot.

The Altcoin Season Index is a 1–100 score from CoinMarketCap that measures how many of the top 100 coins outperformed Bitcoin over the last 90 days. At 75 or above it is called altcoin season; at 25 or below, Bitcoin season.

Bitcoin dominance (BTC.D) is Bitcoin's market capitalization divided by the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies, shown as a percentage. It describes how much of the value in crypto sits in Bitcoin rather than in altcoins and stablecoins.

A liquidity sweep is a brief move beyond a prior high or low that triggers the stop-loss and breakout orders resting there, after which price closes back inside the range. ICT traders call the same event a stop hunt or liquidity grab.

A maker fee is charged when your order rests in the order book and adds liquidity; a taker fee is charged when your order fills immediately against an existing order and removes liquidity. Maker fees are lower, sometimes zero or negative.

The market regime is SwapHunt's trend label for Bitcoin. It is bullish when price is above its 20-period EMA on 12-hour candles and that EMA has risen more than 0.5% over five candles, bearish in the mirror case, and neutral otherwise.

Realized volatility is the standard deviation of an asset's past returns over a set window, usually annualized. It measures how much price actually moved, unlike implied volatility, which is the movement priced into options.

Slippage is the difference between the price quoted when you submit a trade and the average price you actually pay. On a DEX most of it is price impact, the amount your own order moves the pool's price, which grows with order size relative to liquidity.

The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is a daily score from 0 (extreme fear) to 100 (extreme greed) published by Alternative.me. It combines Bitcoin's volatility, momentum and volume, social media activity, Bitcoin dominance and search trends into one number.

A stablecoin depeg is when a stablecoin designed to trade at $1 trades meaningfully above or below it. It happens when the arbitrage that holds the peg, buying below $1 and redeeming at $1, stops looking safe or stops being possible.

Exchange flows measure how many coins move onto exchanges (inflows) and off them (outflows) on-chain. Net inflows add supply that could be sold; net outflows reduce the coins readily available to sell.

A token unlock is the scheduled release of tokens from a vesting arrangement, after which team members, investors or funds can transfer and sell them. It increases the tradable supply on a date known in advance.