The crypto glossary that gets your money
Clear definitions, with no jargon, written by the Bitso team. From Bitcoin to DeFi, a space for Latin America to understand its money.
APY / APR
Two ways of expressing an annual return or cost: APR is the simple rate without reinvestment, while APY factors in compound interest, so two products with the same number can pay differently.
Compound interest
Interest calculated on the initial principal plus the interest already earned, so your returns start generating their own returns.
Financial arbitrage
A strategy that takes advantage of price differences for the same asset across two markets, buying where it's cheap and selling where it's expensive to capture the gap with limited risk.
Financial leverage
Trading with borrowed money to control a position larger than your own capital, which multiplies both gains and losses.
Fixed income
A group of investments where the return is agreed upon in advance, by lending money to an issuer that commits to repaying it on a set date with interest known from day one.
Investment portfolio
The complete set of an investor's assets — cash, debt instruments, crypto, funds, real estate — evaluated as a whole based on how they complement each other and how much risk they add up to.
Liquidity
The ease with which an asset converts into available cash without losing value in the process.
Risk profile
A description of how much uncertainty an investor can take on, combining their financial capacity to absorb losses with their emotional tolerance for watching them happen.
How we built this glossary
This glossary is written and reviewed by the Bitso editorial team — the most used crypto platform in Latin America, with more than 9 million people trading in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Brazil. Every definition goes through product, compliance and financial-education specialists before being published.
Our goal is simple: that you truly understand what each concept means before moving your money. That's why we avoid unnecessary technical language and explain everything with examples designed for the region. If a term changes or a new one appears, we review it and keep it up to date.
Want to go deeper? Visit the Bitso blog, discover the available products or read our guides to get started in crypto.