Stablecoin, on-ramp, off-ramp, finality, gas, non-custodial, travel rule. The 34 terms of blockchain payments, each defined in one or two lines.
Blockchain payments come with 34 terms that rarely show up in a bank statement. The short version: a stablecoin is a dollar-pegged token, an on-ramp turns bank money into stablecoins, an off-ramp turns them back, and finality is the moment a transfer can't be undone. Everything else in this glossary hangs off those four ideas.
Each definition below is written for someone who runs payments, finance, or product, not for a protocol engineer. For the bigger picture of how the pieces fit, start with what blockchain payments are and how they work.
Blockchain payment. A transfer of value recorded on a shared, public ledger instead of being passed between banks as messages. For businesses, almost always a stablecoin transfer.
Blockchain (or network, or chain). The shared ledger itself. Ethereum, Polygon, Base, Arbitrum, Solana, Stellar, and Tron are the ones that carry most dollar stablecoin payments.
Stablecoin. A token designed to hold a fixed value against a currency, usually one US dollar. USDC (issued by Circle) and USDT (issued by Tether) are the two largest.
Token. A unit of value that lives on a blockchain. A stablecoin is a token; so is a cryptocurrency like ETH. A token is issued on a specific chain, so USDC on Polygon and USDC on Solana are separate deployments of the same asset.
Wallet. Software or hardware that holds the private keys controlling an address. A wallet doesn't store coins; it stores the keys that can move them.
Address. The public identifier funds are sent to, like an account number. EVM chains (Ethereum, Polygon, Base, Arbitrum) use the 0x format with 40 hex characters. Solana, Stellar, and Tron each use their own format, which is why sending to the wrong network loses funds.
Private key. The secret that authorizes transfers out of an address. Whoever holds it controls the funds. Lose it and nobody can recover them.
Issuer. The company that creates (mints) and redeems (burns) a stablecoin, and holds the reserves backing it.
Reserves. The cash and short-term government debt an issuer holds so every token can be redeemed at par. In the US, the GENIUS Act, signed on July 18, 2025, sets which assets count.
On-ramp. The service that converts fiat money into stablecoins. You send dollars by ACH or wire, or reais by Pix, and stablecoins arrive in a wallet.
Off-ramp. The reverse: stablecoins go in, local money lands in a bank account.
Fiat. Government-issued money held in banks: dollars, euros, pesos, reais.
Payout rail. The local payment system that delivers the fiat at the end. Pix in Brazil, SPEI in Mexico, ACH and RTP in the US, SEPA in Europe, and SWIFT for everything else.
Payin. A deposit coming in: fiat that a customer sends so it can be converted into stablecoins.
Payout. Money going out: stablecoins converted into fiat and sent to a recipient's bank account.
Virtual account. A dedicated bank account number in a customer's name that receives deposits and, with a stablecoin provider, converts them automatically. What is a virtual account covers how they work.
Transaction hash. The unique ID of an on-chain transfer. Anyone can look it up on a block explorer, which makes it the closest thing to a public tracking number.
Confirmation. A transaction has been included in a block. More confirmations mean more blocks built on top of it.
Finality. The point after which a transfer can't be reversed or dropped from the ledger. Ethereum finalizes a block after two epochs of 6.4 minutes each, which ethereum.org rounds to about 15 minutes. Stellar and Solana reach finality in seconds.
Settlement. The moment the recipient actually has the money, with no further steps or conditions. On-chain, settlement and finality happen together. In card and bank systems, settlement comes days after the payment looks done.
Reversibility. Whether a payment can be pulled back. Card payments carry chargebacks for months. A final on-chain transfer can't be reversed by anyone, so mistakes are fixed by a new transfer, not a recall.
Custodial. A provider holds your assets and keys on your behalf, the way a bank holds deposits. Easier to operate, but you depend on the custodian.
Non-custodial. You keep control of the keys. The provider can't move funds unless you sign or approve the transaction. Less counterparty risk, more operational work.
Self-custody. You hold your own keys with no provider in between. Non-custodial taken all the way.
Gas fee (network fee). What a blockchain charges to process a transaction. Cents or less on Polygon, Solana, Stellar, and Base; potentially dollars on Ethereum.
Quote. A price a provider locks for a short window: the exchange rate, the fees, and the exact amount the recipient will get. If the quote expires, you request a new one.
FX spread. The gap between the market exchange rate and the rate you get. It's often the largest cost in a cross-border payment, and banks rarely show it as a line item.
Slippage. The difference between the price you expected and the price you got, because the market moved while the order executed. A locked quote moves this risk to the provider.
KYC (Know Your Customer). Verifying an individual's identity before they can send or receive money.
KYB (Know Your Business). The business version: verifying the company, its registration, and the people who own and control it.
AML (anti-money laundering). The program of policies, monitoring, and reporting a regulated company runs to detect and report illicit funds.
Sanctions screening. Checking people, companies, and wallet addresses against government sanctions lists, like the list kept by the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Travel rule. A requirement for providers to send sender and recipient information along with transfers above a threshold. The Financial Action Task Force extended it to virtual assets in 2019.
VASP (virtual asset service provider). FATF's term for any business that exchanges, transfers, or holds virtual assets for others. Most on-ramp and off-ramp providers are VASPs.
Most blockchain vocabulary has a close bank-world equivalent. This table is the fastest way to translate.
| Bank term | Blockchain term | What's actually different |
|---|---|---|
| Account number | Wallet address | Anyone can create an address. No bank opens it for you |
| Online banking password | Private key | Lose a key and nobody can reset it |
| Bank | Custodian, or yourself | With self-custody, there's no institution in between |
| SWIFT MT103 / wire confirmation | Transaction hash | Anyone can verify a hash on a public explorer |
| Clearing and settlement (days) | Confirmation and finality (seconds to minutes) | No batch windows, no cut-off times |
| Wire fee and correspondent fees | Gas fee | Paid once to the network, not per intermediary bank |
| Chargeback or recall | None | Final transfers can't be reversed |
| Bank's FX rate | Quote with FX spread | Good providers show the spread before you send |
| Currency exchange (fiat to fiat) | On-ramp plus off-ramp | The stablecoin sits in the middle |
Here's a US company paying a supplier in Brazil, with the glossary terms in bold.
Sanctions screening and travel rule checks run around steps 1 and 5. Neither the company nor the supplier ever holds a private key, because a provider runs that part. The API version of the same flow is in how a stablecoin payment works.
BlindPay is a stablecoin payments API, and its docs come in two flavors that map to this glossary. The Abstracted flavor keeps you in bank terms: virtual accounts, payins, payouts, and bank accounts. The stablecoin settles behind the scenes, and nobody picks a network or holds a key. The Advanced flavor exposes the blockchain vocabulary directly: wallets, addresses, networks, tokens, and on-chain authorization.
Payouts go out over Pix, SPEI, Transfers (Argentina), ACH COP (Colombia), ACH, wire, RTP, SEPA, and SWIFT (POBO/COBO), with no pre-funding. KYC and KYB run inside the API. The supported chains reference lists which networks and tokens each feature accepts.
Pick the five terms your team argues about most (usually finality, custody, and FX spread) and agree on one definition for each before you evaluate a provider. Then read build vs buy for stablecoin payments to see which of these layers you'd own if you built it yourself.
This article is for general information only and is not legal, tax, or financial advice.
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