Glossary

Key terms and concepts used in ChainGraph and blockchain intelligence.

Blockchain Fundamentals DeFi & Trading Compliance & Security ChainGraph Concepts Technical

Blockchain Fundamentals

Address: A unique identifier (typically 42-character hex string starting with 0x) that represents an account on a blockchain. Can be an externally owned account (EOA) controlled by a private key, or a smart contract.
Block: A batch of transactions bundled together and added to the blockchain. Each block references the previous block, forming a chain. Contains a block number, timestamp, list of transactions, and gas usage data.
Transaction (Tx): A signed instruction submitted to the blockchain. Can transfer ETH, call a smart contract function, or deploy a new contract. Each transaction has a unique hash, sender, recipient, value, and gas cost.
Smart Contract: Self-executing code deployed on the blockchain. Once deployed, the code is immutable and runs automatically when triggered by transactions. Common examples: token contracts (ERC-20), DEX pools, lending protocols.
Gas: The unit of computational effort required to execute operations on Ethereum. Users pay gas fees (in ETH) to compensate validators for processing transactions. Higher gas = more complex operation.
Wei: The smallest denomination of ETH. 1 ETH = 10^18 Wei. Used internally by the blockchain for precise value representation.
ERC-20: A standard interface for fungible tokens on Ethereum. Defines functions like transfer(), balanceOf(), and approve(). Most tokens (USDC, USDT, LINK) follow this standard.
ERC-721: A standard interface for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Ethereum. Each token has a unique ID and cannot be subdivided.

DeFi & Trading

DEX (Decentralized Exchange): A protocol that enables peer-to-peer token trading without intermediaries. Examples: Uniswap, SushiSwap, Curve. Uses automated market makers (AMMs) and liquidity pools.
Liquidity Pool: A smart contract holding paired tokens (e.g., ETH/USDC) that enables automated trading. Liquidity providers deposit tokens and earn fees from trades.
Swap: An exchange of one token for another through a DEX. ChainGraph tracks swaps by decoding Swap events from DEX contracts.
Sandwich Attack: A form of MEV exploitation where an attacker places transactions before and after a victim's trade to profit from price impact. ChainGraph's test cases can detect these patterns.
Flash Loan: An uncollateralized loan that must be borrowed and repaid within a single transaction. Often used in arbitrage or exploits.
Counterparty: The other side of a transfer or swap. On an address page, the counterparties are the addresses that sent funds to or received funds from the address you are looking at.
PnL (Profit and Loss): The net financial result of an address's trading activity. ChainGraph calculates realized PnL by tracking token buys, sells, and current holdings.

Compliance & Security

AML (Anti-Money Laundering): Regulations requiring financial institutions to monitor and report suspicious transactions. In crypto, this includes screening addresses against sanctions lists and monitoring for unusual patterns.
KYC (Know Your Customer): The process of verifying the identity of users before providing financial services. Required by most centralized exchanges and increasingly by DeFi protocols.
OFAC: The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control. Maintains a list of sanctioned entities and addresses. ChainGraph checks addresses against the OFAC SDN list.
SDN (Specially Designated Nationals): OFAC's list of sanctioned people, organisations and, since 2018, crypto addresses. An address on the SDN list is blocked for U.S. persons; ChainGraph shows the list name, the entity and the date the list was last checked on the address page.
Sanctioned address: An address that appears on the OFAC SDN list. ChainGraph flags sanctioned addresses on the address page and in test cases; see SDN for what the list is and how it is checked. SDN →
SAR (Suspicious Activity Report): A report filed with financial regulators when suspicious activity is detected. ChainGraph's regulatory export feature generates SAR-structured data.
Mixer / Tumbler: A service that obscures the origin of cryptocurrency by mixing multiple users' funds together. Common examples: Tornado Cash, Wasabi Wallet. Often flagged in compliance checks.
Entity Clustering: The technique of grouping multiple addresses believed to belong to the same entity. Based on heuristics like common spending patterns, shared transaction history, or known associations.
VASP: Virtual Asset Service Provider. Any business that facilitates cryptocurrency transactions (exchanges, custodians, payment processors). Subject to AML/KYC regulations.

ChainGraph Concepts

Investigation: A workspace in ChainGraph for analyzing a set of related addresses and transactions. Contains a graph canvas with nodes (addresses) and edges (transactions), plus annotations and findings.
Finding: An issue detected by a test case or manual investigation. Has a severity level (critical, high, medium, low, info) and status (open, reviewing, resolved, dismissed).
Test Case: An automated compliance check that runs periodically against blockchain data. Examples: OFAC sanctions screening, large transfer detection, new contract monitoring. Produces findings when triggered.
Monitor: A recurring query that watches for specific on-chain events. Can be a rule-based check, Cypher query, or SQL query. Triggers alerts when conditions are met.
Label: A tag attached to a blockchain address identifying it (e.g., 'Binance Hot Wallet', 'Known Scammer', 'Uniswap V3 Router'). Can be community-contributed or tenant-private.
Graph Canvas: The interactive visualization in ChainGraph where addresses appear as nodes and transactions as edges. Supports expansion (loading connected addresses), clustering, and manual annotation.
Node: In the graph canvas, a visual representation of a blockchain address. Shows labels, tags, and connection count.
Edge: In the graph canvas, a visual representation of a transaction or relationship between two addresses. Shows value, direction, and metadata.
Hop: One step along a path of transfers. If A sends to B and B sends to C, C is two hops from A. Path tracing on the canvas follows funds hop by hop, and the tier limits say how many hops a single trace can follow.
Then / today: Two USD values shown for a transfer: then is what the amount was worth at the time of the transfer, using the token price at that block; today is what the same amount is worth at the latest known price.
Expansion: Loading additional addresses connected to a node in the graph. For example, expanding an address shows all addresses it has sent ETH to or received ETH from.
Featured Monitor: A pre-built monitor maintained by ChainGraph that all users can subscribe to. Examples: OFAC sanctions updates, major exchange outflows, whale movements.
Alpha: In ChainGraph, the section that ranks wallets by how well they trade on decentralised exchanges and surfaces the tokens they are buying. Alpha means an edge over the market; the leaderboard, trending list and signals are ways to look for it.
Smart money: The top-ranked wallets on the Alpha leaderboard: consistent, profitable DEX traders after bots, wallet farms and market-beta positions (wrapped ETH, stablecoins) are removed. Signals are computed from what these wallets do.

Technical

Cypher: A graph query language used by Memgraph (and Neo4j). ChainGraph's Power Mode allows writing Cypher queries to traverse the graph database directly. Example: MATCH (a:Address)-[:SENT]->(b:Address) RETURN a, b
ClickHouse: A column-oriented database used by ChainGraph to store raw blockchain data (transactions, transfers, logs, traces). Optimized for analytical queries over billions of rows.
Memgraph: An in-memory graph database used by ChainGraph for graph traversal and relationship queries. Stores address-to-address connections for fast path finding.
Erigon: An Ethereum execution client used by ChainGraph to sync and access blockchain data. Provides JSON-RPC access to historical blocks, transactions, and state.
JSON-RPC: The standard API protocol for communicating with Ethereum nodes. Used by ChainGraph's adapter to fetch block data from Erigon.
Caller: The address that sent a transaction to a contract, i.e. the from address of the call. On a contract page, the callers are the accounts and contracts that invoked it.
Internal Transaction (Trace): A transaction initiated by a smart contract during execution (not directly by a user). Captured by tracing the EVM execution. Important for following fund flows through DeFi protocols.
Event Log: A record emitted by a smart contract during execution. Contains indexed topics and data. Used to track token transfers, swaps, approvals, and other contract events.