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Infrastructure that carries a token across from one chain to a different one. Necessary, and historically the most attacked part of crypto, so route size and reputation matter.
Correspondent banking. Moving value between two systems that have no direct relationship, through someone who has one with both.
Prices broadly rising, or broadly falling. Worth knowing mostly because crypto commentary assumes you already do.
The step that turns an issued card into a usable one. Virtual cards are normally live immediately; a physical card usually needs activating once it arrives.
The sticker on a new bank card telling you to ring a number first.
Switching a card off from the app without cancelling it, so a card you have mislaid cannot be used and can be switched back on when it turns up in a coat pocket.
Visa or Mastercard. They do not issue your card and do not hold your money. They run the rails the authorisation travels on and write the rules everyone else follows.
Identical, and just as widely misunderstood. The name printed on the card is the network, the name in the app is the issuer, and they are rarely the same company.
In Kite: The Kite Stable Card runs on Visa, so it works anywhere Visa is accepted.
The level of card you hold, usually bought with an upfront fee, a subscription, or by locking up tokens. Higher tiers promise better rates and bigger limits, which only pay for themselves above a certain amount of spending.
Classic, gold, platinum. The same ladder, sold the same way, for the same reason.
When a payment is treated as borrowing cash rather than buying something. Interest usually starts at once and rewards do not apply. Gambling, money transfers and buying crypto are the usual triggers.
Identical, and it is the merchant category code that decides it, not you.
Money handed back as a percentage of what you spend. On crypto cards it is often paid in the card's own token and tied to how much of that token you hold or lock up, which makes the advertised rate and the rate you actually receive two different numbers.
The same offer credit cards have run for decades, funded from the same place: the interchange fee the shop pays.
In Kite: We do have cashback and rewards. We have not published a rate, so we are not going to quote one here.
The card network's undo button. The issuer claws a payment back from the merchant on your behalf, sometimes months later. On-chain payments have no equivalent.
The same word and the same process. It is the main consumer protection cards have that raw blockchain transfers do not.
Malware that watches for a copied wallet address and swaps it for the attacker's before you paste. The habit that defeats it is checking the address after pasting, not before.
Changing the account number on an invoice after it has been approved but before it is paid.
Assets locked to secure a loan. Crypto lending is usually overcollateralised, meaning you post more than you borrow, because the lender knows nothing about you.
The house behind a mortgage, or the securities behind a margin loan.
A transaction being included in a block and buried under further blocks. More confirmations, more certainty. Most stablecoin transfers are settled enough to act on within a minute.
Clearing versus settlement. The payment shows up, then later it becomes irrevocable.
How thousands of independent computers agree on one version of the truth without a referee. Proof of stake, the current standard, gives the vote to those with money at risk.
Interbank clearing, where the arbitration is algorithmic and takes seconds instead of institutional and taking days.
Paying by holding the card or phone near the terminal instead of inserting it. The chip signs the transaction the same way, just over a radio.
The chain of banks an international payment hops through when the sending and receiving banks have no direct relationship. Every hop adds a fee, a delay, and another place the payment can stall.
Already the banking answer, and it is the thing a stablecoin transfer is usually being measured against.
The risk that whoever is holding your money cannot give it back. It does not disappear in crypto, it just moves from a bank to an exchange, an issuer or a protocol.
Exactly the same phrase, and exactly the same idea. It is why deposit insurance was invented.
A wallet where a company holds the keys for you. You log in with an email and password, and the company can help you get back in. It can also freeze you out.
A normal bank account. The bank holds the money and the bank decides.
Who is actually holding an asset on your behalf. It is the one question that decides what happens to your money if a company freezes, fails or is hacked.
The same word carrying the same stakes. A custodian bank holds securities for clients without owning them, and that distinction only matters on a bad day.
In Kite: Kite is non-custodial. We do not hold your keys, and you can export them whenever you want.
An organisation run by token holder votes that smart contracts then execute automatically. The decision and its implementation are the same action.
A co-operative or a shareholder vote, if the resolution carried itself out the moment it passed.
The card being refused at the terminal. Most declines are not about money: an unfamiliar country, a blocked category, or a security check that did not complete.
The same message from the same systems for the same short list of reasons.
Financial services built as open code rather than as companies. Lending, exchange and yield with no application form, and equally no support desk and no deposit insurance.
The whole banking product set, unbundled and rebuilt as software anyone can use or fork.
When a stablecoin slips away from its dollar value, usually because the market doubts the reserves behind it. Most depegs are brief and recover. Some never do.
A bank run. The deposits were only ever worth what the assets behind them could be sold for that afternoon.
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