Definitions for crypto and AI-agent terminology. Each entry is a self-contained reference with examples, related terms, and structured metadata so humans and agents can use the same vocabulary.

The glossary covers four overlapping themes: protocols (MCP, tool calls, x402, agent skills), safety (honeypots, rugpulls, MEV), DeFi mechanics (TVL, DEX aggregators, funding rates, realized volatility, account abstraction), and data semantics (fetched_at, credits and rate limits).

All terms

Account abstraction (ERC-4337) · Account abstraction (ERC-4337) is the Ethereum standard that lets smart contracts act as user wallets, replacing externally-owned accounts (EOAs) with programmable smart-contract wallets. AA enables gas sponsorship (paymasters), batched transactions, social recovery, custom signature schemes, and one-click onboarding without seed phrases.
Agent skill · An agent skill is a self-contained package of instructions, schemas, examples, and workflow guidance that gives an AI agent built-in knowledge of a specific API, service, or task.
Credits and rate limits · In a usage-based API like Hive Intelligence, a credit is the unit of consumption (typically one credit per tool call) and a rate limit is the maximum requests allowed per minute. Together they define both the monthly volume budget and the per-minute throughput an agent can use. Hive plans range from 10,000 credits at 30 req/min (Demo) to custom Enterprise credit and rate-limit profiles.
DEX aggregator · A DEX aggregator is a smart-contract router that splits a single swap across multiple decentralized exchanges (Uniswap, Curve, Balancer, Pancakeswap, Raydium, Jupiter, etc.) to deliver the best execution price for the user, minimizing slippage, avoiding shallow pools, and routing around price impact in real time.
fetched_at · fetched_at is the ISO-8601 time Hive completed a tool retrieval. observed_at records Hive's first observation or original cache-population time, while cache_age_ms makes Hive cache age explicit.
Funding rate · A funding rate is the periodic payment exchanged between long and short holders of a perpetual futures contract, typically every 8 hours on Binance, Bybit, OKX, Hyperliquid. Positive funding means longs pay shorts; negative funding means shorts pay longs. The rate is the mechanism that pulls the perpetual contract's mark price toward the underlying spot price.
Honeypot token · A honeypot token is a smart contract that allows buyers to acquire the token but prevents them from selling it, by reverting sell transactions, charging extreme sell taxes, or using transfer-restriction logic. Funds are trapped, locked to the contract, and recoverable only by the deployer.
MCP for crypto · MCP for crypto is the Model Context Protocol applied to cryptocurrency data: an open standard that gives AI agents structured, discoverable, runtime access to live prices, DeFi activity, wallet positions, token security signals, and on-chain data through one tool surface, instead of hand-wiring every provider API.
MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) · MEV (Maximal Extractable Value, formerly Miner Extractable Value) is the profit a block proposer, builder, or searcher can extract by including, reordering, or excluding transactions in a block. It is the protocol-level value capture that exists because block ordering is privileged. Common MEV strategies: sandwich attacks, arbitrage, liquidations, front-running.
Polymarket · Polymarket is a major crypto-native prediction market platform where users buy and sell binary outcome shares on real-world events (elections, sports, crypto prices, geopolitics), denominated in USDC. Settled prices function as an aggregated probability estimate.
Realized volatility · Realized volatility (RV) is the standard deviation of an asset's actual price returns over a historical window, typically annualized. It measures observed past variation, distinct from implied volatility (IV), which is the market's forward-looking estimate derived from option prices. RV-vs-IV divergence is the core signal in volatility-arbitrage strategies.
Rugpull · A rugpull is a coordinated exit-scam in which the deployer of a cryptocurrency or DeFi project withdraws liquidity, mints unbacked supply, or transfers contract ownership to an unrecoverable address, collapsing token value and leaving holders with worthless balances.
Tool call · A tool call is the runtime invocation of a tool function by an AI agent: a JSON-RPC request that names the tool, supplies validated arguments matching the tool's input schema, and returns a structured result the agent can reason over. In MCP, tool calls are made via the standard tools/call method.
TVL (Total Value Locked) · TVL (Total Value Locked) is the aggregate dollar value of cryptocurrency assets deposited in a DeFi protocol's smart contracts at a given moment. It is a common measure of a protocol's economic activity, used by AI agents and analysts to gauge protocol health, yield sustainability, and whale concentration.
x402 · x402 is Coinbase's open standard for stablecoin pay-per-request payments over HTTP, repurposing the long-defunct HTTP 402 status code (Payment Required) into an active payment protocol. Agents call an API; the server responds with 402 plus a payment challenge; the agent sends a USDC payment; the server returns the data. No account, API key, or subscription required.