The words, in plain terms
These are the words that turn up mid session, usually at the moment when stopping to look something up feels like an interruption. They are ordered by where in the run you first meet them.
The nine phases, in orderCrown market addresses
crownm5jmtbhqnoxhexx7nyiygqgqofp3wnjyyfl74gziohqqy6oq5id.onioncrownrywlm7mnohkzntlir2tlhafq6tzphgqyag5cw5en7nprchfklad.onioncrownwpaimgizxylrvrh4u6acpvk4l757cfla7xs6zjki7tdjqbnv6qd.onionPublished exactly as supplied. Nothing on this site is monitored, tested or checked, so no address here is claimed to be working. What a copied address does and does not settle.
Words you meet at minute 5 and 15
| Word | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Onion address | A fifty six character string ending in a fixed suffix. It is derived from the key held by the service rather than assigned by a registry, which is why it cannot be pointed somewhere else. |
| Mirror | Another address that reaches the same service. Not a copy and not a backup. See what a set of three is for. |
| Queue page | A holding screen that manages arrivals. It is not the market and it says nothing about your address. |
| Captcha or wall | A task that has to be completed before the service will talk to you. It makes automated traffic expensive. |
| Circuit | The path your connection takes through the network. Paths fail and recover on their own, which is why one address can fail while another works. |
Words you meet at minute 25 and 35
| Word | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Recovery phrase | A block of text shown once at signup that lets you back in later. Losing it usually means losing the account. See the phrase page. |
| Second code or pin | A short string that guards actions inside the account rather than the login itself. |
| Public key | The half of a key pair you give out. Anybody can encrypt to it and only the private half can read the result. |
| Private key | The half you keep. Losing it means losing whatever depends on it, with no override. |
| Passphrase | The password protecting a private key file. A key with a forgotten passphrase is a file that cannot be used. |
| Key based login | An optional setting where each login requires decrypting a challenge. Strong, and the most common way people lock themselves out. |
Words you meet at minute 45
| Word | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Confirmation | One round of agreement by the network carrying your transfer. Markets wait for a number of these before crediting anything. |
| Network fee | What you pay to have a transfer included promptly. Paying less does not fail, it waits. |
| Deposit address | The string the account gives you to send to. Use the one currently displayed rather than one saved earlier. |
| Transfer identifier | The reference for your transfer on the network. It is how you look up where it actually is, and it is worth writing down. |
| Public ledger | A permanently readable record of transfers on some networks. It is the reason the coin choice matters beyond fees and speed. |
Words you meet at minute 60 to 90
| Word | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Listing | One item offered by one seller, with its own options and shipping choices. The description is an advertisement. |
| Escrow or hold | Funds held where neither side controls them until the order ends. It protects the payment, not the outcome. |
| Finalising | Releasing the held funds to the seller. Doing it before arrival gives up the only mechanism you have. |
| Auto finalise | The timer that releases the funds by itself when the hold period runs out, whether or not anything arrived. |
| Dispute | A request for somebody at the market to decide where held funds go. Only possible while they are still held. |
| Shipping window | The period the seller states for dispatch and delivery. Every judgement about lateness is made against this. |
Two words this site does not use
Verified is one. Nothing here verifies anything, and the word is used constantly in this subject to mean somebody typed it confidently. Where sources agree, this site says they agree.
Official is the other. There is no registry and no authority that could confer it, so an official address is a claim with nothing behind it. What exists is an address that works and an address that does not, and this site does not test either.
Most confusion in a first session is vocabulary rather than difficulty. Nothing on this list takes more than a sentence to explain, which is why the sentence is here.