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Digital assets and currencies

Understand assets, networks and trading mechanics with sources you can check.

Trading basics

A/B testing

A/B testing (also known as bucket testing, split-run testing or split testing) is a user-experience research method. A/B tests consist of a randomized experiment that usually involves two variants (A and B), although the concept can be also extended to multiple variants of the same variable. It includes application of statistical hypothesis testing or "two-sample hypothesis testing" as u

Payments & settlement

American Express

American Express Company (Amex) is an American bank holding company and multinational financial services corporation that specializes in payment cards. It is headquartered at 200 Vesey Street, also known as American Express Tower, in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan; in 2026, the company announced that it would develop and be the sole occupant of the new 2 World Trad

Trading basics

Assurant

Assurant, Inc. is a global provider of risk management products and services with headquarters in Atlanta. Its businesses provide a diverse set of speciality, niche-market insurance products in the property, casualty, extended device protection, and insurance sectors. The company's main operating segments are Global Housing and Global Lifestyle.

Trading basics

BlackRock

BlackRock, Inc. is an American multinational investment company. Founded in 1988, initially as an enterprise risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackRock is the largest asset manager worldwide, with $15.3 trillion in assets under management as of 2026. Headquartered in New York City, BlackRock has 70 offices in 30 countries and clients in 100 countries.

Trading basics

Block, Inc.

Block, Inc. (formerly Square, Inc.) is an American technology company and financial services provider for consumers and merchants. Founded in 2009 by Jack Dorsey, it is the U.S. market leader in point-of-sale systems. As of 2024, Block has 57 million users and 4 million sellers, processing $241 billion in payments annually.

Trading basics

Brand

A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are studied in business, marketing, and advertising and used for recognition and, importantly, to create and store value as brand equity for the object identified, to the benefit of the brand's customers, its owners and shareholders. Brand name

Trading basics

Branded content

Branded content (also known as branded entertainment) is a type of entertainment product made or otherwise funded by an advertiser. They are designed to build awareness for a particular brand by presenting content that reflects its values and image, without necessarily being presented as a promotion first and foremost. Branded content is distinguished from product placement—a business pr

Trading basics

Cardinal Health

Cardinal Health Technologies, LLC doing business as Cardinal Health, is an American multinational health care services company, and the 15th highest revenue generating company in the United States. Headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, the company specializes in the distribution of pharmaceuticals and medical products, serving more than 100,000 locations. The company also manufactures medical a

Trading basics

Category design

Category design is a business strategy and discipline that helps companies create, develop, and dominate new categories of products and services.

Assets

Celsius Network

Celsius Network LLC was a cryptocurrency company. Headquartered in Hoboken, New Jersey, Celsius maintained offices in four countries and operated globally. Users could deposit a range of cryptocurrency digital assets, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, into a Celsius wallet to earn a percentage yield, and could take out loans by pledging their cryptocurrencies as security. As of May 2022, t

Trading basics

Charles Schwab Corporation

The Charles Schwab Corporation is an American multinational financial services company. It offers banking, commercial banking, investing, and related services including consulting, and wealth management advisory services to both retail and institutional clients. One of the largest banks in the United States by assets, as of December 31, 2024, it had $10.10 trillion in client assets, 36.5

Securities & exchanges

CME Group

CME Group Inc. (formerly Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings Inc.), headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, operates exchanges and provides clearing services for trading in financial derivatives such as futures contracts, options, and swaps. Its exchanges include the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), and the Commo

Assets

Coinbase

Coinbase Global, Inc. is an American cryptocurrency exchange. It was founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. Coinbase has over 100 million users, and is the largest U.S. based cryptocurrency exchange as well as the world's biggest bitcoin custodian, as of 2024. The company operates in more than 100 countries and holds nearly US$516 billion in assets, including nearly 12 perce

Payments & settlement

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance, to fund projects "without standard financial intermediaries". In 2015, over US$34 billion was raised worldwide by crowdfunding. One of the companies that obtained money through crowdfundin

Trading basics

Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies Inc. is an American multinational technology company that has been headquartered in Round Rock, Texas, since 1994. It was formed as a result of the September 2016 merger of Dell Inc. and EMC Corporation. Dell Technologies ranked 44th on the 2025 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations based on its 2024 revenue; its products include personal comput

Trading basics

Dollar Tree

Dollar Tree, Inc., formerly known as Dollar Tree Stores, Inc., is an American multi-price-point chain of discount variety stores. Headquartered in Chesapeake, Virginia, it is a Fortune 500 (sometimes referred to as Fortune 200) company and as of August 1, 2026 operates 9,150 stores throughout the 48 contiguous U.S. states (and the District of Columbia) and Canada.Its stores are supported

Trading basics

Drip pricing

In online retail, drip pricing (also known as partitioned pricing or shrouded pricing) is a sales technique where a headline price is advertised at the beginning of the purchase process, followed by the incremental disclosure of additional fees, taxes or charges. The objective of drip pricing is to gain a consumer's interest in a misleadingly low headline price without the true final pri

Trading basics

Elevance Health

Elevance Health, Inc. is an American health insurance company. Prior to June 2022, Elevance Health was named Anthem, Inc. The company is the world's seventh largest healthcare company based on revenue. Its services include medical, pharmaceutical, dental, behavioral health, long-term care, and disability plans through affiliated companies such as Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Anthem

Trading basics

Experiential retail

Experiential retail or experiential commerce is a type of retail marketing whereby customers coming into a physical retail space are offered experiences beyond the traditional ones (such as in a clothing store: browsing merchandise, advice from salespeople, dressing rooms and cashiers). Amenities provided may include art (often interactive art), live music performances, virtual reality,

Finance

FactSet

FactSet Research Systems Inc., trading as FactSet, is an American financial data and software company headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, United States. The company provides integrated data and software. For fiscal year 2024, FactSet's total ASV and professional services revenues were $2.2 billion. FactSet's total market value is approximately $17 billion.

Finance

FICO

FICO (legal name: Fair Isaac Corporation), originally Fair, Isaac and Company, is an American data analytics company based in Bozeman, Montana, focused on credit scoring services. It was founded by Bill Fair and Earl Isaac in 1956. Its FICO score, a measure of consumer credit risk, has become a fixture of consumer lending in the United States.

Finance

FIS (company)

Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. (FIS) is an American financial technology company headquarterd in Jacksonville, Florida, which focuses on core banking, payments and capital markets. Annually, FIS facilitates the movement of roughly US$9 trillion through the processing of approximately 75 billion transactions in service to more than 20,000 clients around the globe.

Payments & settlement

Global Payments

Global Payments Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company that provides payment technology to merchants, issuers and consumers. In June 2021, the company was named to the Fortune 500. The company processes payments made through credit cards, debit cards, and digital and contactless payments.

Trading basics

Growth hacking

Growth hacking is a subfield of marketing focused on the rapid growth of a company. It is referred to as both a process and a set of cross-disciplinary (digital) skills. The goal is to regularly conduct experiments, which can include A/B testing, that will lead to improving the customer journey, and replicate and scale the ideas that work and modify or abandon the ones that do not, befor

Trading basics

Hilton Worldwide

Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. is an American multinational hospitality company that manages and franchises a broad portfolio of hotels, resorts, and timeshare properties. Founded by Conrad Hilton in May 1919, the company is now led by Christopher J. Nassetta. Hilton is headquartered in Tysons, Virginia, United States.

Trading basics

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation, doing business as IBM (nicknamed Big Blue), is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is a publicly traded company and one of the 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. IBM is the largest industrial research organization in the world, with 19 research fac

Trading basics

Incentive program

An incentive program is a formal scheme used to promote or encourage specific actions or behavior by a specific group of people during a defined period of time. Incentive programs are particularly used in business management to motivate employees and in sales to attract and retain customers. Scientific literature also refers to this concept as pay for performance.

Securities & exchanges

Interactive Brokers

Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (commonly known as Interactive Brokers or IBKR) is an American multinational brokerage and financial services company headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut. Through its subsidiaries, it provides automated trade execution and custody services for stocks, options, futures, foreign exchange, bonds, funds and other products on electronic markets worldwide. I

Trading basics

Internet

The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that comprises private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet ca

Trading basics

Masco

Masco Corporation is an American manufacturer of products for the home improvement and new home construction markets. Comprising more than 20 companies, the Masco conglomerate operates nearly 60 manufacturing facilities in the United States and over 20 in other parts of the world. Since 1969 it trades on the NYSE. Under the leadership of Richard Manoogian, the company grew exponentially

Payments & settlement

Mastercard

Mastercard Inc. (stylized as MasterCard from 1979 to 2016 and as mastercard since 2016) is an American multinational payment card services corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York. It provides payment transaction processing and other related-payment services, including travel-related payments and bookings. Its principal business globally is to process payments between the banks of

Trading basics

MicroStrategy

Strategy Inc., stylized as Strategy₿ and formerly known as MicroStrategy, is an American company that provides business intelligence (BI) and mobile software. Founded in 1989 by Michael J. Saylor, Sanju Bansal, and Thomas Spahr, the firm develops software to analyze internal and external data in order to make business decisions and to develop mobile apps. It is a public company headquart

Trading basics

MSCI

MSCI Inc. (formerly Morgan Stanley Capital International) is an American finance company headquartered in New York City. MSCI is a global provider of equity, fixed income, real estate indices, multi-asset portfolio analysis tools, ESG and climate finance products. It operates the MSCI World, MSCI Emerging Markets, and MSCI All Country World (ACWI) indices, among others.

Trading basics

Non-price competition

Non-price competition is a marketing strategy "in which one firm tries to distinguish its product or service from competing products on the basis of attributes like design and workmanship". It often occurs in imperfectly competitive markets because it exists between two or more producers that sell goods and services at the same prices but compete to increase their respective market share

Trading basics

NXP Semiconductors

NXP Semiconductors N.V. is a Dutch semiconductor manufacturing and design company with headquarters in Eindhoven, Netherlands. It is the second-largest European semiconductor design and manufacturing company by market capitalization as of 2024. The company employs approximately 34,000 people in more than 30 countries and it reported revenues of $12.61 billion in 2024. The company's name

Payments & settlement

Payoneer

Payoneer Global Inc. is an American financial services company that provides online money transfer, digital payment services and provides customers with working capital.

Payments & settlement

PayPal

PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers; it serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as checks and money orders. The company operates as a payment processor for online vendors, auction sites and many other commercial and

Securities & exchanges

Peter Thiel

Peter Andreas Thiel ( ; born 11 October 1967) is a German-American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and conservative political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies and Founders Fund, he was also the first outside investor in Facebook. As of October 2026, Forbes estimated Thiel's net worth at US$37.7 billion.

Trading basics

Platform cooperative

A platform cooperative, or platform co-op, is a cooperatively owned, democratically governed business that establishes a two-sided market via a computing platform, website, mobile app or a protocol to facilitate the sale of goods and services. Platform cooperatives are an alternative to venture capital-funded platforms insofar as they are owned and governed by those who depend on them mo

Finance

Property technology

Property technology (also known as by the portmanteaus proptech, PropTech, prop-tech and also known as real estate technology) is used to refer to the application of information technology and platform economics to the real estate industry. Property technology overlaps with financial technology, including uses like online payment and booking systems.

Trading basics

Prosumer

A prosumer is an individual who both consumes and produces. The term is a portmanteau of the words producer and consumer. Research has identified six types of prosumers: DIY prosumers, self-service prosumers, customizing prosumers, collaborative prosumers, monetised prosumers, and economic prosumers.

Finance

S&P Global

S&P Global Inc. (prior to 2016, McGraw Hill Financial, Inc., and prior to 2013, The McGraw–Hill Companies, Inc.) is an American publicly traded corporation headquartered in Manhattan, New York. Its primary areas of business are financial information, analytics, and energy and commodities intelligence. It is the parent company of S&P Global Ratings, S&P Global Energy, S&P Global Market In

Trading basics

Shopify

Shopify Inc. is a Canadian multinational e-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, that operates a cloud e-commerce management platform (CEMP) for retail point-of-sale systems. The company has over five million customers and processed US$292.3 billion in transactions in 2024, of which 57% was in the United States. Major customers include Tesla, LVMH, Nestlé, PepsiCo, AB InBev,

Trading basics

Short-term rental

Short-term rentals (STR) are furnished lodging rented for short periods of time. They can be used as alternatives to hotels for vacation rentals and housing during relocation. They are usually reserved via online marketplaces.

Trading basics

Startup company

A startup or start-up is a company or project typically undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to go public, startups are new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo-founder. At the early stages, startups face signifi

Finance

Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ROY-tərz) is a Canadian multinational content-driven technology conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, and maintains its headquarters in the city at 19 Duncan Street.

Trading basics

Unicorn (finance)

In business, a unicorn is a startup company valued at over US$1 billion which is privately owned and therefore its company shares are not publicly listed. The term was coined in 2013 by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, choosing the mythical animal to represent the statistical rarity of such successful ventures.