Machine Learning (ML) is a subset of artificial intelligence (AI) and is the study of algorithms which optimize through experience without being programmed to do so. Machine learning algorithms find patterns in large data sets in order to make data-based claims and predictions.

A machine learning (ML) prediction is the result of a machine learning algorithm analyzing a historical data set. The ML prediction can then subsequently be applied to new data sets, where it can be used to forecast outcomes like the future price movement of a stock.

The term machine to machine (M2M) refers to communication between devices that occurs without human input. In the blockchain industry, this frequently relates to automated payments facilitated through smart contracts. Automation eliminates the role of gatekeepers and intermediaries, which significantly reduces costs.

A main chain is a term used to describe the main, Layer-1 network of a blockchain network protocol such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. The name ‘main chain’ generally means it is the most powerful blockchain and most important blockchain network within a specific blockchain ecosystem. Generally, other blockchain protocols and decentralized applications are built ‘on top of’ the main chain. As an example, many of the most prominent decentralized finance (DeFi) projects are constructed to run on top of the Ethereum network's main chain.

A mainnet is a fully developed and released version of a blockchain network. This stands in contrast with a testnet, which is generally used to perform tests and experiments on a blockchain before a mainnet is released. Testnets are used while a blockchain is live for experimentation and development as to not disrupt the main chain.

Maker (MKR) is the governance token of MakerDAO, an Ethereum-based protocol that issues the Dai stablecoin and facilitates collateral-backed loans without an intermediary. MKR is a governance token that allows holders to vote on changes to the protocol, like the addition of new collateral assets and protocol updates.

MakerDAO is the Ethereum-based protocol that issues Dai, a stablecoin that tracks the value of the US dollar. MakerDAO also facilitates collateral-backed loans without an intermediary. The platform is governed by the holders of its native Maker (MKR) tokens.

Malware refers to any type of 'malicious software,' software that is specifically designed to cause damage to computers and computer systems. Examples of malware include viruses, trojan horses, and ransomware, among others.

A Management Information System (MIS) is a computer-based system that leverages both hardware and software components to manage a company or organization's internal and external operations. MISs are used to manage, organize, analyze, and compile information needed to make better overall business decisions with the purpose of obtaining higher levels of business profitability. Management Information Systems utilize manpower, technology, and other means to allow for better short-term and long-term decision-making processes.

A margin call occurs when the value of an investor's margin account — a type of account that lets investors purchase securities with borrowed money — falls below the broker's required minimum amount. Specifically, a margin call is a broker's demand that an investor deposit additional money or securities into the account to restore it to the minimum value or face liquidation.

Margin trading refers to the process of using borrowed funds from a broker or exchange to trade a financial asset through a leveraged position. This leverage can vary widely, from 2 – 150 times your collateral. The higher the leverage used, the higher the margin trading liquidation risk. If a trade goes against a trader (i.e. the wrong direction), it can result in the permanent loss of the entire initial position as the trader’s collateral is liquidated. Margin trading is not recommended for inexperienced traders due to its higher risk profile and potential for large financial losses.

In the blockchain industry, market capitalization, or market cap, refers to the value of the entire supply of a cryptocurrency or token. Market capitalization is calculated by taking the market price of one coin or token and multiplying it by the total number of coins or tokens in circulation.

Market depth generally refers to a specific market’s adeptness at absorbing large market orders without changing the price of the underlying security. An assessment of market depth takes into consideration the overall number and breadth of open orders, bids, and offers for a specific asset. If the market depth of an asset is deep (with a large amount of liquidity) it means that a very large order is often needed to change the price significantly. Market depth should also be considered the same as liquidity depth.

In finance, a market maker — or liquidity provider — is a company or individual that buys and sells large amounts of assets in order to ensure that the market remains liquid. While not always necessary when organic trading volume is high, many exchanges — both stock and crypto — utilize market makers to ensure liquid markets. Market making gives traders ample trading liquidity, low slippage, and higher trade execution speeds — particularly for larger orders. Market makers “create a market” to earn income, taking a cut of the bid-ask spread of the assets they provide liquidity for.

The most common type of trade made by retail investors, a market order is used to purchase or sell an asset at the current market price. Market orders are the fastest and most efficient way to purchase an asset when trading, and are typically filled instantaneously when strong liquidity and trading volume is present. Market orders are placed within an online order book on an exchange trading interface, usually either on a computer or mobile device.

Used in financial markets, market sentiment refers to the general attitude of investors and market participants towards overall market conditions (or those of a specific asset) and where they see them moving pricewise. A sustained uptrend with increasing prices typically indicates a bullish market sentiment, while a sustained downtrend with decreasing prices indicates a bearish market sentiment. Normally, the overall market sentiment is derived by compiling multiple data points which could include metrics from fundamental analysis (FA), technical analysis (TA) indicators, and market history price charts of various time frames.

A market signal, also known as a trading signal, is an indication to buy or sell assets that is based on some form of technical or fundamental analysis. Traders can generate market signals using a variety of criteria, such as earnings reports, trade volume analysis, or through myriad technical indicators based on market metrics.

The Polymarket Markets Integrity Committee (MIC) is a body whose members help ensure the legitimacy, trust, and operational efficiency of the Polymarket platform.

Mark to market, also known as fair value accounting or marked to market, is an accounting practice that values assets in terms of current market price, as opposed to a static book value.

Rebranded as Omni in 2015, Mastercoin was designed to enable the issuance of new currencies, assets, and tokens on top of the Bitcoin blockchain.

Maximum supply refers to the maximum number of coins or tokens that will ever exist in the lifetime of a specific crypto asset, such as the maximum number of bitcoin (BTC) or ether (ETH). This classification is analogous to the number of fully diluted shares of an asset that is traded in a traditional stock market. The maximum supply is different than the circulating supply (which represents the number of tokens circulating in the market publicly) and the total supply (which represents the number of tokens that have already been created, minus any burned tokens).

Launched in 2012, Medium is a blogging platform that hosts articles written by a combination of amateur and professional writers. Medium has an in-house staff of paid writers and also incentivizes independent writers through a compensation program based on reader engagement. While some articles are free, some are behind a paywall and require a paid membership to access them. In the blockchain industry, Medium has become a popular place for blockchain teams to reach their communities, post technical updates, and share project-related news.

A medium of exchange is an asset that is widely accepted in exchange for goods and services. Fiat currency is an example of a medium of exchange today, but historically has included everything from shells to precious metals.

A megabyte (MB) is a unit of measurement for digital data storage that is made up of 1,000,000 bytes of data. Bytes are the original basic unit of data storage, but have since grown to include many larger measurements including kilobytes (KBs), gigabytes (GBs), and terabytes (TBs) — making use of the International System of Units (SI) measurement scale. MBs are normally used to measure data storage on a computer or computer network, or for external USB storage devices or hard drives, and other related software or hardware.

A Membership service provider (MSP) is a component within a blockchain network that is used to manage memberships for different users, or nodes, and their digital identities. MSPs are used to verify, authenticate, and identify different users and give them permission to make use of a blockchain network. MSPs are customized to fulfill specific customer requirements determined by the creator of the network, and also provide interoperability between various membership standards and architectures. Hyperledger Fabric is one of the most well-known blockchains that makes use of a MSP.

A memecoin is a cryptocurrency or crypto token based on a viral joke or cultural reference. Projects built around memecoins rely heavily on social media hype to attract new users/investors. This means that while certain memecoins may have purported use cases and sound cryptoeconomics, these projects can be strongly hype-driven and often lean heavily on the strength of their marketing efforts and community initiatives to drive adoption.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is a document that outlines an agreement reached between two or more parties. MOUs are not legally binding, but often indicate that the parties will likely sign a binding contract in the future.

A mempool is where an unconfirmed transaction waits after being verified by a node and before being included in a block. The mempool makes use of the Replace by Fee (RBF) mechanism, which allows transactions with higher transaction fees to supersede earlier transactions with lower fees paid. When many transactions are pending in the mempool, network traffic becomes more congested and the average confirmation time increases. Network nodes must check to ensure that transactions within the mempool are valid by verifying correct signature schemes, that outputs do not exceed inputs, and that funds have not been double spent.

A Merkle root is found at the top of a Merkle tree and represents the transaction hashes located at the bottom of its associated Merkle tree. These transaction hashes are then repeatedly hashed in pairs until a singular Merkle root is left. The resulting Merkle root can then be used to validate every transaction hash located in its Merkle tree.

A Merkle Tree is a data structure composed of data-converting hashes that is utilized by blockchains for the secure verification of information. A Merkle tree summarizes all the transactions in a block by producing a digital fingerprint (i.e., a single hash) of the entire set of transactions.

A mesh network is a network topology that makes use of a decentralized network architecture characterized by a non-hierarchical, dynamic, and direct connection to a high number of nodes. The intention is for all nodes within the network to cooperate with each other in order to increase the performance of the entire system. Mesh networks are generally autonomous, self-configuring, and self-organizing, encouraging a dynamic distribution of computational workload that can help the network remain stable even if several of the nodes in the system fail. This can in turn result in a more secure and more fault-tolerant network structure with lower operational costs.

The Metachain operates like a control center for Elrond and is designed to run within its own specialized shard to allow communication with other shards and carry out cross-shard operations within the Elrond Network. The Metachain’s main purpose is not to process transactions, but instead to notarize and finalize shard block headers, store and maintain the network’s validator registry, trigger new epochs, and process various tasks for fishermen.

Metadata is a form of data that is made up of other data. For example, the metadata of a file might describe when the file was created and what type of file it is.

MetaMask is a web browser-based blockchain wallet that allows users to connect to Ethereum decentralized applications (dApps) without running an Ethereum full node. MetaMask is also used to integrate to numerous decentralized exchange (DEX) platforms like Uniswap. Currently (December 2020) a mobile-based version of MetaMask is undergoing extensive development and will be fully launched in 2021.

A metaverse is a shared virtual reality world.

Metropolis was an upgrade to the Ethereum network that took place in October of 2017. It succeeded Homestead, and was the final phase of Ethereum before the Serenity phase was initiated in 2020. Metropolis delivered a more full-featured user interface by opening the doors for dApp development and tokenization, which in turn fostered the 2017 ICO boom. Throughout Ethereum’s history, it has been clear that the continued development of an increasingly scalable, secure blockchain network has been a constant goal — as has an open-source, community-based commitment to governance around the proposal and development processes.

In the blockchain space, "micro cap coin" refers to a cryptocurrency asset that has an extremely small market capitalization. The market capitalization, or total value of a cryptocurrency asset and its underlying blockchain enterprise, is determined by the number of circulating coins that are accessible to the public, multiplied by the price per coin. As a subjective term, there is no specific market cap threshold that signifies that an asset is a large cap coin.

A micropayment is a transaction, typically online, that involves a small sum of money—sometimes as small as a fraction of a cent.

In the blockchain space, "mid cap coin" refers to a cryptocurrency asset that has a medium-sized market capitalization. The market capitalization, or total value of a cryptocurrency asset and its underlying blockchain enterprise, is determined by the number of circulating coins that are accessible to the public, multiplied by the price per coin. As a subjective term, there is no specific market cap threshold that signifies that an asset is a mid cap coin.

Middleware is a component of a computer system or network that exists in the middle of the system, often to add to the functionality of the entire platform. Middleware can also be considered the service layer. In a blockchain context, middleware is made up of various systems that help decentralized applications (dApps) expand their utility. In blockchain, examples of middleware include smart contracts, oracles, databases, digital identities, file storage, and various connectivity devices. The service layer is also made up of application programming interfaces (APIs), multi-signature technology, digital assets, blockchain governance systems, and other components.

A Microtransaction (often abbreviated as MTX) is a transaction type that allows users to purchase virtual goods via micropayments, often in a custom store interface within apps where in-game items are being sold. As an example, within Apple's App Store this process is called an "in-app purchase," while Google refers to the same use as "in-app billing." While microtransactions are particularly common within the mobile gaming sector, they are also employed in a number of other environments, including console gaming and PC digital software distribution platforms. Microtransactions are also very similar to micropayments (a term more commonly used outside of the gaming context). Both terms denote small purchases by a customer in an online environment.

Mimblewimble is a privacy-focused blockchain design first proposed in 2019 by the pseudonymous Tom Elvis Jedusor. Mimblewimble's novel design proposes a way to maintain transaction data privacy while executing transaction verification that does not require network nodes to store the entire history of the blockchain. Grin and Beam are open source implementations of Mimblewimble tech.

Miners are an essential component of every Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchain consensus protocol, and are responsible for validating new transactions and recording them on the blockchain ledger. Miners validate these transactions by solving complex math problems, which results in the minting of new tokens while reinforcing the network's security and trustworthiness. In order to incentivize users to allocate processing power to mine new blocks, miners are typically rewarded a fraction of a network's native currency with every successfully mined block.

The minimum collateralization ratio (MCR) is the minimum ratio of debt to collateral that will not trigger liquidations, which can occur when the price of an asset rises such that the collateral no longer exceeds the set MCR. For example, imagine a user initially deposited $2,000 USD to create an asset worth $1,000 USD (a collateralization ratio of 200%). If the price of the asset then rose above $1.50, the collateralization ratio would decrease below 150% and the position would be liquidated.

A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is an early version of a product that has enough features such that a company is able to trial the product and collect data on how customers or clients may use it.

Mining is the process of using computing power to verify and record blockchain transactions. Mining also results in the creation of new coins, which miners earn as a reward for their efforts. Mining is utilized in Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchains.

A mining algorithm is a component of a Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchain. A mining algorithm is typically a cryptographic puzzle that requires significant computational power to solve. This secures the network while financially incentivizing the miners that secure it (through mining rewards). Popular blockchain mining algorithms include secure hash algorithms (SHAs) SHA-256 and SHA-3 — as well as Ethash, Scrypt, and Equihash.

Mining as a Service (MaaS) is a cloud product that allows you to purchase mining power (or hash rate) from a cloud mining provider, typically measured in megahashes per second (mh/s) and purchased in time intervals, which can vary from a week to several years. Also referred to as cloud mining, MaaS tends to refer to the selling of hash rate from the cloud mining provider’s point of view — as a way to monetize their existing hash rate and mining hardware.

A mining farm is a physical location, often quite large, that stores many specialized computers that are designed to mine specific cryptocurrencies. The most commonly mined cryptocurrency is bitcoin (BTC), but mining farms for other crypto assets also exist. Mining farms are typically very expensive to launch because of the costs of their exorbitant electricity requirements, the ongoing maintenance of mining rigs, and extensive cooling systems. However, it is becoming more common for forms of renewable energy to power crypto mining farms to combat these inefficiencies.

A mining pool combines — or “pools” — the hash rate of the crypto miners that join it to mine blocks and distribute the associated block rewards. This is done so miners can have a more reliable rate of return on their mining and allows smaller mining operations to compete with larger mining farms. Mining pools are specific to a blockchain and typically charge a fee of 0 – 2% of all block rewards.

A mining reward, also referred to as a block reward, are native assets of a network that miners receive for successfully mining blocks of transactions. A mining reward can vary over time. For example, a Bitcoin block reward decreases by 50% every 210,000 blocks.

A mining rig is a system used to mine cryptocurrency tokens. This rig can either be a device that is specifically designed and built for mining, or a personal computer that is only used to mine cryptocurrency on a part-time basis.

Minting is a process that is used to create new tokens for a blockchain network. Minting requires no resources and is used to increase the circulating supply. It is often carried out by validator nodes (in systems that contain these types of nodes). Cryptocurrencies that are minted often have no upper supply limit and tend to rely on the constant growth of the project’s economic system in order to remain valuable. Crypto minting is similar to the minting of fiat money within the traditional finance and banking process, in that there is in theory no limit to the amount of money that can be printed, except that the printing must be controlled to prevent excessive inflation/devaluation.

Short for “Mirror Assets,” mAssets are synthetic assets issued by the Mirror Protocol that mimic the price behavior of real-world assets from leading enterprises around the world.

Mirror Protocol is a separate blockchain protocol operating on top of the Terra blockchain network. It enables the creation of fungible synthetic assets called mirror assets, or mAssets. mAssets "mirror" the ongoing real-time value of share prices from leading enterprises around the world such as Tesla (mTSLA), Apple (mAAPL), Microsoft (mMSFT) and a host of others. Mirror Protocol makes use of its utility token MIR and can be used to create mirror assets and for numerous other decentralized finance (DeFi) uses within the Terra ecosystem.

Mirror token (MIR) is the native token of the Mirror Protocol. It functions as a governance token, allowing its holders to vote on changes to the protocol. Additionally, MIR is distributed as a reward to users who provide Mirror Asset (mAsset) liquidity on automated market makers (AMMs).

Cryptocurrency mixers (also known as tumblers) provide a custodial mixing service where a user deposits cryptocurrency to be mixed for privacy reasons. Although coin mixing doesn’t guarantee complete privacy, it makes tracing transactions more difficult. These services are sometimes used to launder “dirty coins,” which are garnered through criminal activity. This is done by mixing dirty coins with coins from different wallets, then transferring the “cleaned” coins to another wallet. While cryptocurrency mixers are also used for non-criminal purposes, some countries have cracked down on their use altogether. Service providers typically charge a 1-3% fee for this type of service. These services seem to be waning in popularity as newer, non-custodial options have appeared.

A mobile wallet is a cryptocurrency wallet that is installed on a smartphone. Mobile wallets are typically 'hot' wallets, meaning they are connected to the internet.

Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) is a mathematical framework used to construct a portfolio of assets to maximize the expected return based on a specific level of risk. MPT is considered a formalized extension of investment diversification (owning a wide variety of assets within a portfolio). Its framework states that an asset’s risk and return should not be evaluated on its own, but instead by how it contributes to the entire portfolio’s overall risk and return potential. Renowned economist Harry Markowitz ideated MPT in a 1952 essay that later resulted in him winning the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics.

Moments are tradable non-fungible tokens (NFTs) developed for the Dapper Labs NBA Top Shot collectable platform that contain a video clip of a specific game highlight and other relevant information, such as statistics about a specific game and the player featured in the video clip. Each NBA Moment has a unique serial number and a provably fixed total supply cap, and makes use of the Flow blockchain. Moments vary in terms of scarcity and value. As of spring 2021, there are five tiers of Top Shot Moments NFTs including Genesis Ultimate, Platinum Ultimate, Legendary, Rare, and Common.

Monero is a privacy-focused Proof-of-Work blockchain that was created in 2014. Its privacy features include anonymizing transaction amounts and the addresses of transacting parties. Its native asset is XMR.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is the central bank and main financial regulatory authority of Singapore. The MAS is responsible for ensuring the regulatory compliance, stability, and efficiency of Singapore’s economic system pertaining to banking, investment, monetary policy, insurance, securities, and the financial sector in general — as well as for the issuance of the Singapore dollar (SGD).

Monetary policy refers to the economic policies a government makes to ensure the sustainable economic growth and macroeconomic prosperity of a nation. Monetary policy is typically carried out by a nation's central bank to control the money supply, interest rates, the ebb and flow of money through a country's economy, and other parameters that shape a country's economy. Monetary policy can also be tied to larger geographical regions like the European Union, which makes use of the European Central Bank (ECB) and other constituents to ensure the long-term economic prosperity of the European Union.

Money Service Business (MSB) is a legal term used to describe any company that transmits or converts money, cashes checks, carries out foreign currency exchange, facilitates payments and remittance services, and other related services. Larger global MSBs include PayPal, Western Union, MoneyGram, Revolut, and TransferWise, among others. MSBs have strict regulatory and compliance guidelines they must adhere to, including Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) procedures to avoid potential fraud, theft, and misuse of funds by malicious actors. MSBs provide services similar to banks and must hold a valid money transfer license.

A money transfer license is a licensing certification that online global payment service providers or money service businesses (MSBs) must obtain through different regional, international, and national regulatory bodies which allow users in various jurisdictions to send and receive different types of fiat currencies. In the United States, the Money Transfer Regulators Association (MTRA) and other important regulatory bodies oversee the legal framework that MSBs must adhere to.

The Money Transfer Regulators Association (MTRA) is one of the main regulatory bodies that oversees the standards — like strict licensing, Know Your Customer (KYC), and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) guidelines — that Money Service Businesses (MSBs) in the United States must adhere to in order to operate. The MTRA works on an international, national, and state level to provide a transparent system for the exchange of money for users in the United States and around the world, though much of its focus is on the United States.

When an asset dramatically increases in price during a relatively short period of time, the asset is often said to have mooned. The term is particularly common in cryptocurrency markets, where many crypto assets have displayed volatile behavior, and where some assets have been known to not only dump in price (losing a large percentage of their initial value) but also moon in price (increasing in value substantially within a relatively short period of time).

Moore’s Law

Moore's Law is an assertion made by Gordon Moore in 1965 stating that due to technological advances in microchips, the power and speed of computers would double every two years, along with a correlational decrease in cost.

More Viable Plasma (MoreVP)

More Viable Plasma (MoreVP) is a variation of Plasma, a Layer-2 Ethereum scaling technology introduced by Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Poon. MoreVP bundles transactions together and verifies them off of the blockchain before returning them in a batch to be verified by Ethereum. OMG Network utilizes MoreVP.

Motoko Programming Language (DFINITY)

Created by the DFINITY Foundation, the Motoko programming language was designed to build blockchains (subnets), decentralized applications (dApps), and other tools on the Internet Computer (ICP) protocol. While based on the WebAssembly (WASM) programming language, Motoko was designed to be more adaptable, secure, and efficient than the traditional WASM language. Motoko also compiles down to WASM because of its backwards-compatible web versatility and browser functionality. This also allows any language that can compile to WASM the ability to deploy code on the ICP protocol.

MOVE Contract (FTX Exchange)

MOVE Contracts on the FTX crypto exchange track how much an underlying asset moves, up or down, by the end of a determined period. In other words, a trader is betting on the volatility of an underlying asset. MOVE Contracts are available with daily, weekly, or quarterly expirations. MOVE Contracts function like futures contracts, except they expire to the amount an asset’s price moved, rather than the price of the asset itself.

Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD)

The moving average convergence divergence (MACD) is a trading indicator used in technical analysis that utilizes moving averages to analyze the momentum of an asset.

Moving Average (MA)

A moving average (MA) is a specialized method used to measure different data points by producing a series of averages of different data subsets related to the full data set. In a financial context, an MA is a stock indicator that is usually used for technical analysis (TA) to help predict the trends and direction of markets, asset prices, investment returns, and other data types. A moving average has many variations, including the Simple Moving Average (SMA), Cumulative Moving Average (CMA), and Weighted Moving Average (WMA), which are used to measure different types of data in a predetermined format.

Mt. Gox

Mt. Gox was a centralized cryptocurrency exchange that lost more than 700,000 bitcoin in a 2014 hack. Created by Jed McCaleb in 2010, Mt. Gox was sold to Mark Karpeles in 2011 who operated it from Japan. Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy and liquidation proceedings after the 2014 hack. Creditors are still awaiting compensation for their lost funds.

Multi-DLT Application (mDapp) (Quant)

Multi-DLT applications (mDapps) are decentralized applications (dApps) that operate via Quant’s interoperable Overledger solution. mDapps allow for the deployment of applications on many different types of blockchain platforms at the same time, allowing for the extra customizability needed to realize many specific uses. Multi-DLT applications are meant to be simple and easy to create and less technically challenging for software developers to deploy. According to Quant, mDapps are truly interoperable because of their ability to be used on any distributed ledger technology (DLT) system and their ability to be programmed in nearly any programming language.

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) — which includes two-factor authentication (2FA) and several other related mechanisms — is an electronic authentication method through which a device user is given access to a website or application only once they successfully present two or more data types (or factors) as an authentication mechanism. MFA often requires a user to further verify their identity after entering an account password (for example, by inputting a randomized code generated through a secondary device or application). The purpose of MFA is to mitigate the possibility of various cybersecurity risks to the authentication process that can stem from hacks or human error.

Multi-Hop Routing

In the context of the Orchid protocol, 'hops' refer to the way data is routed, specifically the encryption and masking of web traffic by a virtual private network (VPN). Multi-hop routing refers to the routing of traffic through multiple VPNs.

Multi-Ledger Token (MLT) (Quant)

Multi-Ledger Tokens (MLTs) are specialized tokens employed by the Quant Overledger interoperability blockchain platform. MLTs are used to create stablecoins that are compatible with different blockchains, as well as supporting the deployment of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). MLTs are commonly used employed by banks, FinTech enterprises, and various micropayment and marketplace platforms. MLTs are also utilized for cross-border payment services and for trading and investing between consortium blockchain systems. MLTs allow for the transfer of ownership between different enterprises, meaning that transactions are recorded and stored throughout their entire lifecycle, thus creating a cryptographically verifiable source of truth.

Multi-Level Byzantine Fault Tolerance

Multi-Level Byzantine Fault Tolerance is Theta’s consensus mechanism that utilizes a small subset of nodes to speed up approvals and is therefore faster and more resource-efficient than traditional Proof-of-Work (PoW) networks. The configuration relies on a smaller subset of 10-20 nodes, called the “Validator Committee,” to give the initial approval of a transaction before passing it on to the “Guardian Pool” — a much larger group of nodes responsible for fully validating transactions and adding them to Theta’s blockchain ledger. This design helps achieve a balance between transaction throughput, consistency, and decentralization.

Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA)

Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) is a video game genre that is very similar to real time strategy (RTS) gaming. MOBA often involves groups of teams competing against each other in a large battle arena setting with computer-assisted units supporting each side. The goal of competing teams is to protect their terrain and to overthrow their adversaries by eliminating opposing team members and taking possession of their territory. The World of Warcraft franchise is often considered a distinct subset of RTS or MOBA gaming.

Multi-Signature (Multi-Sig) Wallet

A multisignature (multisig) wallet is a wallet which requires multiple keys to sign a transaction before it can be executed. Non-multisig wallets require only one signature to authorize transactions.

Mutual Fund

A mutual fund is an investment fund that is made up of a large pool of capital collected from many investors in order to invest in a large number of asset types including stocks, bonds, and derivatives instruments. Mutual funds are managed by investment management experts whose job is to allocate the fund’s assets to produce strong investment returns for the fund’s investors. Mutual funds enable individual investors to access a professionally managed portfolio of various assets that allow each shareholder to proportionally contribute to the gains or losses of the entire fund.

Mutual Insurance Company

A mutual insurance company is an insurance company that is entirely owned by its members. The primary objective of a mutual insurance company is to provide coverage for its members, who also play an influential role in company governance.

Mutualized Proof of Stake (MPoS)

Mutualized Proof of Stake (MPoS) is a consensus mechanism that is used by the Qtum blockchain. Unlike Proof of Stake, MPoS divides each block reward between the block producer and the nine previous block producers. A block's producer receives 10% of the block reward immediately, and the remaining 90% is distributed after waiting for 500 blocks. This is done to disincentivize malicious attacks on the network.

My Story™ (VeChain)

My Story™ is a blockchain-based digital assurance solution created by VeChain and DNV (formerly DNV GL). My Story™ enables consumers to scan a QR code on a product to learn about the product's lifecycle and information related to quality, social, environmental, and ethical issues.