A blockchain payments glossary is a list of the terms used when money moves as a stablecoin over a blockchain instead of as a bank message, from wallet and finality to quote and custody. This one defines 48 of them, shows the bank equivalent for the main ones, and says where each shows up on a Lumx payment.
Most terms have a bank twin, and the gaps are where teams get surprised. The last column of each term table is Lumx behavior; depeg and CBDC are market terms with a dash. For one payment end to end, start with how stablecoin payments work.
Which terms describe the money, the ledger and custody?
A blockchain payment is a transfer recorded on a shared ledger and not passed between banks as messages. Lumx exposes it as a stablecoin API. Custody decides who can move the funds: see what a custodial wallet is.
Nineteen terms for the money, the ledger and who holds the keys
Term | What it means | On Lumx |
Blockchain payment | A transfer of value recorded on a shared ledger. For a business, almost always a stablecoin transfer. See blockchain payments vs crypto payments. | A transfer between two wallets, or the middle leg of a conversion. |
Blockchain (network) | The shared ledger a transfer is recorded on, such as Ethereum or Tron. | Lumx wallets run on Ethereum, Polygon, Base and Tron, plus Stellar for the BRL-to-USDC on-ramp only. |
Smart contract | Code on a blockchain that runs when its conditions are met. Stablecoins are issued through smart contracts. | A payment is an API request, and Lumx handles the call to the network. |
Block explorer | A public website where anyone can look up an address or a transfer. | The wallet and the transaction response each carry a block explorer link. |
Bridge | A service that moves a token between two blockchains, often by locking it on one and issuing a copy on the other. | Each wallet sits on one network, and a transaction names the network. |
Stablecoin | A token built to hold the value of one currency, usually the dollar. Read what a stablecoin is. | USDC and USDT. |
USDC | A dollar stablecoin issued by Circle. See what USDC is. | Ethereum, Polygon and Base, plus Stellar for the BRL on-ramp only. |
USDT | A dollar stablecoin issued by Tether. | Ethereum, Polygon and Tron. |
Issuer | The company that creates and redeems a stablecoin and holds its reserves. | USDC and USDT, as listed above. |
Mint and redeem | Mint: the issuer creates new units when it receives dollars. Redeem: the issuer takes units back and pays out dollars. | Lumx has a mint account of its own with Circle and also gets USDC through BTG Pactual, a strategic partner and investor. |
Reserves and attestation | The cash and short-term government debt an issuer holds so each unit can be redeemed at par and the accountant's report that confirms them. Circle publishes attestation reports. | Set by the issuer, not by Lumx. |
Depeg | A stablecoin trading below its target value, usually because of doubts about reserves or redemption. See are stablecoin payments safe. | - |
CBDC | Central bank digital currency: a country's money issued digitally by its central bank, not by a company. See stablecoins vs CBDCs. | - |
Wallet | Software that holds the keys controlling an address, not the coins. | A custodial wallet per customer and network, enabled once approved. |
Address | The public identifier funds are sent to, like an account number. Format differs by network. | Shown on each wallet, next to its explorer link. |
Private key | The secret that authorizes transfers out of an address. | Lumx signs for the wallet, so no one on the customer's side handles a key. |
Custodial | A provider holds the assets and keys for you, the way a bank holds deposits. | Lumx wallets are custodial, held by BitGo, segregated per customer, with no omnibus account. |
Non-custodial | You keep the keys. The provider cannot move funds unless you sign. | Funds can move to a self-custody address through the Transfer endpoint. |
Self-custody | Non-custodial taken to the end: you hold your own keys with no provider between you and the ledger. | A transfer to an external address uses the same endpoint. |
Coverage by region: Lumx coverage.
Terms for moving money in and out
Eight terms for the conversion legs and the places money lands
Term | What it means | On Lumx |
Fiat | Government money held in banks: dollars, euros, reais, pesos. | BRL, MXN, COP, USD, EUR and GBP. |
On-ramp | Fiat in, stablecoin out. See what an on-ramp is. | Each status change fires a webhook. |
Off-ramp | Stablecoin in, local money out. See what an off-ramp is. | Each status change fires a webhook. |
Transfer | Stablecoin moved between wallets with no conversion. | To another customer or an external address. |
Rail | The local payment system that moves fiat: Pix (Brazil's instant payment system), SPEI (Mexico's interbank system), ACH, FEDWIRE (the Federal Reserve's wire system), Faster Payments (UK instant), SEPA, SWIFT, Bre-B (Colombia's instant payment system) and PSE (Colombia's bank-transfer network, collection only). | Named on the request. |
Virtual account | A bank account number issued to a customer by a banking partner. See what a named virtual account is. | One currency per account, tied to the customer. |
Destination | The bank account where an off-ramp lands. | Tied to a customer, with a holder relationship such as supplier or the customer's own account. |
Autoconversion rule | A standing instruction that converts every incoming deposit to stablecoin. | Converts at market. |
On Lumx, a payment keeps the same lifecycle on every rail. The rail changes the cut-off, not the vocabulary: FEDWIRE closes at 3:00 PM ET, so a later off-ramp waits for the next US business day. Rails: Lumx global payments.
Settlement terms: what does done mean?
Bank systems and blockchains use the same word for different moments.
Six terms for when a payment is done
Term | What it means | On Lumx |
Transaction hash | The ID of a transfer on the ledger. Anyone can look it up on a block explorer. | The stablecoin leg returns a transaction hash and an explorer link. UETR and MT103 confirmations on every SWIFT payout, per-rail reference on every transfer, webhooks. |
Confirmation | The transfer has been included in a block. More blocks on top means more confidence. | Webhooks report the stablecoin leg, and the explorer link lets you check the confirmation. |
Finality | The point after which a confirmed transfer cannot be reversed or dropped. Time to finality differs by network. | SUCCESS is set after all legs finish. |
Settlement | The moment the recipient has the money with no steps left. | An off-ramp counts as complete once funds leave the banking partner. |
Reversibility | Whether a payment can be pulled back. A final transfer cannot be recalled by the sender or the receiving bank, though an issuer can still freeze an address (Circle reserves that right). | A deposit that lands after an on-ramp expired is refunded to the sender on the same rail, and a flagged transaction waits for review. |
Pre-funding | Cash parked with a correspondent or provider ahead of payments. | No pre-funding on Lumx means no capital parked in settlement accounts before a payment: conversion and settlement happen when the transaction starts. Holding a USDC balance in your wallet is compatible with that. |
On a blockchain, the stablecoin leg reaches finality and settles at once. A bank payment can look done days before it settles. Treating "sent" as "settled" books revenue on money that can still be held, so write down which status your ledger accepts as done. The SWIFT versus stablecoin comparison turns on that gap.
How long does a blockchain payment take? Two clocks run: the network's finality, and the fiat leg, which follows its rail's cut-offs and is often slower. Why cross-border payments are slow covers it.
Price terms and what sits inside a quote
A quote is the one number a provider has to stand behind. Stablecoin API pricing compared sets the fee models side by side.
Seven terms for what a payment costs
Term | What it means | On Lumx |
Quote | A price a provider holds for a short window, with the rate, the fees and the exact amount the recipient gets. | A locked rate returns an ID and its expiry time in UTC, and the ID goes on the transaction. A new quote always has a new ID. Pricing: monthly platform fee plus usage-based per-transaction fees, transparent FX on locked quotes, no pre-funding; no published plans. |
Floating rate | A live reference rate with no price held. Good for showing an estimate. | No fee. The rate at execution can differ slightly. |
Locked rate | A rate held for a stated time. After it expires, request a new one. | 30 seconds, 1 minute or 5 minutes. The 30-second lock has no fee, and longer locks include a fee for volatility risk. |
FX spread | The gap between the market rate and the rate you get. Often the largest cost of a cross-border payment. | The receipt shows the base and final exchange rates side by side. |
Slippage | The difference between the price you expected and the price you got. | A locked quote moves that risk to Lumx for the window. |
Network fee (gas) | The blockchain's processing fee for a transfer, called gas on Ethereum and other EVM networks. | Lumx subsidizes the network fee on its legs, so the customer needs no ETH or TRX. |
Partner fee | A fee you add on top of a transaction to earn revenue. | In basis points, a flat dollar amount, or both, paid to a wallet address you choose. |
Compliance terms
The vocabulary is the one banks use. What changes is that the counterparty can be a wallet address.
Eight terms for who is allowed to pay whom
Term | What it means | On Lumx |
KYC | Verifying an individual's identity before they can transact. Short for know your customer. | KYC runs on Sumsub. Customers can reuse a Sumsub verification with a share token. |
KYB | Verifying a company and its owners before it can transact. Short for know your business. | Verification moves from not started to approved, with an RFI state in between when a document is missing. |
AML | The policies and monitoring a regulated company runs to detect illicit funds. | Every transaction, inbound or outbound, is screened before it executes, and a payout goes to a registered destination or an onboarded customer. |
Sanctions screening | Checking names and wallet addresses against sanctions lists. | Part of the same screening. |
KYT | Know your transaction: monitoring of the transfers themselves and the addresses they touch. | Chainalysis monitors blockchain activity, every kind of wallet included, external receipts too. Fiat is monitored by Lumx's own systems and its banking partners. |
Travel rule | A requirement to pass sender and recipient information with transfers above a threshold. FATF extended it to virtual assets in June 2019. | Lumx is aligned with the Travel Rule, and nested payments are not allowed. |
VASP | A company that exchanges, moves or holds crypto assets for others, in the FATF's term. See what a VASP is. | Wallets are custodial and are enabled only after the customer is approved. |
RFI | A hold that asks for a document before a verification or a transaction clears. Short for request for information. | Webhooks on the customer and the account name what is missing. |
How do bank terms map to blockchain terms?
Translate from the old vocabulary. The analogy breaks in the third column.
Bank terms and their blockchain counterparts, and where each pair breaks
Bank term | Blockchain term | Where the analogy breaks |
Account number | Address | Anyone can create an address, and no bank opens it. A Lumx virtual account is a bank account number. |
Wire confirmation (MT103) | Transaction hash | A hash is public. |
UETR (the end-to-end ID on a SWIFT payment) | Transaction hash | A UETR is looked up through banks. |
Correspondent bank fees | Network fee | Paid once to the network, not per intermediary. |
Clearing and settlement | Confirmation and finality | No batch windows, but the last rail has cut-offs. |
Recall | None | Final for the sender and the bank. An issuer can freeze an address. |
Bank FX rate | Quote with a spread | A good quote shows the spread before you send. |
Currency exchange | On-ramp plus off-ramp | The stablecoin sits in the middle. |
Lumx runs SWIFT in USD with UETR and MT103 confirmations on every payout, and a per-rail reference on every transfer on the other rails.
The recall row costs money: a wrong address on a final transfer is usually a loss. Currency settlement risk is in Herstatt risk.
How the terms fit in one payment
A company has a Brazilian customer paying in reais and a US supplier to pay in dollars. The terms appear in this order.
The company is onboarded through KYB (know your business), and the supplier is added as a destination with the holder relationship supplier.
The customer pays by Pix into a virtual account. The company asks for a locked rate first if it wants a firm number.
The on-ramp converts reais to USDC. If an autoconversion rule is set instead, the deposit converts at market.
The USDC sits in the company's wallet. No correspondent pre-funding is needed.
An off-ramp sends dollars to the supplier's destination by FEDWIRE, and webhooks report each status until SUCCESS.
The route in detail is in what a stablecoin corridor is. On Lumx, screening runs around steps 1 and 5, and no one handles a private key.
When a glossary is the wrong tool
<!-- OPERATOR PARAGRAPH --> Before a team evaluates a provider, I would pick the five terms that cause the most arguments internally and fix one definition for each. I would start with finality and custody. A provider's answer on those tells me more than a feature list does, because each one decides who carries the risk.
What these terms look like on a Lumx payment
Lumx is stablecoin payments infrastructure for businesses that move money between Latin America and the rest of the world: one API to collect, hold, convert, and pay out in BRL, MXN, COP, USD, EUR, and GBP or in USDC and USDT, over local rails such as PIX, SPEI, PSE, Bre-B, ACH, FEDWIRE, SEPA, and Faster Payments, with SWIFT and on-behalf-of payments and collections (POBO and COBO) in USD, EUR, and GBP, plus named virtual accounts, custodial wallets, and KYB/KYC built in.
The customer owns the wallets and the accounts, a destination holds the receiving bank details, and a transaction is an on-ramp, an off-ramp or a transfer. The objects are defined in the Lumx docs, and the open sandbox simulates a deposit without a real bank transfer.
Methodology and sources
Lumx behavior comes from the Lumx docs read on November 1, 2026. The Travel Rule dates are FATF's June 2019 extension to virtual assets and its revision of Recommendation 16 in June 2025, published on the FATF site.
Verified on November 1, 2026. Operational context, not legal, tax, or investment advice.
Cover photo: Venti Views on Unsplash.
What does a blockchain payments glossary cover?
A blockchain payments glossary covers the terms a payments team meets when money moves as a stablecoin: wallet, network, conversion legs, settlement, quotes and compliance checks. This one has 48 terms in five groups and a bank-term table, each mapped to what it means on Lumx.
What is the difference between finality and settlement?
Finality is the point after which a confirmed blockchain transfer cannot be reversed. Settlement is the moment the recipient has the money with no steps left. On a blockchain they happen together for the stablecoin leg, while a bank payment can look done days before it settles. On Lumx, an off-ramp counts as complete once the funds leave the banking partner.
What is the difference between a transaction hash and a UETR?
A transaction hash identifies a transfer on a blockchain and anyone can check it on a block explorer. A UETR is the end-to-end reference on a SWIFT payment, looked up through the banks. Both work like a tracking number. On Lumx, every SWIFT payout returns UETR and MT103 confirmations, and every transfer on the other rails returns a per-rail reference.
How long does a blockchain payment take?
The stablecoin leg finishes when the network reaches finality, and a payout also waits for the fiat leg and its rail's cut-offs. On Lumx, the documented targets are instant for Pix (Brazil's instant payment system), SPEI (Mexico's interbank system) and Faster Payments, 1 to 2 business days for ACH, the same business day for FEDWIRE and 1 to 5 business days for SWIFT.
