# The Business Glossary

> 31 terms from the Investing & Digital Assets book's The Business part, each defined in a line and linked to the chapter that explains it.

- **Account:** one customer account at one legal entity, with its type (individual, joint, IRA, custodial, trust, entity, institutional), capabilities and status ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Account party:** a party's role on an account (owner, joint owner, custodian, trustee, beneficiary, trusted contact, authorized trader), effective-dated ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Asset event:** a corporate action or chain event that changes what a holder owns (dividend, split, merger, spinoff, tender offer, fork, airdrop, token migration, redenomination, delisting), with any holder elections ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Asset network:** one instrument deployed on one chain, native or at a contract address, with its token standard, on-chain decimals and whether deposits and withdrawals are enabled ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Capabilities:** what an account is approved for beyond cash trading: margin, options (with the firm's level), crypto, staking, futures and event contracts ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Case:** a complaint, surveillance alert, AML alert, dispute or regulatory inquiry, with the time notice arrived, the rule's deadline and the outcome ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Chain:** a blockchain network as the ledger sees it: its chain ID, native asset and the finality rule deposits wait for ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Disclosure:** a record of what was shown or sent to a customer: the template version, the rendered document, the channel and the time ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Distribution costs:** what a stablecoin issuer pays exchanges and other partners out of its reserve income for holding and distributing its token; about 60% of Circle's 2025 revenue ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#reserve-income)).
- **Execution:** one fill of an order at a venue, with price, quantity, liquidity flag, capacity and time ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Fee schedule:** a versioned set of fee rules (maker and taker tiers, withdrawal fees, advisory rates); every fee names the version that produced it ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Instrument:** anything that can be held or traded, cash included: equity, ETF, fund, option, future, bond, crypto asset, stablecoin, tokenized security or event contract, with its identifiers and the precision of its smallest unit ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Journal entry:** one balanced movement in the firm's books, in any instruments, with a legal entity, an effective date, a source and an idempotency key ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Journal line:** one signed amount of one instrument in one ledger account, with the customer account or wallet it concerns and the date it settles; each instrument's lines in an entry sum to zero ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Ledger account:** the role a journal line plays: customer, firm, omnibus, settlement, fees or suspense ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Legal entity:** one of the platform's own regulated companies (broker-dealer, RIA, FCM, trust company, money transmitter, stablecoin issuer, EU CASP); every account, wallet and journal entry names one ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#who-s-who)).
- **Lot closing:** a disposal matched to a tax lot, with proceeds, realized gain and the relief method used ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Maker and taker fees:** exchange fees that charge an order adding liquidity to the book (maker) less than one removing it (taker), tiered by 30-day volume ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#trading-revenue-and-payment-for-order-flow)).
- **Order:** an instruction to buy or sell an instrument, with type, time in force, quantity or notional, and status, keyed by the client's idempotency key ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Party:** a person or entity, independent of any account ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Party identity:** a verified identifier for a party, with the method, the vendor's result and when it was verified ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Payment for order flow (PFOF):** what a wholesaler pays a broker for routing it retail orders; at Robinhood Securities in the second quarter of 2026, 12.35% of the NBBO spread on equities in regular hours ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#trading-revenue-and-payment-for-order-flow)).
- **Position:** an account's settled and unsettled quantity of an instrument, rebuilt from the ledger and never written directly ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Reconciliation:** a comparison of the ledger with an outside record (DTC, a clearing firm, a custodian, a bank, a chain at a block height, an issuer's supply), with each difference opened as a break ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Reserve income:** the yield a stablecoin issuer earns on the assets backing its tokens, which it may not pass to holders as interest ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#reserve-income)).
- **Reserve return rate:** an issuer's reserve income over its average reserve; Circle reported 4.1% for 2025 and 3.5% for the third quarter of 2026 ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#reserve-income)).
- **Smallest unit:** the indivisible unit an instrument's quantities are stored in as integers (cents, satoshis, wei, a fraction of a share), with the exponent kept on the instrument ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Tax lot:** one acquisition of an instrument in an account, with its cost basis, wash-sale adjustment, holding-period start and covered status ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Transfer:** money or assets moving into or out of an account by ACH, wire, card, ACATS, on-chain transaction, internal move or journal, with its status, hold and journal entry ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Venue:** where an order is filled or a trade settles: an exchange, ATS, wholesaler, crypto exchange, DEX, OTC desk or clearing house ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).
- **Wallet:** a custody wallet the firm controls or uses, with its chain, purpose (hot, warm, cold, deposit, omnibus, staking, gas), key scheme and owning legal entity ([The Investing & Digital Assets Business](https://www.syntaqx.com/books/investing-and-digital-assets/investing-business#the-core-data-model)).

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