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IOU

a.k.a. I owe you

Short for 'I owe you': an informal acknowledgement of a debt.
In plain English

Short for 'I owe you': an informal acknowledgement of a debt.

An IOU is a promise to pay, written or understood. In a sense, every bond and bank deposit is a formal IOU.

In crypto and fintech, the word sometimes describes tokens that represent a claim on an asset held elsewhere. The claim is only as good as whoever issued it.

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