If you’ve been in the cryptocurrency universe for a while and you’ve come to join forums, facebook groups, reddit or telegram channels, you’re likely to often see a number of words that are unusual in other contexts, or even, totally unique to the cryptocurrency space.
To make things easier for newcomers, we have compiled a list of the most common terms you might encounter.
Crypto words
DeFi: the abbreviation of “decentralized finance” which is a collective term for various financial applications in cryptocurrency or blockchain, which aims to avoid financial intermediaries.
Fiat: Fiduciary money, from governments. Dollars, Euros, Pounds, etc. According to Wikipedia “it is one that is based on the faith or trust of the community, i.e., it is not backed by precious metals or anything other than a promise to pay by the issuing entity.”
FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out. Fear of missing an opportunity or missing out on an uptrend. It can occur when a user buys upon seeing a sudden rise in the value of a cryptocurrency out of fear of being left out of those gains.
FUD: Fear Uncertainty and Doubt. Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. A set of negative news and information that seeks to generate downward pressure on a given cryptocurrency, or the market in general.
Hype: Creating high expectations around a cryptocurrency through promises, potential deals, events, and other positive news that seeks to generate upward pressure on a cryptocurrency.
Satoshi: Bitcoin measurement to avoid using so many decimal places. 1 BTC = 100,000,000,000 satoshis. It is widely used in trading to make it easier to read the value of other cryptocurrencies. 1 ETH = 0.03832564 BTC =3,832,564 satoshis.
Altcoin: Any cryptocurrency alternative to Bitcoin. Ethereum, Litecoin or Ripple, would all be altcoins.
Shitcoin: A cryptocurrency with no potential value or real use. A low-level altcoin.
Scam: Well, you know. When someone tries to rob you.
Whitepaper: official document that describes the technology of a cryptocurrency in detail.
Cold wallet: Physical, hardware, usb or hard drive type wallet where to store cryptocurrencies. Ledger Nano or Trezor would be examples of cold wallets.
Public address: Set of alphanumeric characters that refers to the location of a wallet where cryptocurrencies can be sent. Example: 3D2oetdNuZUqQHPJmcMDDDHYoqkyNVsFk9r (guess who is the owner of this one…)
ATH: All time High. Refers to the highest point a cryptocurrency’s value has reached. As of today, Bitcoin’s ATH is around $48,000 now but it was $20.000 in 2017.
Fork: Fork. Deployment of changes to the code of a cryptocurrency. There are two types; Soft Fork, when it involves changes that are easy to implement and accepted by the majority, and Hard fork, which may involve the creation of a new parallel chain and with it, a new cryptocurrency. Bitcoin Cash or Bitcoin Gold are examples of hard forks of Bitcoin.
Market Cap: Market capitalization. It is used both to know the value of a given cryptocurrency and to know the total value of the cryptocurrency universe.
Pump: Exaggerated rise in the value of a cryptocurrency in a very short period of time.
Dump: Exaggerated drop in the value of a cryptocurrency in a very short period of time.
Pump and Dump: It consists of making the value of a cryptocurrency rise rapidly by buying en masse so that more people enter (FOMO) and cause even more rise and thus, those who have initiated the pump can make a lot of profit in a short time by then getting rid of the cryptocurrency (dump) as soon as they reach a profitability with which they feel comfortable.
This strategy is illegal in regulated markets but very common in the crypto universe. We have talked about it in this article. It’s very dangerous. Try to stay away.
Whales: It is said of those users who own a large amount of a given cryptocurrency. They usually have a great ability to influence the value of it when they decide to buy or sell because they can cause falls or rises just by moving their capital.
BTFD: Buy The F*cking Dip. Expression that encourages buying cryptocurrencies when they have a major drop. In cryptos, major drop would mean something in excess of 20% or 30%.
Weak hands: Weak hands. People who sell at the minimum that they see a sharp drop in value of the cryptocurrency and are not able to hold (hold) their investment for fear of losing even more.
HODL: Hold the investment made. It is spelled “wrong” on purpose, referring to a bitcointalk.org member post that went viral. Currently, the acronym also refers to Hold On for Dear Life.
Bagholder: A person who buys and holds cryptocurrencies in large quantities in the hope of making a profit in the future. It usually has a negative connotation, as it is often a crypto that you are not comfortable with and want to sell soon.
DYOR: Do your own research. Do your own research. Also common on forums, mostly for newbies or to warn people before participating in ICOs or buying particular cryptocurrencies.
Bearish: Negative market trend. Bear market is a market that drops.
Bullish: Positive market trend. Bull market is a market that goes up.
FA: Fundamental Analysis.
TA: Technical Analysis.
RSI: Relative Strength Index. Measures whether a cryptocurrency is overbought or oversold in a period of time.
Moon, lambo: Very frequent expressions in cryptocurrency forums and channels when the market is positive. Moon, for when the price is rising fast (expected to reach the moon) and lambo, short for Lamborghini, the flagship car that everyone will buy when they are rich…
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