The Language of Crypto. Most commonly used slangs.

New to the crypto space? Logging onto twitter, and the mainstream media seeing various crypto slang that you can’t relate to? Worry no more, because this is your ultimate route to understanding every crypto slang there is and becoming a guru at it. Below is a guide to some of the most important, confusing terms and phrases you need to know today. Read the list over until you commit it to memory.

When it comes to learning any new financial market, one of the endeavors a newbie must embark upon is learning the native language of that market. The crypto space is no exception to this rule. It brings a complex vernacular that is far from intuitive and is literally cryptic at times. The language of crypto acts as a rite of passage. It proves one has done their research and can play the game. As the space has developed, so has the slang such as “Lettuce hands” is an insult, “apeing” is a viable strategy and “HFSP” is the ultimate snarky response. To an outsider, these terms are non-intuitive and sound outright ridiculous.

The language however isn’t just comedic. It also serves an integral role in describing a new frontier of finance ready to displace the old way of doing things. There is comfort in our language, though. It’s our tool to make sense of the innovation around us, while also shielding us from the hostility that our community has faced for more than 10 years.

Welcome to the language of crypto. Let’s ape into this article that will help you DYOR with no FOMO and with literally no FUD. Go through all this and I’m sure WAGMI.

Let’s begin.

· DYOR — Do your own research.

· Noob/Newbie- new in crypto. Such as you, reading this short blog so as to be where we are currently.

· WAGMI — We’re All Gonna Make It.

· NGMI — Not/Never Gonna Make It.

· FOMO — Fear of missing out on gains when the market is moving upwards.

· NFA — Not Financial Advice.

· FUD — Negative news that is usually unfounded and designed to affect your emotions or beliefs. Stands for Fear Uncertainty and Doubt.

· HODL — A highly investment strategy that holds on to their coins for a long-time ignoring volatility and bad news. Stands for Hold On Dear Life. Fun fact, HODL came from a fortuitous typo in 2013 in an early bitcoin forum and readers interpreted it as an acronym and have been widely spread since.

· When moon? — asking for price to skyrocket.

· When Lambo? — Asking for financial freedom through crypto. When will we be rich?

· Sats — Satoshis, the smallest unit of account in a Bitcoin. Buying small fraction of Bitcoin. One Bitcoin is comprised of 100 million of these.

· Whale — refers to individuals or entities that hold large amounts of Bitcoin, typically anyone with 100 or more Bitcoin in their possession. They hold enough crypto that they almost get the potential to manipulate currency valuations.

· Bag Holders — Slang for anyone who holds amounts of any crypto through the market cycles and refuses to let go and sell it despite its performance.

· NFTs — Non-Fungible Token. If you haven’t read on NFTs yet, you can do so here, https://onsandoabucheri.medium.com/the-ultimate-nft-guide-nfts-explained-what-is-it-and-how-they-work-c1fddee5e34

· Minting –To mint is to “produce for the first time”. In NFTs, it refers to the creation of a new NFT.

· POS — Proof of stake. This is all in other crypto such as Ethereum, Solana and Polygon. A way of securing the network by staking your crypto and putting them all to work.

· POW — Proof of work. This is currently the state of Bitcoin, the work of miners solving complex mathematical equations through the internet, super computers and enough power.

· ATH & ATL — All-time high and all-time low.

· BTD or BTFD — A strong recommendation to buy when prices are dropping, which stands for Buy the Dip or Buy the F$#%ing Dip.

· Apeing — Diving headfirst into a new coin, NFT, or trading position without first conducting research. It is extreme, and usually entails going big or going home. This originated from the “apes strong together” meme.

· Alts — Altcoins, every other coin besides Bitcoin, Ethereum and BNB.

· FIAT — A synonym for cash, it refers to legal tender issued by a centralized government. It is considered dirty in the crypto community.

· Airdrop –It is like a new token/coin/NFT giveaway/distribution done by a project to designated wallet addresses. They typically act as a marketing campaign.

· ICO — A popular term that describes the crowdfunding of an early-stage crypto project. Stands for Initial Coin Offering.

· KYC — Know your customer. This is verification of crypto holders when a new upcoming blockchain is coming up.

· Mining — The process of verifying blockchain transactions.

· Rekt –When you lose a lot of money or when the worst-case scenario happens, you’re rekt. It is shorthand for the word “wrecked.”

· Diamond Hands — Ability to withstand the bumps and bruises of the crypto price action, refusing to sell when others are fearful (opposite of weak hands).Willing to hold forever. Long -term hodler.

· Weak Hands — A desire to sell a position at the first sign of bad news or negative price action. They are frowned upon in the crypto community (opposite of diamond hands).

· Lettuce Hands — The inability to hold onto your crypto position through volatility or bad news. Your hands are as weak as lettuce.

· Bull and Bear — The symbols of positive and negative sentiment. Bulls are a sign of price strength and the positive movement of an asset’s price while bears are a sign of price weakness, and are the negative movement of an asset’s price.

· Crypto faucet — A website or app that provides you with small amounts of cryptos in exchange for completing tasks. ( I will do an article soon on this so stay tuned, do your research on BETFURY meanwhile.)

· Hash rate — The speed of the computing power being used to mine a coin on a network.

· Shilling — Those who promote projects e.g. Freelancers shill a coin for you to buy.

· Flippening — Refers to the possibility of Ethereum’s total market cap overtaking Bitcoin’s. One of the most highly anticipated and debated future events in all of crypto.

· Shitcoin — An altcoin considered a bad investment due to their potential of crashing and doesn’t have any real technological innovation. You ought to stay far away from this.

· LFG — Let’s F*cking Go, when price is pumping.

· Rugged- Got scammed by a particular project.

· Rug Pull — a type of crypto scam where developers/ founders of a project/coin run with all money/liquidity & abandon the project.

· Probably Nothing- It’s mostly sarcastic/ironic when used. Used when a project succeeds or makes big moves. And it’s always probably something important.

· DeFi — A new spin on finance, a movement embodying the ideals of cryptocurrency, stands for Decentralized Finance where you have complete control over your money; no one but you has access to it. Unlike traditional finance or CeFi( Centralised finance), where a bank or company has control over your money.

· Working at McDonald’s- It’s just a meme used when your portfolio is going down , so you are broke at that moment and need a 9–5 job.

· Can Devs do something? — When a price of a coin is going down, so people asking for developers of that coin to pump it up .It’s just a meme.

· CEX — A type of cryptocurrency exchange that is run by a centralized entity. Stands for “Centralized Exchange.”

· DEX — The opposite of a CEX, this type of cryptocurrency exchange is operated in a decentralized manner. Stands for Decentralized Exchange. In a centralized exchange, the ownership of the coins is held by the exchange completely while in a decentralized exchange which is a peer to peer marketplace where transactions happen directly between traders without the need of a middleman. Some well known DEX examples are Uniswap and PancakeSwap.

· CBDC — Digital currency issued by a central bank, a new form of bank money. Stands for Central Bank Digital Currency. This threatens the government as they try to come up with their own type of cryptocurrency of which is not likely to be passed through.

· DApps — A specific type of blockchain application that runs on a decentralized network. Stands for Decentralized Application.

· ERC-20 — A designated label for tokens designed on the Ethereum platform.

· Gas — An Ethereum term, describing the fee developers, traders, and investors pay to operate in the Ethereum network. It is the fuel of the network.

· HFSP — A snarky response designed to remind someone their investment strategy sucks. Stands for Have Fun Staying Poor.

· Lightning Network — A layer 2 built on top of Bitcoin, providing lightning-fast transactional speed.

· Mnemonic Phrase — A randomly generated list of words that allow you to recover your crypto. Don’t lose these.

· Node — A single communication point in a blockchain network that stores, verifies, and distributes data.

· Peg — A set denomination between the exchange of two goods. It typically describes the backing of a stable coin.

With all said and done, I presume that all these will put you ahead of the curve and not stay behind in the community. This is the genesis of most of the terms and more will come as the revolution reaches most of the mainstream media. Stay tuned. If you love my articles, do follow me on twitter @Its_Cryptoced and lets interact.