top 30 crypto & nft terms
one of the biggest barriers to entry in the crypto and nft space is how fast paced and ever changing it is. the slang and terminology that gets thrown around twitter and discord groups doesn’t help either. to make your life easier, i’ve collated some of the most common terms, acronyms, and sayings that i’ve come across in the crypto & nft world and provided definitions.
1. bull / bear market: a bull signifies an upward trend in the market. if you’re ‘bullish’ on something, you think it has a lot of growth potential. a bear market is the polar opposite of a bull market, and signifies a downward trend & a period of weakened prices.
2. market cap: this is the total circulating supply of coins multiplied by the price of each coin. people often look at a coin’s market cap to judge its current worth, stability, risk-reward profile & growth potential.
3. low-cap, mid-cap, large-cap: this is when you segment market caps into three categories – low-caps generally have the highest risk-reward, while large-caps are the most stable.
4. altcoins: these tend to be any cryptocurrency beside bitcoin (and sometimes ethereum).
5. stablecoin: most cryptocurrencies are quite volatile, however stablecoins rarely fluctuate in value because they are pegged to another stable asset like fiat currency or gold i.e. usdt and usdc
6. fiat currency: this is what people in the crypto space call ‘real money’, which is pretty much any currency that is government backed i.e. usd, eur, gbp etc.
7. pump & dump: this is when prices are inflated artificially by a small cohort, purchasing large amounts of the coin, and when the average joe decides to join the ‘pump’ in price, the big holders conspire and sell for profits (dump), causing the price to plummet.
8. ath: this stands for ‘all time high’ aka the coin reaches a new peak in price.
9. ico: this stands for ‘initial coin offering’. just like an ipo, it’s a way for crypto projects to raise money.
10. dca: this stands for dollar cost average – a smart trading strategy where you purchase fixed amounts of a crypto at regular intervals instead of trying to be patrick bateman and time your entry into the market.
11. buy the dip: when you take advantage of cheap prices. however, this is only advantageous if those prices get back to their original points.
12. shill: someone who is promoting a coin or project with a hidden agenda. when ‘shilling’, generally, the person is either holding the asset or has some affiliation to it.
13. whale: a whale is someone who has accumulated a lot of one crypto. they can pretty much swing the market by buying or selling what they own. the market can fluctuate drastically off the back of their behaviour.
14. fud: this stands for ‘fear, uncertainty & doubt’ and is mainly used when people are spreading negative, misleading, or false information.
15. hodl: this term apparently became mainstream due to a typo. some investor wrote ‘I am hodling’ when bitcoin was crashing in 2013 and now its used everywhere in the crypto world. if you’re a ‘hodler’, it means you’re holding the crypto for the long-term, regardless of price fluctuations.
16. smart contracts: these are self-executing digital contracts that allow some form of direct exchange between two people, without the need for a third party, like a bank or real-estate agent.
17. mooning: this is when a coin’s price has spiked and you’ll often hear people say, “wen moon?” meaning “when are we heading to the moon?”
18. defi: this stands for ‘decentralised finance’ and it recreates financial services on blockchain networks outside the control of banks, governments & companies i.e. insurance, loans, savings etc.
19. altseason: this is when money flows out of bitcoin and into the altcoins, resulting in an increase in price for those smaller coins.
20. satoshi: the smallest denomination of bitcoin you can purchase – one hundred millionth of a single bitcoin.
21. staking: this is when a person decides to ‘lock up’ their coins in the network, earning a staking reward for their participation.
22. white paper: a very in-depth guide or overview on a particular crypto coin or project, underlining its purpose, underlying technology and future plans.
23. dex: this is a ‘decentralised exchange’ operating without a central authority i.e. uniswap, pancakeswap etc.
24. gm: ‘good morning’. often used by nft communities on twitter and discord.
25. wagmi / wgmi: ‘we are gonna make it / we’re gonna make it’. whenever there’s big project announcements or bull runs, this term gets thrown around. if you see ‘ngmi’, this stands for ‘not gonna make it’.
26. lfg: let’s f*ckin go! - real original…
27. anon: short for someone who remains anonymous which is quite common in the crypto world.
28. doxxed: the opposite of ‘anon’ – doxxing is the act of revealing identifying information about someone online, such as their real name.
29. nfa: ‘not financial advice’. just like anything I post on this blog!
30. degen: short for ‘degenerate’ aka people who often make risky and bad bets.