Expand your crypto knowledge with the ultimate dictionary for the most commonly used word in cryptocurrencies.
An airdrop is a way to distribute coins to users for free. Often users will have to complete some tasks to be eligible for the airdrop.
An ‘alternative’ coin or ‘altcoin’ is generally considered any cryptocurrency that is not Bitcoin.
By remaining anonymous a person can hide their identity online. There are privacy-focussed coins – such as Monero or ZCash – that help users retain anonymity.
ATH stands for ‘all-time high’, and is used when a coin reaches its highest ever price.
ATL stands for ‘all-time low’ and is used when a coin falls to its lowest ever value.
A bag holder is someone who has held a certain cryptocurrency for a long time without making any profit.
A term often used to describe your portfolio of cryptocurrencies. Each cryptocurrency is considered a bag – akin to carrying shopping bags.
When someone is bearish on a cryptocurrency, they believe the price should soon go down.
The original, and still the largest cryptocurrency.
A place for people to buy Bitcoin in a similar fashion to a traditional ATM.
A fork of the original Bitcoin with larger ‘blocks’ and cheaper fees. It was created following disagreements in the Bitcoin community about the best way to scale the network.
A block contains the data of a cryptocurrency transaction which is eventually added to the blockchain.
A place for users to view previous and current transactions on a cryptocurrency network.
All transactions of a cryptocurrency are stored on the blockchain forever. Every time a new block is created it is added to the chain. Hence the word ‘Blockchain’.
If someone is feeling bullish, they generally believe that the price of a cryptocurrency is soon to rise.
The opposite to bears, bulls are people who believe the cryptocurrency they are referring to is undervalued and expect the price will go up.
CBDC stands for “Central Bank Digital Currency”. Several nations are investigating the possibility of releasing a CBDC via their own central banks
Cold Storage is a safe place to keep your private keys, as they are not connected to the internet.
Before a transaction is completed, it must receive a certain number of confirmations. The more confirmations a transaction has the safer it is.
A contract address is used on the Ethereum platform to identity ERC-20 tokens.
A shortened way of saying ‘cryptocurrency’. The name stems from cryptography which forms the building blocks of cryptocurrency.
A niche section of Twitter which focusses on cryptocurrencies and has created its own culture.
An umbrella term used to describe digital currency that transacts via a blockchain.
A group of cryptographists who first philosophised about the idea of cryptocurrency. Their motto is “Cypherpunks write code”.
DAO stands for decentralised autonomous organisation whereby an organisation can run itself without the need for human interaction.
A dApp is a decentralised application that functions via a blockchain.
The darknet is an area of the world wide web that usually requires anonymous browsing software such as TOR to access. It became synonymous with Bitcoin in the early years as users were able to buy a variety of illegal goods and services without using traditional payment methods.
DCA, or dollar cost averaging, is an investment strategy where a person will invest a fixed amount on a regular basis no matter the cost of the asset.
DeFi stands for decentralised finance. It is an umbrella term for a variety of innovation within both cryptocurrencies and traditional finance. One example of DeFi is the ability to take out loans or earn interest without the need for a central intermediary.
A DEX is a decentralised exchange that requires no central authority to operate it. Users are able to buy and sell cryptocurrencies via smart contracts and with the user retaining their private keys, unlike many traditional exchanges.
Often used in the phrase “buy the dip”, the ‘dip’ refers to a loss of value in a certain cryptocurrency
DYOR or do your own research is commonly advised to anyone thinking about buying cryptocurrency. This is largely due to the risks associated with investing in volatile cryptocurrencies.
ERC-20 are tokens that are built on top of the Ethereum platform and use the Ethereum network as the base layer.
Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency, and was created by Vitalik Buterin. Many cryptocurrencies are built on top of the Ethereum network.
Ethereum Classic arose out of a dispute in the Ethereum community after a DAO hack. Ethereum rolled back the blockchain to remove the hack (thereby refunding investors) whereas Ethereum Classic did not.
Fiat currency is money created by a nation’s government which has no underlying asset backing the currency. Its value is often determined by the trust of the nation state system.
A flippening occurs when one cryptocurrency reaches a larger marketcap value than another cryptocurrency.
FOMO – or ‘fear of missing out’ – is an emotional state investors experience when the value of an asset increases and fear they will miss out on potential gains if they do not buy in.
FUD stands for ‘fear, uncertainty and doubt’ and is used to describe news that is derogatory and therefore could cause the price of a cryptocurrency to drop.
Fundamental analysis is a form of research used to understand the value of a cryptocurrency by the underlying technology, ambitions and team.
Gas is used to pay the Ethereum miners to process the transaction. The more gas you offer for your transaction, the quicker it is likely to be processed.
The genesis block is the first block of a cryptocurrency.
A hard fork is the splitting of a blockchain into two separate chains. If both chains gather enough support, they will continue to function independently of each other. If there is no support for one of the two chains, then one will die. One example of a hard fork is the split of Bitcoin into BTC and BCH.
A measuring unit that is used to determine the processing power of a cryptocurrency network. The higher the hash rate, the harder it is for unethical actors to attack the network via a double spend attack.
A misspelling of “hold” which stems from a drunken post of a ‘bitcointalk’ forum. The term caught on and is now used widely within the cryptocurrency industry.
A combination of the word hope and opium, ‘hopium’ is used to describe people clinging onto hope or viewing news and seeing it as positive.
An ICO is an initial coin offering which became an extremely popular way for companies to raise money in 2017 by offering anyone the opportunity to purchase early access to a cryptocurrency. Due to a variety of legal issues, ICOs are currently not so common.
One of the key tenets of a blockchain is that it is said to be immutable. In essence, this means that no one person or company should be able to alter the history or transactions that have happened. However, Ethereum is one example, whereby the chain was ‘rolled back’ removing immutability from the chain.
A JSON wallet is a particular type of cryptocurrency wallet that is associated with the Ethereum blockchain. They are used in geth, Parity, MyEtherWallet and Metamask.
KYC or “know your customer” is a process that cryptocurrency exchanges (and traditional finance) use to verify the person using their platform is who they say they are. It usually consists of a user providing their ID documents and a proof of address.
Slang for Lamborghini, the car brand has become the unofficial mascot of the cryptocurrency industry with many proclaiming they will “buy a Lambo” from the money they made in cryptocurrency.
A hardware wallet company that allows users to store cryptocurrency on a hardware wallet, thereby providing more security than keeping them on an online exchange.
A method to determine the total value of a cryptocurrency. It is determined by multiplying the price of a cryptocurrency by the number of coins in circulation.
A plug-in wallet for your web browser that allows users to interact with DeFi protocols as well as NFT markets.
A miner is someone who ‘mines’ cryptocurrency in the hope of being rewarded with said cryptocurrency. By mining, they add ‘hash rate’ which provides more security to the network.
Mining is the process of complex mathematical puzzles that are solved by computers. These solutions create ‘blocks’ which are then added to the blockchain.
When people say a cryptocurrency is heading “to the moon”, they believe the price is going to rise dramatically. Often you will hear the phrase “Bitcoin is going to the moon”.
An NFT is a non-fungible-token which can represent digital art or real assets such as a concert ticket. It creates a unique proof of ownership.
A derogatory term for someone who doesn’t hold any cryptocurrency.
A person who is new to the industry, or a derogatory term aimed at people who appear to be lacking in sufficient knowledge.
A term stemming from hip-hop culture which means ‘original gangster’. It is used to describe people who have been involved in the cryptocurrency industry for many years.
A way to store your private keys for your cryptocurrency wallet. A paper wallet is secure in that it has no connection to the internet – as long as it is stored safely and securely.
Anyone who owns a collection of cryptocurrencies may refer to that as their portfolio. Similar to how people who invest in stocks call it their ‘portfolio’.
A privacy coin is one that cannot be traced and remains fully anonymous. Bitcoin is considered pseudonymous, as with modern tracing capabilities it can be possible to link wallets to certain people.
Your private key is what allows you to move or interact with your cryptocurrency. Should you lose – or someone steal – your private keys then you will lose your cryptocurrency.
Proof of Stake is an alternative consensus mechanism that many cryptocurrencies have chosen to use. By staking a cryptocurrency you help secure the network and can also help in processing the next block, thereby receiving a reward for doing so.
Proof of Work is the consensus mechanism that Bitcoin uses. It involves many computers attempting to solve complex mathematical puzzles with the first one getting it correct mining a block and receiving a reward. Proof of work can be extremely energy-intensive.
Your public key is also your wallet address. It allows anyone to view what is contained in the wallet but also you can provide it to other users on the network so that they may send you cryptocurrency.
A QR code, also known as a quick response code, is a type of barcode invented in Japan. QR Codes work in the similar fashion to traditional barcodes that you would find in supermarkets. They are often used within cryptocurrency to scan for wallet addresses which is much easier than typing out the wallet address manually.
Reddit is a popular social media forum with many cryptocurrency related ‘subreddits’ where users can discuss latest news and updates.
Rekt is a twist on the word wrecked. When a coin crashes in price the holders of the coin maybe referred to as “rekt”.
Satoshi Nakamoto is the anonymous creator of Bitcoin. To this day, it is unknown who Satoshi Nakamoto is, or whether he/she is alive.
Named after the creator of Bitcoin, satoshis are units lower than one Bitcoin. They are also called ‘Sats’ for short.
A fraudulent method of gaining money from someone else. The methods are various, from giveaway scams, Ponzi schemes or phishing emails.
A scammer is someone who partakes in scams.
The SEC is the Security & Exchange Commission of the USA. It has a high interest in cryptocurrencies as cryptocurrencies generally fall within its jurisdiction.
SegWit or Segregated Witness was part of a scaling solution on Bitcoin. The implementation of SegWit at the time was somewhat controversial and was one of the debates in the block size wars.
Shilling is the process of promoting a coin that you own to other people. Think of it as recommending a cryptocurrency, but often in an over-enthusiastic manner.
A ‘shitcoin’ is a term used mainly by Bitcoin maximalists to described any cryptocurrency that isn’t Bitcoin.
Simple programmes stored on a blockchain that run when predetermined conditions are met. They are generally used to automate the execution of an agreement so that all parties can be immediately certain of the outcome, without the need for any intermediary involvement.
Staking is the process of earning interest on your cryptocurrency. In the way you might deposit traditional money to a bank and earn interest, you can stake your cryptocurrency and earn interest.
The stock to flow model is a price prediction model that anticipates what the price of Bitcoin should be throughout the years. So far, the model has proven resilient and is yet to be proven wrong.
TA is known as Technical Analysis and helps traders predict where the price of a cryptocurrency might be heading in the short term.
Telegram is a messaging app that has become very popular in the cryptocurrency community to hear about announcements and to join in the discussion.
Tether or USDT is the largest stablecoin on the market. The cryptocurrency is ‘tethered’ to the price of $1 so rarely ever fluctuates at all.
The total supply of a cryptocurrency is the amount that will only ever be created. In Bitcoin’s case, this amount is 21 million.
A transaction fee is the price that a user must pay for the blockchain to process the transaction. Every cryptocurrency has a transaction fee which will vary depending on the congestion of the network.
Trezor is a hardware wallet company that offers safer storage than keeping your cryptocurrency on an exchange.
UTXO, which stands for unspent transaction output is the amount of cryptocurrency a person has remaining after performing a transaction.
A term used to describe a project that has not released a working project.
Creator of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin is one of the most famous people involved in cryptocurrency.
A wallet is where you store your cryptocurrency. There are a variety of a different wallet types, including hardware wallets, paper wallets and online wallets.
A term used to describe a person who would sell on a dip in the price. They are considered to have weak hands as they did not have the strength to ‘hodl’.
A whitepaper is an information document that aims to help people understand what the author is attempting to achieve with a particular project. One of the most famous examples is the Bitcoin Whitepaper.
An alternative ticker to BTC, often used in derivative and futures exchanges to separate itself from spot markets.
Yield Farming is a cryptocurrency investment strategy that has become extremely popular with the rise of DeFi protocols. By lending your cryptocurrency to other users via a decentralised platform it is possible to earn high levels of APY (annual percentage yield). This is in stark contrast to traditional forms of finance where interest rates have been at historically low levels since the 2008 Financial Crisis. Since their launch however, there have been many protocols that have either been hacked or where the developers have gone AWOL leaving many empty handed. With the high APY via Yield Farming comes high risk.
zk-SNARKs, is a form of a “zero-knowledge proof” protocol or by their more technical term “Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge” help in not only speeding up blockchain transactions but by also increasing the privacy of the transaction as well. They are most commonly used on the Zcash blockchain, a privacy focussed cryptocurrency.
Created in 2009, Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency and has become the most valuable and commonly held.
All cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin, including stablecoins, security tokens, and utility tokens.
Speculating on crypto price movements or buying and selling the underlying coins via an exchange.
Learn about cold wallets and hot wallets and safeguarding your crypto assets.
Decentralised finance, DeFi is an umbrella term for peer-to-peer financial services.
Understanding crypto regulation in relation to their adoption, performance, risks, and potential.
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