We are providing a glossary of the most common phrases, acronyms, and slang used in the crypto industry.
Crypto & Blockchain
Alt Coin (Alternative Coin) – A crypto coin other than bitcoin
Hot Wallet – A wallet connected to the internet for quicker access to cryptocurrencies. For example, Metamask, Phantom, or Trust Wallet.
Cold Wallet – A wallet not connected to the internet, the most secure wallet to store crypto. For example, Ledger.
Private Key – A series words that is used to access your wallet
Public Key – Your unique wallet address that is used to receive crypto, also referred to as an address.
Mining – The process of validating transactions on the blockchain
Gas – The amount of money it cost to process a transaction on the ETH blockchain.
Coin – Is a digital currency similar to physical currency and operates on its own blockchain.
Token – a digital asset issues on a particular project that does not operate on its own blockchain. These tokens are used for payments and digital contacts.
Smart Contract – A computer protocol intended to digitally facilitate, verify, and enforce the negations and performance of a contract.
Stablecoin – Is a cryptocurrency equivalent to one USD or main currency (EURO, etc)
Stock Token – A crypto token that is used to trade a stock asset. Each token represents a share of one stock. This is allows the holders to gain economic exposure to the underlying shares in a convenient and trusted manner.
Staking – The process of actively participating in transaction validation (similar to mining) on a proof-of-stake Staking (PoS) blockchain.
Yield Farming – A way to generate rewards with cryptocurrency holdings by moving funds from one liquidity pool to another. .
Liquidity Pool (LP) – A smart contract that locks in tokens to ensure liquidity for those tokens on a decentralized exchange.
dApps – Decentralized Applications
Fork – When a community splits off an existing network based on a protocol change.
For example, Bitcoin and Bitcoin cash. BCH (Bitcoin Cash) is hard fork off (BTC) Bitcoin. Bitcoin cash was invented in 2017 to solve scalability issues. BTC cannot be used for small daily purchases (i.e a cup of coffee), because it takes too long to process the transaction (30+ minutes). BCH changed BTCs protocol to allow for larger block sizes which processes transactions to be much faster and at a lower cost.
dEX – Decentralized Exchanges such as uniswap
Whitepaper – A documentation of the project written by the founders.
Hashing – A method of cryptography that converts any form of data into a unique string of text.
DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) – Groups of people who pool their money together to accomplish a unified goal.
NFTs
NFT (Non fungible token) – A unit of data stored on a blockchain, that certifies an asset to be unique. NFTs can be used to represent items such as photos, legal documents, audio, and other types of digital files.
Minting – The first instance of recording that token onto the blockchain. This can be consider like an initial public offering or the first time the token is available for sale.
Roadmap – The general outline for the project with timelines attached.
Arbitrage – When a user buys an NFT on one exchange and sells it on another exchange for profit due to the spread.
Gas War – The term is referred to when many people are trying to mint an NFT at one time. It causes a massive spike in the cost of gas to process transactions. For example, during the day of the Adidas Original NFT Drop, gas prices were around 150 GWEI. During the public mint, a drop of 30,000 NFTs, gas prices rose to 3000 GWEI. The collection sold out in 2 minutes and gas normalized back down over the next hour.
The floor – The lowest priced NFT in the collection.
Sweep the Floor – When a person comes in and buys multiple NFTs of a collection of the floor.
CC0 = Relinquishing all copyrights to a piece of work and dedicating the rights to the public domain, for profit or otherwise. Some examples are Cryptoadz by Gremplin and Nouns.
General Slang
Aped In – A large investment into one specific project.
Mooning – A coin with tremendous gains in a certain time period.
FUD (Fear Uncertainty Doubt) – When there is turmoil and disdain towards a project in the market
YOLO (You Only Live Once) – A large investment into one particular coin or token, typically more than one can afford to lose
Whale – A large owner of a particular crypto
Paper Wallet – A physical document containing your private key or seed phrase
Fiat – Legal tender by governments
ICO (Initial Coin Offering) – The first time a coin or token is offered for purchase public
gm – Good Morning. A trend set on twitter to greet people a good morning.
