The cryptocurrency terminologies help understand the newbie investor, the basic industry terminology. As this asset class is newer compared to the traditional assets out in the market, doing one’s homework is very important.
Cryptocurrency Terminology lets you understand common day-to-day words the investors use and help you trade better. It is also important for any trader to go through this before starting to trade.
We bring you the most common terminology used across the cryptocurrency industry.
Address
A crypto address is basically a string of alphanumeric characters which represents the location of a wallet. It indicating where to send/receive cryptocurrency.
Airdrop
An airdrop refers to a marketing campaign to distribute new tokens or cryptocurrency to the public.
All-Time-High (ATH)
ATH is the highest value of a cryptocurrency over the history or a specified time.
All-Time-Low (ATL)
ATH is the lowest value of a cryptocurrency over the history or a specified time.
Altcoin
Coins apart from Bitcoin were named as “altcoins”, as in “alternative coins”.
Ask Price
The minimum price, one seller is willing to accept for an asset. Also referred to as the offer price.
Blockchain
A distributed ledger system is a sequence of blocks or units of digital information stored consecutively in a public database.
Candlesticks
A graphing technique in a trading chart shows changes in prices over time.
DeFi
A movement encouraging alternatives to traditional, centralized forms of financial services.
Dump/Dumping
A dump is sudden self-off of a digital asset. A collective market sell-off is dumping.
FOMO
An acronym that stands for “Fear Of Missing Out”.
Fiat
A “legal tender” currency backed by the centra government.
FUD
An acronym that stands for “Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt”.
Gas
A term used for a price paid for a transaction in the blockchain.
HODL
It stands for “Hold On for Dear Life”. Commonly, it is a type of passive investment strategy to hold an investment for a long period of time.
Initial Coin Offering (ICO)
It is a type of crowdfunding as a means of raising capital for early-stage companies.
JOMO
It is the opposite of FOMO and stands for “Joy Of Missing Out”.
Long
It is situation where one buys a coin with expectation of selling it at a higher price for profits.
Mining / Miner
Mining is a process where blocks are added to a blockchain after verifying transactions. Miners are contributors that take part in the mining.
Moon
A situation where a cryptocurrency’s price is continuously in the upwards direction. Often referred to as “To the moon”, “When moon?”.
Non-Fungible Token (NFTs)
These tokens are cryptocurrencies that do not possess the property of fungibility.
Peer-to-Peer (P2P)
The interactions between the parties in a distributed network which are decentralised.
Private/Secret Key
A code generated in asymmetric-key encryption process, paired with a public key.
REKT
A shorthand slang for “wrecked”. It describes a bad loss in a trade.
Scam
A fraudulent activity with an intention to steal cryptocurrencies.
Shitcoin
A coin with no obvious potential value or usage.
Short
A trading technique in which a trader borrows an asset in order to sell it, with the expectation that the price will continue to decline.
Volume
A number representing cryptocurrency traded over a set period.
Wallet
A storage where cryptocurrencies can be received, sent and stored.
