With the development of new technologies and an increase in the hype, there’s a huge amount of technical terms, acronyms and slang in the crypto and blockchain space. This can be confusing especially when you don’t know what they mean.
With anything that’s new and confusing, it’s always good to get your head around the key terms. Making sure you’re in the loop.
That’s why we’ve put together a list of the key terminology in crypto.
AMM / Automated Market Makers
A decentralised exchange that allows traders to automatically buy and sell assets using algorithms that decide when based on price.
Airdrop
A method of marketing where cryptocurrency coins or tokens are sent to a selection of wallets, usually belonging to their initial audience, to gain awareness.
Bear / Bearish
Someone who believes that the value of an asset/coin will decrease over a period of time.
Blockchain
A distributed ledger that acts as a database. Transactions are encrypted into blocks of digital information that are chained sequentially, making them immutable.
Bull / Bullish
Someone who believes that an asset/coin will increase in value.
Cryptocurrency
A digital currency that is secured by cryptographic technology.
DAO – Decentralised Autonomous Organisation
An organisation that is controlled by a community of members around a specific set of rules that are transparent to, and decided by, the community.
Decentralised
The process of transferring control and decision making from a central entity, to numerous decision-makers in order to achieve a common goal.
DeFi / Decentralised Finance
A form of finance that differentiates itself from centralised (traditional) finance by not being controlled by, or relying on, any central financial intermediaries, instead it relies on smart contracts on blockchains.
Diamond Hands
Refers to people that hold on to their investments no matter the status of the market.
Exchange
A place where you can trade cryptocurrencies with government-issued FIAT currency or other cryptocurrencies.
FOMO
Fear Of Missing Out
FUD
Fear Uncertainty & Doubt
Fungible
A quality where two or more assets have the same value and are completely interchangeable.
HODL – HOLD
Now said to be an acronym, Hold On for Dear Life, a term used to state that you’re holding on to your crypto assets.
Immutable
A characteristic of Blockchain is that once a transaction is entered it can not be erased. Once a transaction is written to a blockchain, it is unchangeable.
Initial Coin Offering (ICO)
An unregulated method of crowdfunding for early stage cryptocurrency or blockchain companies to raise funds by issuing a token or cryptocurrency. Tokens sold via an ICO may offer utility meaning they will have a use for users in the future.
Ledger
An organised means of recording data.
Maximalist
An individual who believes a chosen digital asset is superior to all other assets and any others aren’t worth caring about. They also believe that their digital asset of choice will be the only one needed in the future.
Mining
The process of adding blocks to a blockchain, usually by solving cryptographic equations, using high-power computers to validate data blocks and add transactions to a public record.
Mooning / To the moon
Investors in crypto hope their coins have exponential growth hence, “going to the moon”.
Paper Hands
Refers to the people that sell their investments as soon as they are losing value.
Protocol
The fundamental set of rules and guidelines that are used to achieve a particular task and allow information to be shared securely between computers efficiently. Within these protocols we have Layer-1 and Layer-2 Protocols.
Protocol, Layer-1
This describes the main blockchain underlying architecture. There are generally two types; Consensus protocol such as Proof-of-Work (PoW) & Proof-of-Stake (PoS) and Sharding.
Protocol, Layer-2
This is an overlaying network that lies on top of the underlying blockchain that enables transactions to be completed off the blockchain thereby increasing scalability.
Whales
Cryptocurrency whales are individuals that own a large amount of the assets and are able to have an influence on cryptocurrency markets through their actions.
Key Terminology In Crypto
Hopefully, this article will give you a greater understanding of some of the technical terms, acronyms and key terminology in crypto and blockchain.
We recently created a blog on the history of crypto memes called: The Story Behind Crypto’s Most Popular Memes. Check this out to see how these came about.
