How to use this glossary
Crypto communities use a lot of shorthand, some technical and some playful. The terms below are grouped by theme, with short definitions. Many have their own detailed articles on this site, and the definitions here are simplified. Meanings and usage shift over time, so treat them as starting points. This is education, not advice, and crypto prices are volatile.
Holding and security
- Wallet: software or hardware that manages the keys controlling your crypto, rather than storing coins themselves.
- Private key: the secret number that authorizes spending. Whoever has it controls the funds.
- Seed phrase (recovery phrase): a list of words, often twelve or twenty-four, that can rebuild a wallet’s keys.
- Custodial: a provider holds the keys for you. Self-custody: you hold them.
- Cold / hot wallet: keys kept offline versus on an internet-connected device.
- Multisig: a wallet that needs more than one key to approve a spend.
- Phishing: tricking someone into revealing a secret or approving a harmful request.
- Counterparty risk: the chance the other side of an arrangement, such as an exchange, fails to deliver.
Network and transfers
- Blockchain: a shared ledger maintained by many computers, in which transactions are grouped into blocks.
- Block confirmation: each block added after the one containing a transaction, making it harder to reverse.
- Gas / network fee: the payment offered for having a transaction processed.
- Mempool: the waiting area where unconfirmed transactions sit.
- Layer 1 / layer 2: a main blockchain and networks built on top of it to handle more activity.
- Node: a computer that stores and checks the blockchain.
- Halving: the scheduled cut in Bitcoin’s new-coin issuance, roughly every four years.
- Satoshi (sat): the smallest Bitcoin unit, one hundred-millionth of a bitcoin.
- Hash rate: a measure of the computing power securing a proof-of-work network.
Coins and tokens
- Altcoin: any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin.
- Token: an asset issued on top of another blockchain, rather than having its own chain.
- Stablecoin: a token designed to track a stable value, usually a currency such as the US dollar. A depeg is when it drifts from that target.
- Meme coin: a token whose appeal is mostly humor or attention rather than function.
- Market capitalization (market cap): price multiplied by circulating supply. It is a size indicator, not the amount of money invested.
- Circulating / total / max supply: coins available now, coins created so far, and the maximum ever possible.
- Tokenomics: the design of a token’s supply, distribution and incentives.
- Airdrop: a free distribution of tokens, often to existing users. Fake airdrops are also a scam tool.
Trading and markets
- Exchange: a platform for buying, selling or converting crypto. CEX / DEX stand for centralized and decentralized exchange.
- Order book: the list of buy and sell offers on an exchange.
- Bid / ask: the highest price buyers offer and the lowest price sellers ask. The gap is the spread.
- Market order / limit order: buy or sell now at the best available price, or only at a price you set.
- Slippage: the difference between the expected price and the price actually obtained.
- Liquidity: how easily something can be traded without moving its price.
- Volume: the amount traded during a period.
- Volatility: how much and how fast price moves.
- Bull / bear market: a period of generally rising or generally falling prices.
- Drawdown: the decline from a peak to a later low.
- All-time high (ATH): the highest price an asset has ever reached.
- Dip: a short-term price fall. Pump / dump: a sharp rise or fall, often used for artificial moves.
- Whale: a holder with a very large balance.
- Altseason: informal term for a period when altcoins appear to outperform Bitcoin.
Derivatives and leverage
- Futures / perpetuals: contracts based on a future price. Perpetuals have no expiry.
- Leverage / margin: trading with borrowed funds, which magnifies both gains and losses.
- Liquidation: forced closing of a leveraged position when losses exhaust its margin.
- Funding rate: a periodic payment between long and short traders in perpetual contracts.
- Open interest: the total value of open derivative contracts.
- Short: a position that profits if price falls. A short squeeze happens when rising prices force shorts to close.
Slang and sentiment
- HODL: hold on, originally a misspelling of “hold”, now a general term for long-term holding.
- FOMO: fear of missing out, buying because others seem to be profiting. FUD: fear, uncertainty and doubt, negative sentiment, sometimes used to dismiss legitimate concerns.
- Diamond hands / paper hands: holding through volatility versus selling at the first fall.
- Rekt: badly losing money.
- DYOR: do your own research. It is sometimes used as a disclaimer, and it does not make a promotion trustworthy.
- Rug pull: developers abandon a project and take the funds.
- WAGMI / NGMI: “we’re all gonna make it” and “not gonna make it”, slogans that reflect mood rather than analysis.
- Fear and greed: shorthand for market emotion, tracked in a popular index.
A note on reading jargon critically
Slang can create a feeling of belonging or urgency that pushes people to act quickly. Treat terms that promise certainty, such as “guaranteed”, “risk-free” or “to the moon”, as marketing rather than information. Understanding the vocabulary is useful mostly because it helps you ask clearer questions about price, risk and custody.