Gaining immense attention from all over the world, the crypto community is growing rapidly. However, reading about cryptocurrencies can be confusing as the slangs that were used for inside jokes in early trading chat rooms on Discord and on Reddit threads are now important crypto slangs that you must know. You may see crypto enthusiasts, “SOL is mooning” or “The whales have entered into the market.” But what does mooning or whale mean?
In this post, I have covered 22 crypto slangs you must know in 2022 to survive in the crypto sphere. By the end of this article, you will figure out what does it mean if your crypto community friend says, “I’m having FOMO.” So, let’s get started!
FOMO
FOMO means fear of missing out. Usually, FOMO refers to the feeling or perception that others are enjoying more than you, living a better life, or experiencing something better than you. In cryptocurrencies, this usually happens when a sharp bullish breakout occurs, and investors get anxious thinking if they should buy the trendy crypto coin. The crypto market is primarily made up of amateur private investors who seek to navigate highly volatile price fluctuations while seeking to build a balanced crypto portfolio. So, often these newbies feel FOMO in the crypto sphere.
HODL
HODL means “Hold onto your dear life.” In the crypto market, it means holding on to your crypto assets. The term began in the Bitcoin Forum during a period of market turmoil in late 2013. At that time, an investor argued that investors weren’t fit for trade-ups and downs, so they just bought and held their crypto wallets. “HODL” is probably the most well-known crypto slang. HODL means holding coins in any situation with the hope of a future bull market.
FUD
FUD is the short form of “Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.” FUD is a psychological trick to create negative emotions about a particular asset, discouraging further purchases or encouraging sales. Fuders use this trick to spread negativity about crypto coins and their future. They do so to spread doubts, fears, and uncertainties in the minds of crypto investors resulting in the fall of the price of a particular coin or the entire crypto space. Crypto experts advise to HODL your coins from people outside the community despite FUD.
Bagholder
A bag holder is someone who buys crypto assets at a high price and then sees the value of their holdings goes down. In other words, a bag holder is someone who keeps on holding a large amount of a particular coin, regardless of its performance. For bag holders, the price of crypto coins is irrelevant. These investors are either unaware of the decline in the value of their crypto assets or are waiting to sell at a higher price, but they usually fail to do that.
When Lambo
Lambo is short for the popular and expensive sports car Lamborghini. The crypto slang “when Lambo?” refers to the success of a crypto asset. Asking “when Lambo?” means asking when the value of a crypto asset will increase enough for its holder to buy a Lamborghini.
Whale
Crypto investors who own more than 5% of cryptocurrency coins are called “Whales.” In other words, a whale is an entity that occupies a large position with respect to a particular cryptocurrency. A whale can also be defined as someone who has enough coins or tokens to make a significant impact on market prices by buying and selling in large quantities. “Whales” place large orders on the market at a higher price, increasing the price of the crypto coins. The whales’ movements potentially attract attention from all types of crypto enthusiasts as they hold significant power to manipulate crypto market prices.
Sats
‘Sats’ is the abbreviation for ‘satoshis,’ the smallest unit of Bitcoin. This term is derived from the first name of Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of Bitcoin. Bitcoin prices have skyrocketed over the decades, and it will be much more expensive for new investors to buy the entire Bitcoin. This is why Bitcoin is easy to split and always trades in fractions. And it is essential to name each fraction of Bitcoin. 1 sats is equivalent to 0.00000001 BTC. Therefore, 1 Bitcoin is equivalent to 100,000,000 sats.
Pump and Dump
Pumps occur when a large amount of attention leads to a rise in the price of coins. Whereas dumps occur when the price of a coin plummets after the spread of negative emotions regarding the coin. Pump and Dump is a tactic used by large investors to buy certain crypto coins from innocent investors by manipulating them. These big investors inflate the price of their crypto holdings and sell their holdings after the market is hyped but before the price drops for those assets. This type of market manipulation is considered to be illegal for regulated securities. However, the applicability of pumps and dumps go beyond cryptocurrencies. They are also used in stocks.
Mooning/To the Moon
If a crypto coin is “mooning,” it means that the price of the coin is rising. “To the Moon’’ means that the price of cryptocurrencies has peaked and is rising from the chart. Usually, a coin can be said to be “mooning” — when it rises by more than 100 percent in a short period of time. The phrase became popular after Bitcoin’s 2017 peak when Bitcoin gained traction, and its value rose up to $20,000 from $900.
Flippening
Flippening refers to a never seen before moment in the history of the crypto verse where the value of Ethereum overtakes the value of Bitcoin. In 2017, Bitcoin accounted for more than 80% of the total crypto market share. However, in July 2020, the process of flippening was already 53% done. However, Ethereum accounts for less than 15% of Bitcoin’s market capitalization, so flippening is not happening in the near future. Though at some point in the long run, ETH might create history with flippening.
No Coiner
A no coiner is someone who is pessimistic about crypto and doesn’t believe in the use cases of crypto assets. In simple words, a person who doesn’t hold any kind of crypto asset is called a no coiner. Therefore, this crypto slang refers to everyone outside the crypto community.
Rekt
Rekt is a crypto slang made by intentionally misspelling the word “wrecked.” Wrecked is a term that is used in games when the player is completely destroyed in the game. Rekt is a crypto slang term used in the crypto market to describe an investor’s portfolio or investment that fails easily. It is used on social media to define that excessive leverage used to liquidate a position can result in huge financial losses. So if someone loses a lot of money due to a collapsing coin, they get #rekt!
BTD/BTFD
BTD stands for “buy a dip.” It is a common crypto slang in the crypto sphere that means taking a long position while anticipating a short-term decline in the prices of crypto assets. This crypto slang is commonly used in the crypto bull market to support bullish sentiment and rising prices. However, in the crypto bear market, this crypto slang is used to refer to the purchase of a crypto asset at a good historical value for a long investment. BTFD is an abbreviation for “Buy The F**king Dip.” It is used by traders to instruct others to choose devalued cryptocurrencies.
Vaporware
“Vaporware” is a crypto slang referring to concepts that probably never come true in reality. It can also refer to potential cryptocurrencies that do not have any clear use case. Many crypto projects are still in development and haven’t had the opportunity to prove their utility yet. So vaporware is a widely used crypto slang for all such under development crypto projects. However, investors believe in an unpredictable market like crypto, this year’s vaporware can be next year’s Ethereum.
Cryptosis
“Cryptosis” is a crypto slang used to represent a situation where someone becomes a crypto-worm. People who read, write, discuss, and get drowned in cryptographic information all day long. Obsessive cryptocurrency disorder (OCD) is a condition in which investors develop an undying interest in the crypto world and become obsessed with it. Crypto enthusiasts suffering from OCD keep a keen eye on the rise and fall of cryptocurrencies the whole day and show a strange addiction towards trading crypto assets.
Diamond Hands
The term Diamond Hands refers to an investor who is not affected by the pressures of market volatility and has a higher risk tolerance than most investors. This term was popularized by the Wallstreetbets community on Reddit. It represents a community that includes people who have come together to hype up the price of a meme coin or any other crypto asset. Such a community usually shows a strong commitment to the HODL philosophy.
Paper Hands
“Paper hands” is a crypto slang that is anonymous to the term “Diamond hands.” Paper Hands refer to the investors that easily break down under pressure. Such investors would anxiously sell their crypto assets when the price drops, fearing high losses. In other words, paper hands refer to the crypto investors who bend down even in the slightest pressure and sell away their crypto assets too early. These investors have a very low-risk tolerance compared to a volatile market like Cryptocurrencies.
Shill
Shilling is a crypto slang referring to the act of using false or exaggerated narratives to promote poor quality services and investments. Shilling is commonly used in the process of pump and dump. A person practicing shilling tries to make a fuss by personally approving a cryptocurrency in a public forum in the guise of honesty and his personal experience. However, he covers up the fact that he is actually being paid for the false or exaggerated promotions.
For example, if an influencer claims a crypto coin has the potential to solve the world’s hunger problem, then we can say he is shilling. An influencer paid to promote a cryptocurrency or a developer enticing a crypto project to attract users and confirm its success — these all are types of shilling. Further, an investor influencing you to sell your underperforming crypto assets in the name of higher profits is also shilling.
KYC
KYC is the abbreviation for “know your customer. “ It is a type of identity verification required by many crypto exchanges after being imposed by regulatory agencies. This refers to the obligation of a financial institution to perform a specific identity and background check on a customer before allowing them to access any services offered by the institution. KYC is part of the wide range of protective measures taken by regulators around the world to combat any type of fraud in the crypto world.
Cryptojacking
Cryptojacking is a type of cybercrime that refers to a situation where jackers mine cryptocurrencies using devices (computers, smartphones, tablets, and even servers) without any authorization. Like many forms of cybercrime, the aim of cyberjacking is to earn massive profit. However, unlike other cyber threats, cryptojacking is designed to remain completely hidden from the victim until it’s too late to take any preventive measures.
Airdrop
By the name, you might try to link it by the airdrops found in FreeFire or PUBG. Airdrop is a crypto slang referring to the free token distribution method. This involves developers sending free tokens to crypto community members as part of broader marketing initiatives for any new blockchain-based projects or freshly minted crypto coins.
The aim of airdrops is to send the newly issued tokens to hundreds or thousands of different wallet addresses not only for marketing purposes but also to speed awareness of the new crypto-assets and crypto projects in the market.
So this was the exclusive list of 22 crypto slangs you must know in 2022. Over the last decade, crypto enthusiasts have discovered new ways to explain, ritualize and give meaning to decentralized money movements. That’s how the rapid use of crypto slang has emerged.
However, investors often have a hard time understanding the meaning of the crypto slangs. For investors, getting a clear understanding by looking at conversations of crypto communities will be made possible by following the crypto slangs we have covered in this article above!
