The Story Behind Crypto’s Most Popular Term: HODL
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When you to dive into the world of cryptocurrency, one of the first things you’ll likely encounter is an ever-evolving use of crypto slang, a special language developed by crypto enthusiasts. You’ll find yourself faced with a multitude of new terms and phrases which meanings go beyond their traditional definitions — words such as mooning, shilling, fudding, “pump and dump”, FOMO, and DYOR — the list goes on. HODL, however, is by far the most popular of these terms and one to which almost all cryptocurrency investors can relate.
The term “HODL” appeared for the very first time on a post in a Bitcoin Talk forum in 2013, a post which has now been read over 788K times. It was used by a member named GameKyuubi who apparently drunkly wrote,“I AM HODLING.” What the bluser in the post wanted to convey was the fact that despite the drop in price, he was choosing to hold onto his Bitcoins.
Since then, the intentionally misspelled word “HODL” and became a popular term in the cryptocurrency industry and it continues to be used whenever someone wants to say that he or she is holding onto a coin that they believe will be profitable.
“HODL” is no longer just an acronym, but a belief. The four letter word that blockchain and cryptocurrencies will change the world and unlock massive wealth for the people who continue to trust in cryptocurrency even during times of distress. The term “HODL” now often pops up whenever the value of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies drop and sends the message to crypto holders not to sell.
Such crypto believers have challenges to face, especially during a bear market when it becomes hard to “HODL”, especially when you know that your investment is shrinking and when you see your friends cashing out to curtail their losses. Even during such a distressed scenario, “HODL” remains the only truth for true believers.
Cashing Out While Hodling
Cryptocurrency investors also face a dilemma — when they find themselves “crypto rich but cash poor”, they don’t want to cash out, but they need cash to spend in the real world. For such investors, a system has been put in place that enables them obtain liquidity without selling their crypto holdings. Several new loan platforms have been created with the sole purpose of giving cash loans to crypto traders using their cryptocurrencies as collateral.
ETHLend has recently launched its latest version Baiji to Ethereum testnet that allows bitcoin to be used as collateral and as the lending currency. Our peer-to-peer smart contract lending offers the freedom for users to choose the terms and conditions for each loan and additionally they can select collateral from our list of selected tokens in addition to ETH and, once the new version has been launched on Mainnet, BTC.
The crypto-backed loans segment is relatively new, but there is certainly an increasing interest not only by investors but also by institutions who want to explore this emerging market such as Cashare, the largest peer-to-peer crowdfunding platform in Switzerland with over 10 years of experience in the online lending space, that has been recently introduced as Aave Lending first client.
