Common Cryptocurrency Terms You Need To Know So You Won’t Be Clueless

Published in

The Startup

5 min readApr 11, 2018

The world of cryptocurrency is new and fresh. It’s also knee-deep with its own terms and lingo, so any newbie who wants to get in on the action will get lost. Hearing terms like “hodl” or “mooning” might make it seem like the cryptocurrency forums and space are just like another alien planet.

We are here to help since we are also in this space. These are the basic cryptocurrency terms you need to know if you want to get into the business or understand all sorts of news and posts on cryptocurrency forums.

HODL

A misspelling of “hold”, this term means to hold onto your hard-earned cryptocurrency until it’s a good time to sell and cash out. The term’s origin came from a near-incoherent 2013 post on Bitcointalk.org.

Moon

A term for a cryptocurrency price going up to astronomical levels. Used in a sarcastic manner sometimes when referring to dubious cryptocurrencies.

ATH

Short for “All-Time High”. The highest price point of a cryptocurrency. For example, BitCoin’s ATH is US$11,000.

Lambo

A car which you will get if you cash out at the right time. The term is usually found on internet memes.

Shilling/Pumping

Someone essentially advertising another crypto-currency. If a coin is promised to cure cancer or be the second coming of Jesus, it’s being shilled.

FOMO

This is short for “Fear Of Missing Out”. The overwhelming sensation that you need to get on the train when the price of something starts to skyrocket.

FUD

Short for “Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt”. Baseless negativity spread intentionally by someone that wants the price of something to drop.

Fiat

Government-issued currency, like Singapore dollars or US dollars.

Bears

A trader with a pessimistic outlook in the cryptocurrency, space where they predict dropping prices in the market.

Bulls

An optimistic trader in the cryptocurrency space where they predict rising prices in the market.

Whale

Someone who owns an absurd amount of cryptocurrency. Also used as a term for free-to-play mobile gamers who spends a lot on microtransactions.

Altcoins

A reference to any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin. Examples include Ethereum, Dogecoin, Peercoin, and Litecoin.

Ethereum

Another type of cryptocurrency that is as popular and valuable as Bitcoin. Arguably even worth more depending on the market state.

PoW

Short for “Proof of Work”. The current consensus algorithm used by Ethereum.

PoS

Short for “Proof of State”. The proposed future consensus algorithm to be used by Ethereum. Instead of mining in its current form, people that own ETH will be able to ‘lock up’ their Ethereum for a short amount of time in order to ‘vote’ and generate network consensus. The plan is that these stakeholders will be rewarded with ETH by doing so.

MEW

An alternate term for MyEtherWallet. It’s the name of a site that generates e-wallets for you to keep your cryptocurrencies.

Tokensour

Refers to the ‘currency’ of projects built on the Etherium network that have raised money via issuing their own tokens. Examples: GNT — Golem REP — Augur BAT — Basic Attention Token

ICN — Iconomi

ICO

Initial Coin Offering. Somewhat similar to an IPO in the non-crypto world. Startups issue their own token in exchange for ether. This is essentially crowdfunding on the Etherium platform.

Blockchain

Blockchains are distributed ledgers, secured by cryptography. They are essentially public databases that everyone can access and read, but the data can only be updated by the data owners. Instead of the data residing on a single centralized server, the data is copied across thousands and thousands of computers worldwide. We talked about this tech quite a lot.

Fork

A situation where a blockchain splits into two separate chains. Forks generally happen in the crypto-world when new ‘governance rules’ are built into the blockchain’s code.

Sharding

A scaling solution for blockchains. Typically, every node in a blockchain network houses a complete copy of the blockchain. Sharding is a method that allows nodes to have partial copies of the complete blockchain in order to increase overall network performance and consensus speeds.

Mining Rig

A computer specially-designed for processing proof-of-work blockchains, like Ethereum. They often consist of multiple high-end graphics processors (GPUs) to maximize their processing power. This is the sole reason why graphics cards from NVidia are doubling in prices in 2018.

Cold Storage

The process of moving crypto-currency ‘offline’, as a way of safekeeping your crypto-currency from hacking. There are a variety of ways to do this, but some methods most commonly used include:

Printing out the QR code of a software wallet and storing it somewhere safe, such as a safety deposit box.
Moving the files of a software wallet onto a USB drive and storing it somewhere safe.
Using a hardware wallet.

Pump & Dump

The recurring cycle of an altcoin getting a ton of attention, leading to a fast price increase, and then of course followed by a huge crash.

Bag Holder

A term for a person who is still holding an altcoin after a pump and dump crash. Can also just refer to someone holding a coin that is sinking in value with few future prospects.

Smart Contract

An Ethereum-related code that is deployed onto the Ethereum blockchain, often directly interacting with how money flows. Not my quote, but: “A normal transaction allows you to send money from A to B. Smart contracts allow you to send money from A to B, on the condition that C happens.”

Solidity

One of the most popular languages that smart contracts can be written in. Has some similarities to Javascript.

Hope this guide has been helpful! We’d love to hear your feedback. Did we miss anything?

Originally published at bountie.io on April 11, 2018.