Crypto slang dictionary

anon

MeansShort for anonymous, and it simply means you, the person being spoken to. Nobody is asking for your name.

UseIt is the normal way to address a stranger in a thread: anon, what did you buy? There is no insult in it.

FromFrom 4chan, where every post is signed Anonymous by default.

First archived use: 2014-02-13 · post

based

MeansA compliment for saying an unpopular thing plainly and not backing away from it afterwards. It praises the person, not the argument.

UseYou reply based when somebody says out loud what the thread was avoiding. It does not mean you agree with them.

FromThe rapper Lil B made it a compliment around 2010, 4chan picked it up, and crypto took it from there.

First archived use: 2014-02-13 · post

cringe

MeansThe opposite of based: something so awkward that you feel it physically. Usually it is somebody trying much too hard to fit in.

UseSaid about promo threads, forced excitement and brand accounts posting gm at nine in the morning.

FromOrdinary internet slang. Crypto did not invent it, it just has a lot of material.

CT

MeansCrypto Twitter: the round-the-clock argument where most of this vocabulary was born and where it is still tested.

UsePeople talk about it as if it were one person: CT is bearish, CT has moved on.

FromThe shorthand is older than the rename to X and outlived it.

fren

MeansFriend, spelled the way the Pepe cartoons spell it. It marks the message as friendly before the message says anything.

UseUseful when you are about to correct somebody: fren, check the contract first. It takes the sting out.

FromFrom 4chan and the Pepe comics; it shows up on the /biz/ board in 2016.

First archived use: 2016-10-25 · post

gm

MeansGood morning. In crypto it is not a greeting so much as a daily headcount: you say gm, other people say gm back, and that is the whole message.

UseWrite it lowercase, with no punctuation, in the morning of whatever timezone you are in. Answering gm to a gm is the entire etiquette.

FromIt spread through NFT circles on Twitter, is documented there from March 2018, and became universal across crypto in 2021.

gn

MeansGood night: the same headcount at the other end of the day, usually posted when somebody closes the laptop and stops watching the chart.

UseYou answer a gn with gn. Posting it during a rally is a small joke about leaving money on the table on purpose.

FromSame circles as gm; on the /biz/ board in this sense from 2014.

First archived use: 2014-03-05 · post

iykyk

MeansIf you know, you know. It hints that the writer has information without sharing any of it.

UseUsually attached to a screenshot or a ticker. Treat it as a mood, not as a source: often there is nothing behind it.

FromGeneral internet slang; on the /biz/ board from 2019.

First archived use: 2019-05-11 · post

lfg

MeansAn all-caps cheer, roughly "let's go", with a swear word in the middle. It carries excitement and nothing else.

UseFires under listing announcements and green candles. It tells you how somebody feels, never what they know.

FromFrom sports and gaming chat; on the /biz/ board from 2017.

First archived use: 2017-05-21 · post

ngl

MeansNot gonna lie. It introduces an admission, and in crypto the admission is almost always about a bad entry.

UseNgl I bought the top. It signals that what follows is honest rather than clever.

FromGeneral internet slang, not specific to crypto.

og

MeansOriginal gangster, borrowed from hip-hop and meaning the people who were here early: the 2013 forum crowd, the 2017 ICO survivors, the first holders of a collection.

UseOG is a compliment about time served, not about being right. Being an OG of a project that died still counts.

FromHip-hop slang from the late 1980s; crypto uses it for anyone who arrived before the cycle everybody remembers.

ratio

MeansWhen a reply collects more likes than the post it answers. The crowd has quietly voted against the original.

UseGetting ratioed is the cheapest public defeat available and is mentioned far more often than it matters.

FromTwitter-wide, nothing to do with crypto specifically.

ser

MeansSir, misspelled on purpose. It is mock politeness: respectful on the surface and obviously not underneath.

UseUsed when asking something obvious, or when being very polite about somebody's very bad idea: ser, this is a wallet drainer.

FromCame out of crypto support chats in Telegram and Discord, then spread through NFT Twitter in 2021.

touch grass

MeansGo outside. Said to somebody whose posting has drifted from markets into something closer to a fever.

UseIt usually appears in an argument that has gone on too long, and usually from the person who is losing it.

FromOn the /biz/ board from 2022, in a post pointing out that the market is closed today anyway.

First archived use: 2022-05-30 · post

wen

MeansWhen, misspelled on purpose, used to demand a date that nobody actually has.

UseWen token, wen listing, wen lambo. The joke is that the honest answer is always soon, and soon means nothing.

FromFrom crypto Telegram groups, where the same question arrives every hour.

cope

MeansRefusing to admit a loss out loud, and instead explaining why the market is wrong. Calling something cope is saying the person is arguing with the price.

UseReply cope when a thesis has survived only in its author's head. Expect the same word back if you are also down.

FromFrom 4chan and general internet usage, long before crypto.

copium

MeansCope plus opium: an imaginary drug you take so the loss stops hurting. The word names the excuse itself.

UsePass the copium is what people write in a thread where everybody is down and nobody wants to say it first.

FromFrom gaming and Twitch emote culture; on the /biz/ board from 2018.

First archived use: 2018-09-25 · post

diamond hands

MeansHolding a position through heavy losses without selling. The metaphor is about hardness, not about being right.

UsePeople claim it about themselves after the drawdown is over, almost never during it.

FromUsually credited to r/wallstreetbets and the GameStop squeeze of January 2021, but the crypto usage on /biz/ is years older.

First archived use: 2017-05-31 · post

few

MeansShort for "few understand": an ironic sign-off meaning almost nobody sees what I see.

UseIt gets attached to fairly ordinary observations to make them sound like an edge. Read it as a tone, not as a claim.

FromWidely credited to the pseudonymous writer @BowTiedBull, though we could not find a dated first post.

gmi

MeansGonna make it: the singular, positive form. It is said to one person about one decision.

UseReply gmi to somebody who just took a sensible trade, or refused a stupid one.

FromSame family as wagmi and ngmi, out of the same fitness forums.

hfsp

MeansHave fun staying poor. The stock answer to anybody who says the whole thing is a scam.

UseIt ends a conversation rather than winning one: using it means you have stopped explaining.

FromFrom bull-market Twitter; on the /biz/ board from the end of 2020.

First archived use: 2020-12-30 · post

hodl

MeansHolding through a crash instead of selling. It started as a typo for hold and turned into a whole attitude.

UseYou say it about your own position when it is deep in the red and you have decided to do nothing about it.

FromA bitcointalk post from 18 December 2013, written during a crash by a man who says in the thread that he had been drinking.

First archived use: 2014-02-14 · post

hopium

MeansThe same imaginary drug as copium, but pointed at the future: a position that is held together by hope alone.

UseSaid about a chart with no buyers left, where the argument for holding is a roadmap rather than a bid.

FromFormed by analogy with copium, same corner of the internet.

it's over / we're so back

MeansA matched pair of overreactions. The same asset gets both, sometimes in the same week.

UseBoth are jokes about how fast the mood turns. Writing either one sincerely is itself the joke.

FromA general internet meme format that crypto adopted during the 2022 drawdown.

ngmi

MeansNot gonna make it: the same sentence as wagmi, turned around and aimed at one person.

UseIt is harsher than it looks, because it is not about this trade being wrong. It says the person will keep being wrong.

FromOn the /biz/ board years earlier than the origin story usually told about it.

First archived use: 2017-08-03 · post

number go up

MeansThe thesis said out loud without decoration: the price rises because people expect the price to rise.

UseOften shortened to NgU. It works both as a defence of bitcoin and as a joke at its expense.

FromBitcoin circles first, then everyone else.

paper hands

MeansSelling at the first scare. It is the insulting name for what is sometimes just sensible risk management.

UseThrown at people who sold before a recovery. Nobody says it to the person who sold before a collapse.

Fromr/wallstreetbets, the other half of the diamond hands pair.

probably nothing

MeansIrony worn the other way round: you post something you think is important and label it unimportant.

UseSits over a job posting, a code commit or a wallet transfer that the writer believes is a signal.

FromNFT Twitter, 2021.

up only

MeansA joke about a chart that supposedly cannot go down.

UseIt is always said about something that then goes down. Saying it seriously marks you as new.

FromCrypto Twitter irony, sharpened during the 2021 cycle.

wagmi

MeansWe're all gonna make it. It is less a forecast than glue: the word that matters in it is we.

UseIt gets written in reply to bad news far more often than good news. Nobody expects to be held to it later.

FromFrom the bodybuilder Aziz Shavershian, known as Zyzz, who died in 2011. It lived in fitness forums for years before markets borrowed it.

First archived use: 2018-07-28 · post

ape / aping in

MeansBuying a big position fast, without research, because it looks like it is leaving without you.

UseI aped in describes how somebody entered, not how it ended. It is said with pride and with regret about equally often.

FromFrom 4chan's /biz/ board, later everywhere thanks to the Bored Ape era.

ath

MeansAll-time high: the highest price an asset has ever traded at.

UseUsed as a yardstick for how far something has fallen, as in eighty percent below its ath.

FromA standard market abbreviation; on the /biz/ board from March 2014.

First archived use: 2014-03-03 · post

bagholder

MeansThe person left holding a token that nobody wants to buy any more.

UseIt is an insult with a factual core, which is why it stings. People rarely apply it to themselves in public.

FromFrom the English idiom about being left holding the bag, over a century old.

First archived use: 2014-02-14 · post

bags

MeansSomebody's position, especially a big one that is losing money.

UseHeavy bags means a large position deep in the red. Talk about bags is always about size, never about the idea behind the trade.

FromStock-market slang, older than crypto.

dca

MeansDollar-cost averaging: buying a fixed amount on a fixed schedule and ignoring the price.

UseIt is the one approach Crypto Twitter recommends to other people and rarely follows itself.

FromA traditional finance term, adopted unchanged.

degen

MeansShort for degenerate: someone who knowingly takes terrible odds for the entertainment as much as the money.

UseIt is said with affection, and usually about oneself. A degen play means small size and bad odds, on purpose.

FromGambling slang; on the /biz/ board from February 2014.

First archived use: 2014-02-17 · post

exit liquidity

MeansWhat you become when your buying is what lets somebody else sell.

UseThe most useful phrase on this page, and the least pleasant one to hear about yourself.

FromMarket-structure language that Crypto Twitter turned into an insult.

moon

MeansA violent rise. Wen moon asks for one, mooning describes one already happening.

UsePeople say it about somebody else's token more readily than about their own.

FromOn bitcointalk from 2013 and never left.

moonboy

MeansSomebody whose forecast is always up, regardless of price, news or year.

UseIt is a dismissal: the point is not that he is wrong, it is that his opinion carries no information.

FromOn the /biz/ board from 2016.

First archived use: 2016-06-01 · post

rekt

MeansA position destroyed, almost always with leverage involved.

UseGet rekt is about liquidations, not about ordinary losses. There is usually a screenshot.

FromGaming slang for wrecked, on Urban Dictionary in 2011; on the /biz/ board from its first day.

First archived use: 2014-02-13 · post

sats

MeansSatoshis: one hundred-millionth of a bitcoin, the unit small amounts get quoted in.

UseStacking sats means buying small amounts regularly instead of waiting for a perfect entry.

FromNamed after Satoshi Nakamoto; in use before the /biz/ archive even begins.

First archived use: 2014-02-14 · post

shrimp

MeansThe opposite of a whale: an account too small for the market to notice.

UseAlmost always used about oneself, as a joke about position size.

FromFrom the bitcoin community's size scale: shrimp, crab, fish, dolphin, whale.

size

MeansHow much money is actually in a position. Also used as a verb: to size up, to size down.

UseWhat's the size is the question that separates an opinion from a trade, and it is asked far too rarely.

FromTrading-desk vocabulary, borrowed as is.

underwater

MeansA position sitting below the price it was bought at.

UsePlain and descriptive, which is exactly why it survives in a vocabulary made of jokes.

FromGeneral finance, no crypto origin.

whale

MeansAn account big enough to move the price simply by trading.

UseWhale watching means following those wallets. Being a whale says something about size, nothing about being right.

FromCasino vocabulary, borrowed by every market that has ever existed.

alpha

MeansInformation that still makes money because few people have it yet.

UseAn alpha leak means somebody published it, and publishing is what ends it. Most things called alpha are not.

FromFrom portfolio theory, where alpha means return above the benchmark.

chop

MeansA price range that moves just enough to trigger entries and not enough to pay for them.

UseChop is where most accounts die quietly. There is no dramatic candle to blame afterwards.

FromTrading-floor vocabulary.

dump

MeansA fast fall, or the act of selling into one.

UseHe dumped on us assigns blame. A chart alone cannot tell you who was selling.

FromOld market slang.

dyor

MeansDo your own research. Said before advice, and more often instead of it.

UseIt is appended to a recommendation to hand responsibility back to the reader.

FromForum culture; on the /biz/ board from February 2014.

First archived use: 2014-02-21 · post

funding

MeansThe regular payment between longs and shorts that keeps a perp priced near spot. When more people are long, longs pay.

UseFunding is hot is shorthand for a crowded long side, and traders read it as a warning rather than a signal.

FromPerp mechanics. The desk publishes both a funding rate chart and a funding stress indicator.

leverage

MeansBorrowed size. At ten times leverage, a ten percent move against you wipes the position out.

UseThe multiple gets quoted like a character trait, which is how most rekt stories start.

FromA standard market tool; the culture around it is not standard at all.

liquidated / liq'd

MeansThe exchange closes a leveraged position by force because the margin no longer covers the loss.

UseGetting liq'd is the event, rekt is how it feels. Maps of where liquidations sit are watched as targets.

FromExchange mechanics; the desk has a separate glossary entry on liquidation.

long

MeansA position that makes money when the price goes up.

UseOn Crypto Twitter this is the default state, so nobody explains it there.

FromStandard market term.

nfa

MeansNot financial advice: a disclaimer that is worth close to nothing in law.

UseIt is written directly under a specific recommendation, which is exactly what makes it useless.

FromCompliance theatre, adopted as a joke and then used seriously.

perp

MeansA perpetual future: a leveraged contract with no expiry date, kept in line with spot by funding payments.

UsePerp traders and spot buyers behave like two different populations, because they are.

FromBitMEX made it standard in 2016; now every venue has them.

pump

MeansA fast rise, usually said with the implication that somebody arranged it.

UsePumping something and something pumping are different claims, and they get used as if they were the same one.

FromOld market slang.

send it

MeansDo the trade and stop discussing it.

UseIt is said to end deliberation, which tends to be the moment deliberation is worth the most.

FromGeneral slang, adopted by Crypto Twitter.

short

MeansA position that makes money when the price falls.

UseSocially it is treated as an attack on a community, which is why people announce it loudly and defend it at length.

FromStandard market term.

spot

MeansBuying the asset itself: no leverage, no liquidation price, no funding.

UseSpot only gets said as a statement about character rather than about strategy.

FromStandard market term.

wick

MeansThe thin line above or below a candle: a price that traded for a moment and did not hold.

UseWicked out means a stop was hit by a move that reversed immediately afterwards.

FromFrom candlestick charting.

bundled

MeansWallets funded from one source buy the supply in the first block, so the holder list looks wide when it is really one person.

UseChecked before entry with a bundle scanner. A bundled launch is a queue of sellers wearing the costume of a community.

FromSolana launch mechanics, from 2024.

contagion

MeansOne failure pulling down the lenders and funds that were exposed to it.

UseThe word that explains June 2022 better than any chart of that month does.

FromBanking vocabulary, imported whole.

death spiral

MeansA loop where the cure feeds the disease, usually by printing more supply to defend a price.

UseIt described Terra in May 2022 while it was still happening, which is rare for this vocabulary.

FromFrom mechanism design.

depeg

MeansA token that is supposed to hold a fixed price stops holding it.

UseIt gets measured in fractions of a percent right up until it has to be measured in percent, and by then it is a different event.

FromStablecoin vocabulary.

exit scam

MeansThe older and broader word: the operator disappears with customer money.

UseIt covers exchanges and funds, not only token launches.

FromDarknet-market vocabulary, imported wholesale.

grifter

MeansSomebody whose real product is attention, whatever they say they are building.

UseThe accusation is about a pattern across launches, not about one bad quarter.

FromOrdinary English, sharpened by Crypto Twitter.

honeypot

MeansA token you can buy and cannot sell, because the contract is written that way.

UseYou check it with a simulated sell before entering. The chart looks perfect right up to the moment you try to leave.

FromA security term put to a new use.

insider

MeansSomebody who knew before the announcement. It is usually visible in the chart before the news arrives.

UseThe word gets used to explain every early move, including the ones that had no insider behind them.

FromStandard market term.

kol

MeansKey opinion leader: a paid promoter with an audience.

UseA KOL round means allocation handed out for posting rather than for money.

FromMarketing vocabulary that crypto adopted with a straight face.

mercenary capital

MeansMoney that shows up for the incentive and leaves the week it ends.

UseIt explains why a protocol's deposits fall off a cliff the moment rewards are cut.

FromFrom the DeFi yield-farming era.

ponzinomics

MeansA design where the returns are paid out of new deposits rather than out of revenue.

UseSaid about high fixed yields with nothing external behind them. The question to ask is who pays this, and from what.

FromCoined on Crypto Twitter during the 2021 yield cycle.

rug pull

MeansA launch where the team pulls the liquidity out and the token goes to zero in one block.

UseRugged now gets said about any collapse, which quietly turns a crime into a price move.

FromOn the /biz/ board as rugpull from December 2017, years before the DeFi-summer story.

First archived use: 2017-12-16 · post

shill

MeansPromoting a token you hold, whether or not you mention that you hold it.

UseShill me your bags invites it openly, and that is the only honest version of it.

FromCarnival slang; on the /biz/ board from its first day.

First archived use: 2014-02-13 · post

soft rug

MeansThe slow version: nobody takes the liquidity, the team simply stops working and the token bleeds out.

UseHarder to prove than the fast version, and much more common.

FromA DeFi-era refinement of rug pull.

sybil

MeansOne person behind many wallets, arranged so that a crowd appears where there is none.

UseSaid about airdrop farming and about holder counts that look broad and are not.

FromA computer-science term for an attack by many fake identities.

vampire attack

MeansPaying a competitor's users to bring their liquidity across to you.

UseNamed after SushiSwap draining Uniswap in 2020, and still the reference case.

FromDeFi, September 2020.

wash trading

MeansTrading with yourself to manufacture volume that nobody actually wanted.

UseIt explains most of the volume on a fresh listing and almost none of the real liquidity.

FromA market-manipulation term older than crypto, and illegal in regulated markets.

bonding curve

MeansA formula that sets the price from how much supply has been sold, so the earlier you buy the less you pay.

UseIt is not a market yet: there is no seller on the other side, only the formula.

FromContinuous-token models; pump.fun made it something everybody trades.

cabal

MeansA private group that coordinates entries. In any particular complaint it may exist or may not.

UseIt is a way of explaining why somebody else was early, and it cannot be disproved, which is why it is popular.

FromAn old English word doing a new job.

cto

MeansCommunity takeover: the developers walk away, and the remaining holders take over the accounts and the marketing to keep the token alive.

UseA CTO is announced, not granted. Whether it worked shows up in whether volume comes back.

FromMemecoin culture; nothing to do with the job title.

dev sold

MeansA two-word obituary: the creator sold their own allocation.

UsePost it with the transaction attached, otherwise it is a rumour rather than a claim.

FromMemecoin culture.

farmer

MeansSomebody working an airdrop rather than holding a position.

UseFarmers count as users in every metric a protocol reports, and they leave the day the reward lands.

FromFrom the yield-farming era; now mostly about points and airdrops.

graduated

MeansA launchpad token that filled its curve and moved to an open pool.

UseThe share of launches that graduate is the honest denominator of this market: in one census, one token in 203 was still trading a month later.

Frompump.fun vocabulary.

meta

MeansWhatever theme the market is buying this week: animals, politics, AI agents.

UseThe meta turns over faster than any explanation of it, which is the point of the word.

FromGaming vocabulary applied to narrative rotation.

migration

MeansThe moment a token leaves its launchpad curve and starts trading in an open pool.

UseIt is a scheduled liquidity event, which makes it a scheduled trap: everybody knows the minute it happens.

Frompump.fun mechanics, copied by every competitor.

pvp

MeansPlayer versus player: an admission that the token has no plan and the money is just moving between traders.

UseIt is used honestly, which makes it unusual on this page.

FromGaming vocabulary.

runner

MeansThe one launch in thousands that keeps going up instead of dying in an hour.

UseTalk about runners is survivorship bias in its purest form, and it drives most of the volume down here.

FromMemecoin trading.

sniper / sniped

MeansA bot or a person buying in the first seconds of a launch, usually knowing about it in advance.

UseSniped is what happened to everybody who bought at human speed.

FromThe launchpad era gave it the name; the practice is older.

the trenches

MeansThe memecoin market in the first minutes after launch, mostly on Solana, where almost everything goes to zero.

UseBeing in the trenches means trading launches all day. People say it with exhaustion, not glamour.

FromSolana launchpad culture, from 2024 onward.

dumb money

MeansEverybody else, defined mostly by having arrived later than the speaker.

UseThe label goes onto a group and practically never onto the person using it.

FromTraditional finance.

fomo

MeansFear of missing out: the feeling behind most late entries.

UseI fomo'd in means the chart made the decision, not the thesis.

FromA general psychology term; on the /biz/ board in a trading sense from June 2014.

First archived use: 2014-06-13 · post

fud

MeansFear, uncertainty and doubt. Outside crypto it names a sales tactic. Inside, it is mostly used to wave away criticism, including criticism that turns out to be correct.

UseCalling something FUD is a statement about motive, not about facts. The useful reply is to ask which part is wrong.

FromFrom computer-industry sales in the 1970s.

First archived use: 2014-02-13 · post

gigabrain

MeansThe opposite compliment to midcurve: a call that looked stupid and turned out right.

UseIt is handed out after the fact, because that is the only time it can be handed out.

FromSame meme family as midcurve.

larp

MeansLive action role play: pretending online to be a trader, a whale or an insider.

UseLarping a position means claiming size that does not exist. Screenshots are the currency of that argument.

FromA tabletop gaming term; on the /biz/ board from 2015.

First archived use: 2015-06-22 · post

maxi

MeansA maximalist: somebody who holds exactly one asset and argues about it everywhere.

UseUsually bitcoin. A maxi is defined less by what they own than by what they refuse to buy.

FromVitalik Buterin wrote about bitcoin maximalism in 2014; the short form came later.

midcurve

MeansThinking your way past the obvious answer to a worse one.

UseFrom the bell-curve meme: the simple answer at both ends, the clever mistake in the middle.

FromA meme format that finance Twitter adopted for itself.

nocoiner

MeansSomebody who owns none of it and says so at length.

UseIt is a way to dismiss an argument by describing the arguer's portfolio instead of the argument.

FromOn the /biz/ board from February 2014, in a post complaining about the word itself.

First archived use: 2014-02-26 · post

normie

MeansSomebody from outside the culture, who needs the joke explained.

UseNormie money arriving is treated as a late-cycle signal, and sometimes it really is one.

FromFrom 4chan and the general internet.

permabear

MeansThe mirror image of the permabull: always down, right about once a cycle, and paid nothing for the waiting.

UseBoth labels are ways of not answering the argument.

FromTraditional market vocabulary.

permabull

MeansSomebody whose forecast never changes direction: always up.

UseThe complaint is not that he is wrong. It is that his forecast contains no information.

FromTraditional market vocabulary.

smart money

MeansWallets or funds assumed to know more, usually identified after the move rather than before it.

UseFollowing smart money is a strategy about lag, and the lag is where the money goes.

FromTraditional finance.

tourist

MeansSomebody who arrived for this cycle and will leave with it.

UseIt is said about newcomers by people who arrived exactly one cycle earlier.

FromForum vocabulary.

airdrop

MeansFree tokens sent to wallets that met some condition the project sets.

UseThe condition is usually published after the snapshot, which is what farmers try to guess in advance.

FromOn the /biz/ board from February 2014.

First archived use: 2014-02-28 · post

altcoin

MeansAnything that is not bitcoin.

UseAltseason means money rotating out of bitcoin into the rest. It gets announced far more often than it happens.

FromFrom the early forums, where bitcoin was the reference point for everything.

bridge

MeansMoving value between blockchains, usually by locking it on one side and issuing a copy on the other.

UseThe bridge holds the locked side, which is why bridges are the single largest category of theft in crypto.

FromCross-chain infrastructure.

floor price

MeansThe cheapest item currently listed in an NFT collection.

UseIt gets quoted as the value of the collection, which it is not: it is one seller's asking price.

FromFrom NFT marketplaces.

gas

MeansThe fee you pay to get a transaction included in a block.

UseA gas war happens when a mint is oversubscribed and the fee itself becomes the auction.

FromEthereum vocabulary, now used everywhere.

listing

MeansAn exchange opening trading in a token.

UseThe rise usually happens before the announcement rather than after it, which tells you who knew.

FromExchange vocabulary.

memecoin

MeansA token whose only stated value is attention.

UseIn the trenches this is not an insult, it is the name of the product category.

FromDogecoin in 2013, then an entire industry.

mint

MeansCreating a token or an NFT on-chain, and also the moment it is sold at a fixed price.

UseMint out means the supply sold. It says nothing about whether it will trade above that price afterwards.

FromNFT vocabulary that became general.

shitcoin

MeansAn altcoin the speaker does not respect. The category is social rather than technical.

UseEverything is a shitcoin to somebody, so the word tells you more about the speaker than about the token.

FromOn the /biz/ board from its first day.

First archived use: 2014-02-13 · post

snapshot

MeansThe block at which balances are read for an airdrop or a vote.

UseEverything that happens after the snapshot is theatre, including the volume.

FromOn-chain governance vocabulary.

staking

MeansLocking tokens up, either to help secure a network or simply to earn a yield.

UseThe two meanings get used interchangeably and they carry very different risks.

FromProof-of-stake vocabulary.

sweep

MeansBuying every listing up to a chosen price.

UseSweeping the floor is a public act: it moves the one number everybody quotes.

FromFrom NFT trading.

unlock

MeansThe date on which locked allocations become sellable.

UseThe unlock calendar, not the roadmap, usually writes a token's chart for the first year.

FromTokenomics vocabulary; the desk tracks unlock pressure separately.

wrapped

MeansA token that stands in for another token, one for one, on a chain where the original does not exist.

UseThe peg is a promise made by whoever is holding the original.

FromwBTC in 2019, then everywhere.