Crypto Slang you should know in 2022

The experience of being in the crypto space is extremely overwhelming. The space might be in its nascent stages but the community as a whole has been evolving at a very swift pace. Web3 is a closely knit community that reacts a certain way and speaks a specific language. This makes the new entrants lose between the WAGMI, FUD, and YOLOs. This language wasn’t created as an attempt to gatekeep, but this was solely the birth child of a laidback GenZ-infused set of people who have grown to become casual and comfortable with the space and the community in general.

The majority of crypto slang are acronyms or abbreviations for phrases related to trading. Since this is such a huge market now, these words are making their way into traditional finance as well. 

Crypto Abbreviations

The abbreviations for tokens are used interchangeably for their names. For example, you might hear people talk about XRP rather than “Ripple” and ADA instead of Cardano. This is because these acronyms are what are used for trading on exchanges and finding trading pairs. So, traders and other people in the crypto market are usually seen calling these currencies by their acronyms.

Popular Crypto Terms

With the bear market in place, you might be hearing terms like FUD and HODL. Going through this list would give you an idea regarding how the crypto space communicates and what most of the industry jargon means. 

HODL

HODL originated from a typo on a forum back in 2013. The user GameKyuubi posted a thread with the title “I AM HODLING”. The post was related to the investor’s intentions to hold bitcoin instead of trading due to the dropping price. The term slowly caught up to the whole crypto community soon and was used interchangeably for the word Hold.
This slang was later also used as an abbreviation for Hold On for Dear Life (HODL) which simply means holding a currency for a long period of time.

FUD

This is one of the most commonly used terms in the bear market. FUD means Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. This generally refers to negative tactics to create a bad perception of a coin or a product by spreading misinformation. 

FUD can either be deliberate or caused by a general skepticism in the market due to negative news circulating. 

Rug Pull

Rug pulls are crypto scams where project founders take the investor’s money and leave without providing any value. This type of scamming started off with ICOs and has made its way into the NFT space as well.

DYOR

DYOR or Do Your Own Research is generally followed by information on a project and predictions related to the price action. This is another way to say that the information that preceded wasn’t financial advice and the investor should do his due diligence before investing.

NFA

NFA means non-financial advice. Similar to DYOR, this slang is preceded by a price prediction or information related to a project or token.

ATH

ATH simply stands for All Time High. As the name suggests, this refers to the highest point where the price of a coin reached to date.

Ape in

A person Apes into a project when he doesn’t conduct proper research and dives into the hype with most of his capital. This term was coined in the NFT space which is led by Bored Apes and its derivatives.

FOMO

The crypto market is an extremely volatile space, the rapid price movements have helped investors make lots of money in the space. The surging price action usually puts retail investors in a state of FOMO or Fear of Missing Out. 

Investments based on FOMO don’t usually turn out well due to the fact that they are made based on emotion as opposed to logic and proper analysis. 

WAGMI/NGMI

WAGMI is an acronym for “We are gonna make it”. This is used to create a positive aura in the community and lift the spirits of each other with the hopes that all members would see a financial rise. 

On the other hand, NGMI, or Not gonna make it is used either as a humorous attempt to ridicule a project or an investment. 

Diamond Hands/Paper Hands

Diamond hands and paper hands are terms that are mainly used in the NFT space. However, these terms have also made their way into the crypto space.

GM

If you’ve joined a crypto community, chances are that you’ll see this term every day. GM simply means “Good Morning”. Traders start their day with GMs in chat boxes to spread a friendly and positive vibe throughout the community.

REKT

Rekt is a term used interchangeably for wrecked. One can say that a trader is rekt when he makes bad trades and suffers financial losses. 

“Blake aped into the memecoin and got Rekt.”

Pump and Dump

Some communities come together to artificially raise the price of a token. This is called pumping. Once the price reaches a certain point, these community members sell the token resulting in a massive price decrease leaving the other investors in a state of financial loss. This whole process is called a pump and dump. 

Reddit communities like WSB are known for their pump-and-dump campaigns. 

This list should kickstart your ability to communicate seamlessly in a crypto community. The crypto space is an extremely fast-paced environment and the community progresses as swiftly as the projects. So, keeping up with the community’s language requires being an active part of it. This can be done by joining Reddit, Twitter, Telegram, and discord communities for different crypto and NFT projects. However, always DYOR to avoid getting REKT.