Airdrop – A type of marketing campaign that involves the distribution of tokens for specific actions.

Altcoin – Any coin other than Bitcoin.

Anti-Money Laundering (AML) – International laws aimed at curbing concealment of proceeds from criminal activities.

Arbitrage – The fast-paced purchase and sale of assets on different markets to hedge profits formed by price differences.

Bank Run – An event when a large number of customers withdraw their cash from a bank out of fear of solvency and bankruptcy.

Basket – A collection of digital currencies held in a single portfolio.

Bull market – A time when the “bulls” – aggressive market players are active, resulting in a general trending upward of prices over a given period.

Bear market – A bear market is the reverse of a bull market – outlooks are negative as market prices seem to be on a downward trend.

Beta – A software’s pre-release stage where its access is offered to a limited number of users and third-party software testers for all-round evaluation and feedback under real-world settings.

Blockchain – A decentralized data repository operated by a community of miners or validators.

Block reward – The incentive and reward miners and validators receive for inserting data into the blockchain with every transaction they process.

Coin – A blockchain’s native currency that is used for internal transactions and is issued as a reward to miners and validators for processing transactions.

Cold Wallet – A cryptocurrency wallet that is not connected to the internet.

Cross-Chain – Cross-chain is a technology that enhances the interconnection between blockchain networks by allowing the exchange of information and value.

Crowdfunding – A method of fundraising that enables projects to collect money from a large number of people through a variety of different platforms.

Crypto Debit Card – A crypto debit card is a type of debit card that allows its holder to pay for goods and services using cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrency – Digital currencies that use cryptographic technologies to secure their operation.

Cryptography – The science of keeping information secure and safe via encryption methods, such as the  SHA-256 one-way hashing algorithm, which enables Proof-of-Work, and through private-key/public-key cryptography for authenticating and validating cryptocurrency transfers.

Crypto Winter – A period in the crypto market when prices of major coins fall dramatically from all-time highs.

DAO – A decentralized autonomous organization that operates on the basis of transparent rules prescribed in a number of smart contracts aimed at reducing centralization via community governance of voting on proposals.

Decentralized – The use of distributed systems to provide increased security and redundancy, and to lessen reliance on governing authorities and centralized intermediaries.

DeFi – An abbreviation of Decentralized Finance – a growing ecosystem of applications and services that leverage blockchain tech and cryptocurrencies to provide decentralized financial services to end users.

Derivatives Market – A public market for derivatives, instruments such as futures contracts or options, which are derived from other forms of cryptocurrency assets.

Dildo – No, not that. These are the red or green “candles,” or vertical lines, on graphs showing cryptocurrency market data.

DYOR – Do Your Own Research – a term used as a warning by cryptocurrency influencers to other investors, reminding us that there is no better substitute for due diligence than our own research.

ERC-20 – The most widely used crypto-token standard that allows developers to easily create digital currencies, which are immediately compatible with existing infrastructure.

Fan Token – A cryptocurrency issued by a specific sports team that allows its holders to participate in governing activities and gain access to exclusive rewards and discounts.

Feature – A useful, or not so useful, function in an application.

Fiat – Traditional types of money in the financial world, such as the US Dollar and the euro. Working with fiat currencies in the blockchain landscape typically requires trusting a centralized central entity to custody your funds.

Phishing – A type of fraud scheme that leverages social engineering to dupe users into believing that they are interacting with a credible source via emails, websites, and chats in order to gain access to their personal information and ultimately steal their funds.

Fork – A split in a blockchain network, resulting in a change in the protocol that produces two parallel chains. Forks typically occur when crypto developers or communities decide that the protocol must be altered or updated in some way, or as a result of conflicts within the community.

FOMO – An abbreviation of “Fear of missing out” – a type of social anxiety arising from the notion that others are having fun or enjoying the benefits of an event while the person experiencing FOMO isn’t. In crypto markets, it usually refers to watching the tokens you do not own go through explosive upward price movements.

FUD – An abbreviation for “Fear, uncertainty, and doubt”, which refers to a combination of market sentiments when people spread negative vibes about the price of Bitcoin and other cryptos.

GameFi – A broader name for the Play-to-Earn (P2E) gaming sector that is designed with the economic and financial aspects of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, enabling players to exert full control over their in-game assets to generate revenue.

Gas – A fee charged for performing operations on the Ethereum network, such as sending transactions and deploying and interacting with smart contracts. It is usually priced in Gwei, a small fraction of Ether.

Hash rate – A unit of processing power that tells how many network-specific calculations are done per second by the Bitcoin network. A hash rate of 1 tera hash means the network can perform 1 trillion calculations in one second.

Hamster – A sub-species of digital asset holders in the crypto bestiary that refers to small-time investors and average users, who are prone to market sentiment, manipulation, and FUD.

HODL – A misspelling and abbreviation of the term “Hold” that refers to a type of passive investment strategy where users hold their assets for a long period of time, regardless of any changes in the price or markets.

KYC – Know Your Customer refers to the process by which a financial service provider must gather and verify information about their customers on registration. These requirements are enforced by governing authorities in both the customer’s and the business’ jurisdictions.

Initial Coin Offering (ICO) – A type of crowdfunding, or crowdsale, using cryptocurrencies as a means of raising capital for early-stage companies.

Lambo – In the crypto world, it means the ultimate prize that investors aspire to in hopes of watching digital asset prices rise.

Ledger – A database of transactions in the decentralized registry that records the transaction history of a given cryptocurrency as stored on the blockchain.

Liquidity – A term that is used to describe the quality of a cryptocurrency to be freely bought and sold. It can also be used to mean the amount of cryptocurrencies available to trade within a liquidity pool on a decentralized exchange.

Market cap – The market capitalization of an asset refers to its price multiplied by the circulating supply, which represents its total value on the market. Often used as a measurement of a project's success.

Move-to-Earn – One of the latest trends in blockchain-powered innovations – Move-to-Earn is a concept that encourages users to stay physically active by incentivizing them with crypto-based rewards.

Metaverse – A metaverse is a digital environment that contains all the aspects of the real world, such as real-time interactions and economies, all through the use of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, offering unique experience to end-users.

Mining – The process of contributing computing resources to a blockchain network in order to create new blocks in exchange for native network coins as rewards.

Mining pool – A mining pool is a group or community of miners that have pooled their computing or hashing power together. Since miners in Proof-of-Work blockchains compete to be the first to create new valid blocks, pooling can help these participants increase or level out their mining profits.

Multi-Signature (Multi-Sig) – An added layer of security requiring more than one key to authorize a transaction.

Non-Custodial – A type of digital repository usually referring to the storage of keys in relation to wallets or exchanges. A non-custodial setup is one in which private keys are held by the user directly.

No-coiner – A slang term in crypto that refers to someone who believes Bitcoin is either doomed to fail or will have minimal value in the future. Because of that belief, they do not hold any coins themselves, but may even be active traders and investors – hypocrites.

NFT – An abbreviation for Non-Fungible Token – a type of token that is unique and cannot be replicated. NFTs contain a full record of their ownership history and can be used to prove ownership rights, or can be tethered to real-world or digital assets for representing them on the blockchain.

Network fees – A network fee is required to ensure a transaction is processed on the Bitcoin or Ethereum network. The fee is used as an incentive to reward network participants, like miners and validators, for processing transactions and helping to secure the network.

Node – A node is a blockchain network processing station that stores data and contributes to the consensus process to ensure that all new transactions and blocks are valid. Miners act as full nodes, but anyone may also operate a node to monitor the network without contributing computing resources.

Open Source – A digital network philosophy whose adherents believe in the free and open sharing of information in pursuit of the greater common good. A type of digital communism mixed with altruism and a zest of socialism that Plato would have approved of.

Private key – A private key is used to identify the owner of a given cryptocurrency wallet. It acts much like a password, and anyone with a private key can access the funds from the associated wallet address.

Proof-of-stake – A type of consensus algorithm used by blockchains to ensure correct data is stored to the blockchain. In Proof-of-Stake blockchains, participants who deposit an amount of cryptocurrency to the network through a process known as “staking”, are given the opportunity to help generate new blocks and earn block rewards.

Proof-of-work – A type of consensus, which relies on a network of computers called miners that verify transactions in exchange for crypto rewards. Anyone can become a miner, competing to create new blocks by using computing resources to solve a cryptographic puzzle called a hash. The first to do this earns the right to append their new block to the blockchain.

Pump and dump – A devious trading tactic used by a group of cryptocurrency users who have banded together to manipulate the sentiments of the market by ratcheting up the hype around a specific coin to artificially inflate its price. Once the price reaches a maximum, said users sell off their assets to reap the profits and crash the price, leaving everyone else on the market deep in the red.

Rekt - A bastardization of the term “wrecked,” rekt describes what happens if you lose your money to a bad crypto trade.

Roadmap – A roadmap is a visual summary that outlines the development path of a specific product.

Referral program – A marketing strategy in which customers spread the word about a product or service and get a reward.

Satoshi Nakamoto – The enigmatic and anonymous individual, or group of individuals, that created Bitcoin.

Sats or Satoshis – The smallest possible unit of Bitcoin (BTC), at 0.00000001 BTC. Named after Bitcoin’s enigmatic creator Satoshi Nakamoto, one Sat is equivalent to one hundred millionth of a Bitcoin.

Scam – A scheme that is designed to dupe people out of cash or crypto. A scammer is a person or a project that participates in a fraudulent scheme.

Shill – The promotion of a cryptocurrency for the person’s own benefit. People that would shill are likely those that have invested in a particular cryptocurrency that is not performing as well as they had hoped and are trying to persuade other people to buy it so that the price would go up

Shitcoin – A rather self-explanatory term for a coin with no obvious potential value or usage. The vast majority of shitcoins end up in the crypto cemetery.

Smart contracts – A smart contract is a program that is stored on, and operated by, a blockchain network. Smart contract platforms like Ethereum allow developers to create decentralized applications that can work with cryptocurrencies in order to provide transparent financial tools and services for end users. All smart contracts are immutable and operate based on an “if – then” principle, guaranteeing the execution of the terms prescribed in them.

Stablecoin – A cryptocurrency with extremely low volatility, sometimes used as a means of portfolio diversification. Examples include gold-backed cryptocurrency or fiat-pegged cryptocurrency.

Swap – The conversion of assets to another currency to either build a portfolio, cut losses, use crypto as payment, or avoid slippage costs or other high transaction fees.

To the moon – An expression used in the crypto world to describe the belief that the price of Bitcoin, or any other coin, will experience a significant spike in the future. Sometimes used in chats and forums as an inspiring cry or a call to arms among crypto fanatics.

Token – Tokens are not coins, but digital assets that have been issued by deploying a smart contract on a specific blockchain. There are thousands of tokens on the open market, each belonging to a specific issuing project. Many of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap are tokens.

TRC-20 Token – The TRC-20 token standard allows tokens to be created on the TRON network.

Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) – A method of access that requires two different forms of authentication.

Virgin Bitcoin – A bitcoin that has never been spent.

Vitalik Buterin – One of the creators of Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin.

Volatility – The opposite of stability, volatility refers to an asset's tendency to vary in price. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are notoriously volatile, as their prices are subject to numerous factors of influence.

Wallet – Tools used by crypto holders to provide an interface to make transactions and store their digital assets. Both software and hardware wallets are available today, and wallets can be custodial or non-custodial. The distinction is whether or not the user retains full control of their private key.

Web 3.0 – It refers to the upcoming 3rd generation of the Internet that makes use of semantics, machine learning, decentralization, Virtual Reality, permissionless access technologies, and other innovations for creating a user-centric digital environment.

Web3 – A concept for the iteration of the Internet, which incorporates concepts such as decentralization, blockchain technologies, and token-based economics.

Whale – Another species in the crypto bestiary that refers in a loose slang term to big players in the cryptocurrency markets, from institutional investors to hedge funds or wealthy individuals.

When Lambo? – A staple and wishful phrase referring to when cryptocurrency holders will become rich enough to afford the purchase of a vaunted Lamborghini. A typical question posed by hamsters the same moment they buy their first few tokens or shitcoins.

White Paper – Documents that are typically academic in nature, proposing a new technology and outlining the exact details of its implementation. Typically, new projects will launch white papers to help potential users or investors understand the product or service, its use case, and its potential.