Learn The Most Common Terms Used in the Crypto and NFT Space

Updated: February 7, 2022

The crypto and NFT space have a lot of terms and jargon that would confuse even those with a lot of experience in the forex and stock market.

So today, let me give you a quick rundown of the most common acronyms, lingo, and phrases that you’ll read and hear from the crypto and NFT community.

If you’re here to look up a specific crypto slang, you can just hit “CTRL+F” or “CMD+F” on your keyboard and hopefully, I have the term you’re looking for defined below.

Let’s dive right in!

1/1 of x
Refers to one unique NFT in a collection. For example, Bored Punks of Society are a collection of 7,600+ NFTs, of which each one is unique.

1:1 Art
A unique piece of NFT from an artist which is usually not part of an extensive collection.

Airdrop
Refers to sending crypto or NFT for free to a wallet address. Someone can airdrop an NFT to your wallet as a marketing strategy to generate awareness of their project.

Ape in
Refers to people who rush into buying a new NFT or coin without doing much due diligence or research. It is, however, always advised not to ape in any projects without having proper research and understanding on what you’re buying.

BSC
Refers to Binance Smart Chain. It provides an alternative to Ethereum. Some DeFi platforms like PancakeSwap use BSC, benefiting from much lower transaction fees.

BTD or BTFD
An acronym for “buy the dips” or “buy the f*** dips” and refers to buying an asset after its price has dropped, which is usually considered as a bargain as the asset is likely to bounce back and increase in value over time after the short-term correction.

Copy Cat
Refers to a knock-off NFT project which copies another more popular NFT project.

DAO
An acronym for Decentralized Autonomous Organization. DAOs are not governed by one single person or entity. The rules and governance of each DAO are coded in smart contracts on the blockchain and cannot be changed unless voted upon by the members of the DAO.

More and more recent NFT/ Metaverse projects are setting up DAO treasury in which the fund is collected from their NFT sales, and holders can decide how to use the treasury and future project direction, etc.

dApp
This stands for “decentralized application”, which is a software application that partially runs on a distributed network (i.e. blockchain) instead of a centralized server.

With the ability to decentralize information and services, there won’t be a single entity that has total control over all the information and related services on the application.

DeFi
This means “decentralized finance”. Traditionally, people use intermediaries such as banks and electronic money transfer services to send money to another person online. For instance, I can send money from my BPI account to your BDO account through PesoNet.

In DeFi, there’s no need for institutions like BPI, BDO, or PesoNet. I can send crypto or NFT from my wallet directly to your wallet, as well as do other financial transactions. Both cryptocurrencies and dApp play important roles in DeFi, which are automated by smart contracts.

Degen
A jargon for “degenerate”, which refers to people who invest in digital assets like NFTs without doing due diligence.

Devs
Short for “developers”. It refers to the founders or developers of a crypto or NFT project.

DEX
Stands for decentralized exchange. In a centralized exchange, the ownership of the coins is held by the exchange completely. In contrast, a decentralized exchange is a peer-to-peer marketplace where transactions happen directly between crypto traders without the need for a middleman.

Some well-known DEX examples are Uniswap, PancakeSwap, dYdX, and 1inch.

Diamond Hands
Refers to someone who has high-risk tolerance for high volatility assets. People with diamond hands don’t panic sell when prices suddenly drop or rise significantly.

A negative connotation of “diamond hands” refers to stubborn investors who are not willing to let go of an asset despite its falling value.

Discord
One of the most popular social media platforms for NFTs and gaming. Most NFT projects have their Discord channels to keep the community engaged and informed of new updates regarding the projects.

Doxing
The act of publicly revealing previously private personal information about an individual or organization, usually via the internet.

If the team behind an NFT project is doxxed, it means that the identity of the people behind the project is publicly known.

DYOR
Stands for “do your own research”. It is always a smart idea to DYOR before investing in any asset!

Dutch Auction
A bidding technique that considers all bids for a given asset before arriving at a ceiling price, which gradually drops at specific time intervals.

ETH
ETH is Ether, which is the native currency of the Ethereum blockchain.

Flipping
Refers to buying items at low prices and selling quickly for a profit. Flipping is gaining popularity in the NFT space, where people buy and sell NFTs to make a quick profit, especially during the early stages of the projects when there are higher demands.

Floor price
Refers to the lowest price listed for an NFT project. It doesn’t necessarily mean you should always buy NFTs at floor price as most of them are usually in lower ranking in rarity.

Floor is lava
In the NFT world, this means the floor price of a collection is going up.

Floor sweeping
Refers to someone or a group of people who keeps buying NFTs that are listed at the lowest price.

You can always see people on different NFT project Discord channels screaming “sweep the floor!” to encourage the members in the community to buy the NFTs at floor price to raise the floor price of the project.

FOMO
Short for “fear of missing out”, which describes the act of rushing into buying an asset just because they see many other people are doing so or talking about it, without doing much due diligence.

Always avoid FOMO and DYOR first before investing in anything.

FUD
Short for “fear, uncertainty, and doubt”. It’s commonly seen when the price of a coin or NFT project is dropping, or when there is some sort of negative news or rumors.

People tend to panic sell their assets when there is FUD. Being logical and a bit doubtful is important, and it’s never wise to let your emotions take over when making investment decisions.

Gas
The fee we need to pay to the blockchain network for all sorts of transactions. The fee is paid to the “miners” of a blockchain network to compensate for the computing energy required to process and validate transactions.

High gas fees commonly occur when there is a lot of demand on the network, like during the beginning of the minting process of a new NFT project.

GMI
Short for “gonna make it”, which is used to describe the future state when the price of an asset goes to the moon and gives outstanding returns.

GWEI
Also called nanoether, or simply nano, which denotes the ninth power of the fractional ETH (i.e. 0.000000001 ETH). The Ethereum gas price is measured in Gwei.

HODL
I’m sure you’ve heard of this one, which is short for “hold on for dear life”. This means to hold an asset for a very long time, regardless of the price.

Fun fact: HODL comes from a typo error of “hold” in an early Bitcoin forum back in 2013. Readers interpreted it as an acronym and have spread since.

IYKYK
Acronym for “if you know, you know”, and implies that a message or post will make sense to some people but not the others. For example, “My friend owns 10 Bored Apes. IYKYK.”

LFG
Short for “let’s f*** go!” and is an expression of excitement. For example, “The floor price of the NFT project I got into last night has already doubled this morning. LFG!”

Meatspace
Refers to the real-life physical world, as opposed to the virtual world or cyberspace

Metaverse
The online social construct using Web 3.0, blockchain, and computer interfaces. In it, individuals can build customs, habits, and values, that allow them to spend time and socialize in the virtual world using their digital identities (avatars).

Mint
In the NFT world, minting refers to the creation of a new NFT.

Moon
When the price of a coin or NFT goes to the moon, it means its price has gone up significantly.

NFA
Short for “not financial advise”. For example, “I see huge potential in this new coin and I’m gonna buy some today. NFA, though.”

OG
Short for “original gangster” and refers to someone who is first or early in a project.

OS
Refers to OpenSea, the leading and by far the most popular decentralized marketplace for trading NFTs. The platform allows users to buy and sell NFTs on the secondary marketplace as well as create their own collections to launch on the primary marketplace.

Paper Hands
The opposite of diamond hands. Refers to someone who panic sells or flips their position too soon instead of holding them long-term.

PFP
Short for “profile picture”. Lots of people in the NFT space like to show off their NFTs by using them as PFP on different social media platforms.

P2E
Play to earn games. Blockchain-based games that use tokens to reward players.

Raids
Refers to doing a flash campaign on Twitter or other social media platforms. Some NFT projects like to use raids as a way to keep the community engaged to promote their NFTs.

Rekt
A slang term for “wrecked” and refers to someone who has experienced severe financial loss because of bad investment decisions.

Rug or rug pull
Different from a scam, a rug pull refers to when a team behind a crypto or NFT project abandons it and runs away with the investors’ money.

Unfortunately, it happens quite a lot as there are very loose regulations in the crypto world. It’s important to look out for red flags in different projects to avoid potential rug pulls.

Secondary market
After an NFT is minted, it can be sold or purchased on the secondary market, such as OpenSea.

Shilling
NFT shilling is when someone promotes an NFT project on social media as a marketing strategy.

Stable coin
Refers to a cryptocurrency that is pegged to a fiat currency. A stable coin tracks the underlying asset (e.g. USD), making its value stable over time. Some popular stablecoins are USDC, USDT, and DAI.

Some investors choose to lend out their stablecoins as the interest rates will often be significantly more than what is earned in a traditional savings account.

Vaporware
Vaporware refers to something (like a computer game) that has been widely advertised but has not yet or will never become available. We need to be extra careful to be able to avoid vaporware, always be skeptical when something appears too good to be true.

WAGMI
Short for “we all gonna make it” and is similar to GMI.

Wen Lambo
A phrase referring to when people wonder when their crypto or NFT holdings will take off, which will make them rich enough to afford to buy a Lamborghini.

Fun fact: This phrase became popular after the Consensus Investment Conference in November 2018 when BitMEX (Bitcoin Mercantile Exchange) rented 3 Lamborghinis and parked them outside the event venue to signal the presence of cryptocurrency investors.

Wen moon
Same meaning as “Wen lambo”

Whale
Someone with a multi-million dollars portfolio or someone who owns a huge amount of NFTs in an NFT collection. There are many people following whales’ wallets to see what the whales purchase and sell next as an indicator of their future investment decisions.

Looking for a place to start on crypto, try Binance.

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