Crypto Slang: A Beginner’s Guide to Crypto Terms and Lingo

3 min read

Imagine taking the time to learn about decentralization, blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies only to not understand crypto people on twitter! If you want to run with this crowd, you need to learn their lingo. So here’s some crypto slang for you:

Altcoin (alt)

Every coin or token that is not bitcoin is called an altcoin. Together, they are “alts”.

(Go to our cryptocurrency guide for beginners to learn more.)

Aping into

Aping into a crypto asset means buying it without any research or much consideration.

Bears and bulls

Just like the stock market, crypto bears are people who sell or short because they believe prices will go down and bulls are people who buy or long because they believe the prices will go up.

If someone says to you “don’t be a bear!”, they mean that you shouldn’t be negative about the prices and sell your crypto.

Diamond hands

People who don’t pay attention to the FUD and can hodl for a long time, have diamond hands.

Flippening

The event of a coin or token surpassing bitcoin in market cap. The coin with most potential to do this, is ethereum.

FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt)

Negative news that try to dissuade people from buying and hodling crypto.

Hodl

Holding a coin or token for a significant amount of time. It’s originated from a simple misspelling here.

ICO

Initial coin offering. Something similar to IPO that usually happens at the start of a new project to raise money for it.

Paper hands (spaghetti hands)

People who give up easily when facing FUD and cannot hodl their coins, have paper hands. It’s the opposite of diamond hands.

Mooning (to the moon!)

The event of a gigantic rise in a coin or token’s price.

No-coiner

Someone who doesn’t own any crypto or a noob. This can actually be used as a kind of insult.

Rekt

When someone loses a lot of money on crypto.

Satoshi (sats)

Satoshi Nakamoto is the anonymous founder of bitcoin. Satoshis or sats are also the smallest amount of bitcoin that you can buy or have, equal to 100 millionth of a bitcoin.

Shitcoin

Coins or tokens that have no value, usually because they have no team of developers or a good project behind them.

(This has become a mostly subjective term in recent years.)

Stablecoin

Coins that have their value pegged to another asset or a fiat currency.

(Go to our cryptocurrency guide for beginners to learn more.)

Vitalik

Vitalik Buterin is the founder of Ethereum. This isn’t really a slang but everyone in the crypto sphere talks about him like he’s their cousin or something. So you should know his name.