2024 Crypto Terminology: GM, HODL, FOMO, LFG... What do they mean? What you need to know before investing in cryptocurrencies

For newcomers who have just entered the crypto, they may be confused by various terms (FOMO, HODL, ATH...) or token names (altcoins, Altcoin, meme coins) and other concepts in the early stage. This article will We have organized these terms and concepts of various cryptocurrencies for readers, hoping to help you explore the crypto world more conveniently.

50 Cryptocurrency Terms

1. FOMO – Fear of Missing Out refers to the fear of missing out on investment opportunities.
2. GM – Good Morning, often used to express good morning on social media.
3. HODL – a misspelling that originally meant “hold” and was later used by the community to refer to long-term holding of cryptocurrencies without selling them.
4. Bear Market – A bear market, a period of generally falling market prices.
5. Bull Market – A period of generally rising market prices.
6. ATH – All-Time High, refers to the all-time high price of a cryptocurrency.
7. ATL – All-Time Low, refers to the all-time low price of a cryptocurrency.
8. Whale – An investor who holds large amounts of cryptocurrency.
9. Pump and Dump – Manipulating market prices to rise and then quickly selling for profit.
10. DeFi – Decentralized Finance, decentralized finance.
11. Staking – Staking cryptocurrency to participate in the network’s consensus process, often earning rewards.
12. Mining – Mining is the process of obtaining cryptocurrency as reward.
13. Liquidity Pool – A liquidity pool is when users deposit their tokens into a pool to provide exchange liquidity.
14. , , Strategies to earn income through DeFi services.
15. ICO – Initial Coin Offering, initial coin offering.
16. DEX – Decentralized Exchange, decentralized exchange.
17. Cex – Centralized Exchange, centralized exchange.
18. Fiat – Fiat currency, currency issued by a government.
19. Wallet – Wallet, a digital tool for storing cryptocurrency.
20. Private Key - The key to securely accessing cryptocurrency.
21. Public Key – The public key is equivalent to your cryptocurrency address.
22. Smart Contract – A smart contract, a program that automatically executes contract terms on the blockchain network.
23. Gas Fees – Gas fees, fees for executing transactions or contracts on the Ethereum network.
24. NFT – Non-Fungible Token, non-fungible token, represents a unique digital asset.
25. Rug Pull – A scam in which a developer suddenly withdraws from the market after attracting investment.
26. Liquidity – The amount of funds available for trading in the market.
27. Moon/Mooning – Indicates a rapid rise in cryptocurrency prices.
28. Shill – Highly promote a crypto project to attract buyers.
29. Rekt – Derived from “wrecked”, referring to a significant loss.
30. DYOR – Do Your Own Research.
31. FUD – Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt, fear, uncertainty, doubt, refers to spreading negative information.
32. BTD/BTFD – Buy The Dip, buy when the price drops.
33. APY – Annual Percentage Yield, annualized rate of return.
34. TVL – Total Value Locked, the total locked value, often used to measure the scale of DeFi projects.
35. KYC – Know Your Customer, regulations to prevent money laundering.
36. AML – Anti-Money Laundering, anti-money laundering.
37. DAO – Decentralized Autonomous Organization, decentralized autonomous organization.
38. CBDC – Central Bank Digital Currency, central bank digital currency.
39. Layer 1 – Basic blockchain platform, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
40. Layer 2 – The second layer solution used to extend the base blockchain, such as Arbitrum One, Optimism, Base.
41. Cross-chain – cross-chain, supporting interoperability between different blockchains.
42. Oracle – Oracle, a system that provides real-world data to smart contracts.
43. Airdrop – airdrop, free distribution of tokens to a specific user group.
44. Soft Fork – A soft fork, a blockchain update compatible with older versions.
45. Hard Fork – A hard fork, where a blockchain update is incompatible with an older version, causing the chain to split.
46. Block Reward – Block reward, the amount of cryptocurrency received when mining is successful.
47. Hash Rate – Hash rate, a measure of the processing power of a blockchain network.
48. Satoshi (SATS) – The smallest unit of Bitcoin, 1 Bitcoin = 100,000,000 satoshis.
49. Gwei – A unit of Ethereum commonly used to measure transaction fees on the Ethereum network. 1 Gwei = 0.000000001 ETH.
50. Seed Phrase – Seed phrase, a string of words used to restore or back up a crypto wallet.

Cryptocurrency classification

Altcoins

Altcoins collectively refer to all cryptocurrencies except Bitcoin, meaning they are alternatives to Bitcoin. Altcoins appear mainly to improve certain features of Bitcoin or provide functions that Bitcoin does not have. They may differ from Bitcoin in the following aspects:

• Consensus mechanism: Many alternative coins adopt different consensus mechanisms from Bitcoin, such as the Proof of Stake (PoS) mechanism adopted by Ethereum in the later period and the Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) mechanism adopted by the EOS chain. .
• Transaction speed and fees: Some altcoins focus on increasing transaction speed and reducing transaction costs to be more suitable for daily transactions and micropayments.
• Smart Contracts and Decentralized Applications: Ethereum is one of the most famous altcoins that introduced smart contract functionality, which allows developers to create decentralized applications (DApps) on its blockchain.
• Specific use or community orientation: Some altcoins are designed for specific community or industry needs, such as focusing on supporting decentralized financial services (DeFi) or community governance.
• Supply cap and issuance method: Unlike Bitcoin’s fixed cap of 21 million coins, some altcoins have different supply cap policies, or use different issuance and reward mechanisms.

The diversity and innovation of altcoins brings a wealth of choices and possibilities to the cryptocurrency market, but it also comes with varying degrees of risks and challenges. When investors consider investing in altcoins, they need to have an in-depth understanding and assessment of the technology, team, market position and potential risks behind them.

Altcoin

Altcoin is another term in the cryptocurrency community. In the early days, like altcoins, it was used to refer to all cryptocurrencies except Bitcoin; but later it was used more to describe those cryptocurrencies that were considered to lack substantial content. Purpose or value of cryptocurrency. They may have the following characteristics:

• Lack of innovation or uniqueness: Many Altcoin are merely slight variations of existing cryptocurrencies without offering any significant innovation or unique features.
• Hype-driven: The prices of these currencies are often influenced by market hype and speculation rather than based on their technical merits or potential applications.
• Lack of long-term plans and support: Altcoin developers may not have long-term support plans or ongoing technology development strategies.
• Market Manipulation Risk: These cryptocurrencies may be susceptible to market manipulation.
• Lack of transparency: Development teams may be opaque, lacking clear communication and an open development process.
• High Risk Investment: Due to the above factors, investing in Altcoin is generally considered high risk and may result in significant loss of funds.

While the term is sometimes used to disparage or criticize certain cryptocurrencies, these currencies may actually have some potential or community support. Therefore, it is even more important to conduct in-depth research and careful risk assessment when evaluating any cryptocurrency.

Further reading: How can you profit from a short squeeze as Altcoin plummet?

Meme Coin Meme

Meme Coins are a type of cryptocurrency created based on Internet memes or pop culture elements. These cryptocurrencies are often characterized by their humorous, satirical, or entertainment nature, and their value and popularity are often closely tied to social media activity and Internet trends. Here are some of the main features of meme coins:

• Community-driven: Meme coins tend to have active online communities, with community members actively promoting these currencies through social media and online forums.
• High price volatility: Since the price of meme coins is often strongly affected by community sentiment and Internet trends, their market performance is often extremely volatile.
• Lack of clear practical application: Many meme coins have no clear function or application purpose when they are created. They are more products based on fun and Internet culture.
• Internet Hype and Media Attention: The popularity and value of meme coins are often closely tied to Internet hype and media attention, sometimes even driven by celebrities or influencers.
• Market risk: Since it is highly dependent on online trends and community sentiment, investment in meme coins is generally risky.

One of the most famous meme coins is Dogecoin (DOGE), which was originally created as a humorous satire of Bitcoin and uses the Japanese Shiba Inu internet meme as its logo.

But as time went by, Dogecoin gradually gained a large number of followers and community support. Tesla founder Elon Musk once publicly supported Dogecoin. Later, DOGE began to be accepted by some merchants as a form of payment. means.

Memecoins are unique in that they illustrate an interesting aspect of cryptocurrency culture while also highlighting the volatile and unconventional nature of the crypto market.

Further reading: Dogecoin will be accepted for payment! Tesla’s Hollywood Supercharger Station is nearing completion, with an outdoor cinema and restaurant attached

Dogecoin

Memecoin is very similar to the so-called "Dogecoin" in a broad sense. As the name suggests, this type of project has neither the blessing of the big-name technical team nor the favor of investment institutions. The labels attached to them are often "grassroots", "copycat" and "scam". They have a strong meme gene, and the project logo has It's just an emoticon at that time.

Dogecoin is the originator of this type of project. At first, people just thought it was fun and bought it. When more people bought it, a community was formed and collective resonance (consciousness) was generated.

Extended reading: In the Year of the Dragon, you must use scientific methods to "confront the Earth Dog", trading strategies + contract tools are all here

gold doge coin

According to the understanding of people in the crypto, when the price of a Dogecoin skyrockets dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of times, then the Dogecoin suddenly transforms into a golden dog that is highly popular in the community.

Dogecoin is of course the ancestor of Golden Dogecoin. In addition, there are PEPE coins, the Shiba Inu project Shiba (SHIB) known as the killer of Dogecoin, etc. They are all meme coins, but they are popular enough. , became a golden dog praised by the community.

Extended reading: Why are meme coins divided into “earth dogs and golden dogs”? The backside of sudden wealth is returning to zero

Air Coin

Air Coin is usually used to describe cryptocurrencies that are considered to have no actual value, support or application, or are scam projects.

These cryptocurrencies are often viewed as castles in the air, existing only in name and hype without a solid foundation or sound investment rationale. The following are some features of air coins:

• Lack of substantial support: Air coins are usually not supported by strong business models, technological innovations or practical applications.
• Market Hype: The value of these currencies mostly relies on market hype and false propaganda, rather than their intrinsic value or potential applications.
• High Risk and Speculative Nature: Investing in air coins is extremely risky as their prices are susceptible to manipulation and are highly volatile.
• Lack of transparency and reliability: The development teams and operating processes of such currencies often lack transparency and sometimes even involve fraud.
• Possibility of rapid disappearance: Due to the lack of substantial foundation, these coins may disappear quickly in a short period of time, especially after a market boom.

Overall, aircoins are a negative term used to describe cryptocurrencies that appear attractive but actually have no lasting value. Before considering investing in any cryptocurrency, it is important to conduct adequate market research and risk assessment to avoid damaging your funds.

Extended reading: American pastor sold air coins and "made $1.3 million in wealth." Sophistry: This is God's will