Terms and Slang You Should Know When Dealing With Crypto

The "crypto" market is full of slang terms to describe every aspect of its existence, from "HODL" to "Lambos".

Whilst most are admittedly idiotic, the underlying reality is that if you're looking at the system from the perspective of trying to figure out what people are saying, you need to look at what the "slang" terms are, and what they mean.

The following article is going to list - and explain - the way in which the various "crypto" slang words work. This allows us to examine exactly what's being done with the community...

• HODL Used to denote someone emphatically typing "hold" into their keyboard; getting the "d" and "l" mixed up. The term is used to describe the process of holding onto a Bitcoin for as long as the market persists (despite its price fluctuations).
• FOMO Short form for "fear of missing out". This is typically what happens when people see a huge green spike on the charts, and think they are somehow missing out on a "golden opportunity". The key here is that if you're already seeing the spike, you're too late.
• FUD Short form for "fear, uncertainty and doubt". Usually used in the form of "[name] spreading FUD again". This is widely used to get people to become disillusioned with the current "coin" they're holding, causing them to sell - which ends up allowing other investors (typically the ones spreading FUD) to buy them at a reduced price.
• ATH "All Time High" - a stock market term used to describe the price of a "crypto" asset that has reached a massive spike in price. Whilst mostly used by Bitcoin, it's widely used to describe the plethora of "alt" coins as well.
• Whale Term originating from the gambling world, to describe someone with a large amount of wealth at their disposal. In the "crypto" world, it's used to denote people who either hold, or are about to buy, a large amount of coins.
• Pump and Dump A stock market scam, whereby people will hype up a stock so that newbie traders will continue to buy it, causing the price to rise. This "pumping" means that all the traders who owned the asset before the hype will be able to ride the back of the gains, "dumping" their portfolio when it hits a particularly lucrative point.
• Shill Someone either paid by, or affiliated with a company/coin that wants to "convert" peple into being an adopter of said coin. These people exist in every walk of life, and are generally unpaid.
• Bag Holder Someone who bought a coin at a high price, the price dropped and he was left with a "bag" of coins that he cannot sell at a profit anymore. Many of these guys in the market right now.
• Margin Trading This is a term taken directly from stock trading; where a broker will extend credit to the trader for the purpose of entering an investment. The credit is known as "leverage" and the amount it's borrowed at is known as the "margin".
• Long When a trader will purchase an asset with the intention of holding it whilst its price grows.
• Short When a trader will purchase a contract with a broker with the intention of an asset's price going lower than it is presently.
• Borrowing Rate If a trader opens a leveraged position, they have to borrow money - the rate at which they do this is basically the level of interest they are looking to pay back.
• Fill or Kill A limit order that will not execute unless an opposite order exceeds this limit order"s amount.
• BUY | SELL Wall A wall as seen in the depth chart of exchanges is an amalgamation of limit orders of the same price target.
• Altcoin "Alternative coin" - essentially every coin/token that isn't Bitcoin. This is designed to essentially put all the "coins" that people have into a brack that is almost entirely made up of the coins that are not BTC.
• MOON The term used to describe a cin who's price has been "skyrocketing" - suggesting that its price will shoot "to the moon".