The cryptocurrency space can be volatile, swinging tremendously towards the upside or the downside. As with every market, there are good times and bad times. Keep reading to check out a list of crypto terms you are likely to see on a bad crypto day so you can stay in the loop and join the discussion.
Bagholder
Bagholder is a term used to describe a person who holds onto their assets despite a continuous or dramatic decrease in value. They may hold their position even when an asset’s value crashes to essentially zero, sometimes out of hope that its price will eventually bounce back.
In other cases, a market participant would be considered a bagholder if, for example, they missed out on an asset price’s crash, where the asset price dropped so quickly they didn’t have time to make a trade.
Another situation in which traders could become potential bagholders is where they lose interest and completely forget about their cryptocurrency, not realising the price of it has significantly dropped. At that point, once they do check, they may feel as though there is no point in selling because it is worth a fraction of the initial purchase price.
Degen
Slang for ‘degenerate’, a degen is a type of trader who performs little due diligence when looking at a potential crypto asset to purchase or hold. Typical degens ignore any trading signals, fundamental analysis, or research, preferring to use other factors, such as if an asset looks cute or has strong meme potential.
FOMO
Short for ‘fear of missing out’, FOMO refers to a trader’s fear they may be missing out on a potentially lucrative opportunity. This fear can drive individuals to act impulsively and make decisions based on emotion rather than logic and reasoning.
FOMO can strongly impact cryptocurrency prices and cause major volatility in crypto markets. It has been considered as one of the driving forces behind the rapid rise and fall of Bitcoin’s price in 2017. But it can also lead traders to incur far greater financial losses.
FUD
FUD is a marketing and communications term that stands for ‘fear, uncertainty, and doubt’. It is a psychological tactic used to influence people towards having a negative perception of something — such as a product, market, or brand — generally through spreading misinformation or inciting fear.
In crypto, FUD usually falls into two categories:
- The deliberate attempt to stoke widespread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about a particular project to manipulate prices downward.
- General scepticism about crypto as an asset class can result in the spreading of exaggerated negativity or ‘fake news’ on the topic.
Whether deliberate or not, FUD can affect the market value of a coin, a company, a project, or even the market. It can be thought of as the opposite of FOMO: When markets rise, individuals may give into feelings of FOMO; when markets are cooling, FUD can spread more easily.
HODL
An abbreviation for ‘hold on for dear life’, the term HODL allegedly derived from a misspelling of ‘hold’, which has stuck around and now means ‘keep’. It refers to a buy-and-hold strategy. As such, a crypto trader who buys a coin and does not plan on selling it in the foreseeable future is called a ‘hodler’ of the coin.
The term is said to have originated from a 2013 online post to the Bitcointalk forum, where the typo first appeared. Essentially, the goal of a hodler is to weather the various ups and downs of the market with an eye towards long-term gains.
Short-term market movements will not sway a hodler, nor even if entire markets crash or become seriously volatile. Instead, hodlers will hold their positions regardless of price out of confidence in the long-term value of crypto.
NGMI
NGMI stands for ‘not gonna make it’. In crypto, it is often used to predict future failure due to a poor decision (such as selling the bottom despite all market indications that a token’s value is on an upward trend). It can also be used as a label to ridicule people who have taken a stance against crypto or who fail to understand basic crypto concepts.
Paper Hands
Paper hands is an expression used to describe individuals as lacking the confidence to hold on to their cryptocurrencies. They are seen as typically selling in a panic, worried that the cryptocurrency they hold may fall to an undesirable price.
Pump and Dump
A type of scam, pump-and-dump schemes involve artificially inflating the price of an asset through false or misleading positive information. Typically, a group of people will buy large quantities of a particular asset at a low price, followed by spreading false information to drive up the demand and price of the respective asset.
This sudden price rise is intended to prompt others to jump in and buy too, and the original group will then sell (dump) the assets to turn a quick profit, leaving those who bought late often incurring heavy losses.
Rekt
Rekt is a way of intentionally misspelling the word ‘wrecked’, and is typically used to describe an individual’s portfolio on a bad day or the negative situation that a person is experiencing with a specific cryptocurrency. Rekt is often used on social media and forums to describe people who have suffered a significant financial loss in a particular crypto asset. This loss doesn’t refer to any type of crypto specifically; it can be a loss through an NFT trade or through trading a cryptocurrency.
Individuals are often described as rekt when they are experiencing a large trade loss. For example, if an individual purchased a particular token, which then had a significant negative price action, they would be considered ‘rekt’ because they faced heavy losses, even if unrealised, by going into the trade.
Rug Pull
A type of crypto scam, a rug pull is when a development team abandons a project before it is completed — draining all assets to their own wallets and leaving traders with the abandoned project’s worthless crypto assets. It gets its name from the expression ‘pulling the rug out from under someone’. Victims who are scammed in this way might say they ‘got rugged’.
Shill
Shilling involves promoting the positive aspects of a project and spreading the word about it to convince others to purchase a cryptocurrency. Shilling can be done maliciously, as the person shilling (known as a ‘Shiller’) may promote the project with the aim of inflating the relevant token’s price in order to benefit themselves regardless of the token’s actual characteristics.
Whale
A whale in the crypto industry refers to an entity — individual, institution, or an exchange — that holds a significant amount of a particular cryptocurrency. The specific amount of a cryptocurrency that qualifies a user as a whale is not fixed. However, the bottom line is that so-called whales own a significant portion of a cryptocurrency’s total supply, thus potentially impacting the asset’s price with their buy or sell orders.
Due to the size of their orders, whales’ transactions may temporarily increase volatility, especially in assets with low liquidity. Consequently, wary traders like to keep track of known whales in the industry to prepare for when they make a move.
Conclusion
Markets can go bearish at the drop of a hat, so it’s important to know crypto terms to ensure you stay in the loop for all discussions about crypto. Now that you know common crypto slang for a bad day, check out crypto slang you can use for a good day.
Due Diligence and Do Your Own Research
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Past performance is not a guarantee or predictor of future performance. The value of digital assets can decrease or increase, and you could lose all or a substantial amount of your purchase price. When assessing a digital asset, it’s essential for you to do your own research and due diligence to make the best possible judgement, as any purchases shall be your sole responsibility.
