An address is a string of characters that functions as a place where individuals can receive, store, or send cryptocurrency. Like a telephone number or zip code, every crypto address is unique.

A marketing technique in which crypto projects send their native tokens directly to the wallets of their users in an effort to increase awareness and adoption.

Is best described as “intel”. Those who possess alpha have information that the rest of the market hasn’t found out about yet. There are people who spend hours and hours finding undiscovered projects, and sometimes, they share this on Twitter.

Example: “I got some Alpha on a 2016 project that no one knows about and it’s dirt cheap.”

An altcoin is any coin that’s not Bitcoin. Altcoins can be anything from the second-most popular coin, Ethereum, to any of the thousands of coins with very minimal market value. Experts say you should largely stick to the bigger, more mainstream cryptocurrencies as an investment.

Alts: short for altcoins

Someone who invests heavily into a cryptocurrency or stock, or the act of doing so. This is sometimes a reaction to hype and FOMO, or done without much knowledge of the asset. It should be noted, though, that this is generally a self-assigned term and does not carry a negative connotation. Is it a Planet of the Apes reference? Maybe a reference to the sheer physical strength of apes? The origins are a bit blurry, but one thing is certain — apes together strong.

This one has come straight from Crypto Twitter. It means "take on a large position relative to one's own portfolio size

This means buying an NFT project. Sometimes it means you bought into a project heavily with a lot of ETH

All Time High: the highest price an asset has ever had.

All Time Low: the lowest price an asset has ever had.

Is another term for assets a person holds. Lots of times, it is used when someone finds a project, purchases a few assets and have “secured their bags” before the price goes up.

Meaning “build,” a common intentional misspelling, is our response to the $BTC community's HODL. We think HODLing cryptocurrencies is important, but we think that #BUIDLing (aka building) is much more important. Without #BUIDLing the decentralized future, HODLing will be just a sport of vanity.

Similar to a bear market, this refers to holding a pessimistic view of a market or asset’s value. If you are bearish on a certain cryptocurrency, you believe its value will decrease over time. Those who are bearish may be referred to as bears, sometimes purposely misspelled as "beras"

The very first decentralized, peer-to-peer, digital currency, created by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009.

Acronym for “Buy The F**king Dip.” This is used when a trader tells others to pick up a digital currency that has dropped in value.

Groups of data within a blockchain. On cryptocurrency blockchains, blocks are made up of transaction records as users buy or sell coins. Each block can hold only a certain amount of information. Once it reaches that limit, a new block is formed to continue the chain.

A digital form of record keeping, and the underlying technology behind cryptocurrencies. A blockchain is the result of sequential blocks that build upon one another, creating a permanent and unchangeable ledger of transactions (or other data).

A tool for browsing information on a blockchain, such as transactions, wallet addresses, market caps, and hash rates.

A protocol allowing separate blockchains to interact with one another, enabling the transfer of data, tokens, and other information between systems.

Bufficorn is ETHDenver's Official Community Mascot
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Meaning “build,” a common intentional misspelling, is our response to the $BTC community's HODL. We think HODLing cryptocurrencies is important, but we think that #BUIDLing (aka building) is much more important. Without #BUIDLing the decentralized future, HODLing will be just a sport of vanity.

A period where market prices are rising.

Similar to a bull market, this refers to holding an optimistic view that a market or asset will rise in price. If you are bullish on Bitcoin, you believe that its value will continue to rise over time. 

The process of removing tokens from a cryptocurrency’s circulating supply, usually done by sending them to an inaccessible wallet address. Other digital assets, such as NFTs, can also be burned via the same process.

A hierarchical structure in which authority and control are concentrated within a small group of decision makers.

Centralized Exchange: A prolonged period of decline in a financial market.

Centralized Finance: Centralized businesses that participate in crypto.

A representative store of digital value that lives on a given blockchain or cryptocurrency network. Some blockchains have the same name for both the network and the coin, like Bitcoin. Others can have different names for each, like the Stellar blockchain, which has a native coin called Lumen.

A popular centralized cryptocurrency exchange. Coinbase made history recently as the first cryptocurrency exchange to go public on the Nasdaq.

Any asset accepted as security for a loan, such as a physical asset like real estate, or a digital asset like an NFT.

An offline device used to store cryptocurrencies. Cold wallets can be hardware devices or simply sheets of paper containing a user’s private keys. Because cold wallets are not connected to the internet, they are generally a safer method of storing cryptocurrencies.

The state of agreement amongst the nodes on a blockchain. Reaching consensus is necessary for new transactions to be verified and new blocks to be added to the blockchain.

A process through which nodes on a blockchain come into agreement on a transaction or state of the network.

A digital asset designed to be used as a medium of exchange. Cryptocurrencies are borderless, secure, and maintained by blockchains as opposed to centralized banks or governments.

Decentralized Autonomous Organization: An organization based on open-source code and governed by its users. DAOs typically focus on a specific project or mission and trade the traditional hierarchical systems of legacy corporations for guidelines written on the blockchain.

In the context of the internet, data refers to a user’s personal information, such as name, age, location, interests, browsing history, device usage, purchasing habits, etc. Web3 aims to protect this personal data and give ownership of it back to the user.

The principle of distributing power away from a central point. Blockchains are traditionally decentralized because they require majority approval from all users to operate and make changes, rather than a central authority.

Decentralized Finance: Most popular DeFi projects are decentralized exchange protocols, which automate the exchange of cryptocurrencies among buyers and sellers, eliminating the need for a middleman.

Short for “degenerate,” usually refers to people who make risky and bad bets. In the crypto space, it can refer to people who invest in digital assets like NFTs without doing due diligence. Like with “ape,” this is generally a self-assigned term and does not carry a negative connotation. Degens are a proud people who enjoy ridiculous call options on GME, buying the dip before paying their rent, and occasionally aping into shitcoins.

Short for Developer

Opposite of paperhands - you hold onto you NFT (or crypto or stock) until it becomes EXTREMELY valuable... aka TO THE MOON 🚀🌕

The level of computing power needed to verify transactions and mine blocks on a proof-of-work blockchain.

The process of increasing the difficulty of a proof-of-work blockchain in order to motivate the transition to another consensus algorithm (such as proof-of-stake in the case of Ethereum).

Do Your Own Research: this phrase is used to remind people to conduct their own investigation into an asset before investing in it.

An Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) that replaced the previous auction-based fee system with a base fee + tip system. Because a portion of fees are now burned, the rate of inflation in Ether’s supply has decreased.

A public blockchain serving as the foundation for decentralized applications. Ethereum is a Turing complete language, allowing for users to write and deploy complex, self-executing smart contracts which live on the blockchain. 

A cryptocurrency exchange is a digital marketplace where you can buy and sell cryptocurrency.

A term for government-issued currencies, like the U.S. dollar or Japanese yen

Represents the lowest price available for an asset in a set. It is the minimum amount you need to buy an asset in a project. This is an important metric to look at when evaluating an NFT project.

Buying a large number of the cheapest NFTs in a collection on the secondary market. NFT collection creators sometimes do this or are asked by the community to do this for the project to raise the floor price.

When a blockchain’s users make changes to its rules. These changes to the protocol of a blockchain often result in two new paths — one that follows the old rules, and a new blockchain that splits off from the previous one.

Example: a fork of Bitcoin resulted in Bitcoin Cash.

A division of ownership of an NFT. This makes it possible for several people to own a single NFT. Smart contracts can differentiate between a fractional NFT and an individually owned NFT.

Short for friend; often refers to someone active in an NFT community.

Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt: news around an asset that seems negative, but turns out to be false or blown out of proportion. 

A blockchain node which stores the blockchain’s complete history, as well as verifies and relays transactions.

Interchangeable; exchangeable with something else of the same kind.

The price you pay in ETH or whatever crypto you're using to mint your artwork in order to actually mint and list the piece... its like a second listing fee... unfortunately this price can fluctuate.

The state of chaos that ensues when all of NFT twitter tries to mint the same project at once, driving up gas prices for the whole Ethereum network.

Used to say Good Morning and Good Night. gm can be used at any time of the day, it is often used as a greeting.

Gonna make it.

A term for a very small amount of Ethereum cryptocurrency and commonly used when discussing and paying transactions fees on the Ethereum network. One Gwei is equal to 0.000000001 ETH.

Also known as cold wallet – a hardware device that can securely store cryptocurrency. Secured because the user’s private keys are stored in a protected area of the microcontroller and cannot be extracted as plain text. Additionally, a hardware wallet functions offline, meaning the private keys are never exposed to potential hackers. 

A unique string of numbers and letters that identify blocks and are tied to crypto buyers and sellers.

Stands for “Hold On for Dear Life” though the term originated from a user typo on a Bitcoin forum in 2013. It refers to a passive investment strategy in which people buy and hold onto cryptocurrency — instead of trading it — in the hopes that it increases in value. 

This is the unfortunate position you find yourself in when an asset you own quickly drops in value but you do not sell. You are thus left holding a bag of worthless coins or stocks.

Know your customer: The process of verifying a customer’s identity. Most commonly used by financial institutions and financial service businesses, including banks, stockbrokers, and cryptocurrency exchanges.

Short for Lamborghini. The ability to purchase Lambo is a goalpost for success, used in a myriad of phrases in the crypto and degen spaces. For instance “wen Lambo?” roughly translates to “I just purchased $43 worth of Dogecoin. When will the value of said investment increase enough to enable the purchase of a Lamborghini?”

A blockchain node that downloads just enough data from the blockchain in order to process and verify transactions. Unlike full or master nodes, light nodes do not store a blockchain’s complete history.

A measure of how easily an asset can be bought, sold, or traded in a given market or on an exchange.

A collection of user-provided funds locked into a smart contract to facilitate trading on a DeFi platform. On decentralized exchanges and lending protocols liquidity must be provided by the users, as there is no central bank or figure to do so. 

Cryptocurrency that is associated with some theme, often as a joke rather than a serious product. Dogecoin was the first memecoin.

The act of initially issuing a piece of art on the blockchain, either by the artist or the collector.

Refers to an NFT project that is growing in price rapidly. It’s a sales boom. This is usually an exciting time for NFT projects. Mooning and pumping are often used interchangeably.

Non-fungible token: This describes an asset that is unique and cannot be traded for a like asset. The best example to understand this is traditional currency: 

I can trade five $1 bills for one $5 bill. They are of equal value. I can trade a $1 for another $1 bill and they are of equal value. A non-fungible token cannot be traded for another asset because it is unique in design and has a singular identifying token on the Ethereum blockchain.

A computer that connects to a blockchain network.

Not Your Coins: Refers to needing to own the private keys associated with your funds. The person owning private keys is the one deciding how the crypto assets associated are spent. If you don’t own this, you’re entrusting your crypto to a third party. If you do own your keys, you have complete control over how to use your funds.

Owning your keys also means being responsible for their security. (resource/more info on this here: https://www.ledger.com/academy/not-your-keys-not-your-coins-why-it-matters)

A term used to describe people who panic and quickly sell their NFT assets.

Profile picture, usually referring to one of an NFT

This term describes when an NFT asset is rising in price quickly. 
Example: “Prices have gone up 10x in 6 minutes, this project is really pumping!” 

Pump and Dump is a form of price manipulation where the price of a crypto is boosted based on false recommendations (pump) before the assets are sold at a higher price (dump).

Used to refer to a process by which a person’s perspective is dramatically transformed, introducing them to a new and typically disturbing understanding of the true nature of a particular situation.

A term to describe NFT naysayers who right-click to save the image without paying for the NFT and troll the person who paid a hefty price to own.

Is something I hope you’ll never experience! It’s essentially a scam where the people behind a seemingly legit project disappear with all the money immediately after launch. You might get an actual NFT in return for what you paid, but it’s most likely worthless and not even tradeable on a secondary marketplace.

A series of words generated by the cryptocurrency wallet provider that gives the holder access to the crypto in their wallet. The list of 12 to 24 simple words is not a sentence (e.g., fiction, tree, cat, radio, stream, cloud, paper, cushion, abstract, bronze, pilot, orange). Having the seed phrase gives one access to all crypto associated with the wallet that generated the phrase, even if the wallet is deleted or lost. NEVER give your seed phrase to anyone. Keep it in a secure place separate from where you access your wallet. 

A person is engaged in advertising a cryptocurrency or NFT project by endorsing the project or product in public forums or communities.

Cryptocurrency with little to no value or a digital currency that has no immediate, discernible purpose. Cryptocurrencies that are considered a bad investment.

A tamper-proof program that runs on a blockchain network when certain predefined conditions are satisfied. By running on a decentralized blockchain instead of a centralized server, smart contracts allow multiple parties to come to a shared result in an accurate, timely, and tamper-proof manner. Smart contracts improve trust relationships over current centralized transactions by ensuring that two parties that do not know each other can trust the transaction without a third party due to their tamper-proof and public nature. A smart contract is the code that deploys an NFT. 

A token with its value pegged to another asset. Stablecoins are usually backed by a fiat currency, like the US dollar, but can also be pegged to physical assets like precious metals, or even other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

A way of earning rewards for holding certain cryptocurrencies. Currently, Tezos, Cosmos, and Ethereum allow staking to earn a percentage rate reward over time. The blockchain makes staking rewards possible. Cryptocurrencies allow staking using a “consensus mechanism” called proof of stake to ensure that all transactions are verified and secured without a bank or payment processor in the middle. Crypto, if the crypto holders choose to stake it, becomes part of that process. 

Sweeping the floor indicates a whale or group of buyers who are buying every asset in an NFT project that is listed at floor price. This action raises the floor price for an NFT project in the immediate term.

Short combination of letters that is used to represent an asset, stock, or cryptocurrency token on various exchanges, swapping services, and other DeFi solution. 

Example: ETH, BTC, SOL

Most often used to refer to a stock (like GME) or Crypto, it is when the item becomes worth so much money, all the owners are suddenly millionaires.

A unit of value on a blockchain that usually has some other value proposition besides just a transfer of value (like a coin)

A rebuttal against the argument that Bitcoin is “sound money” or the “hardest form of currency” by saying that Ethereum post-EIP 1559 and post-ETH2 merge will be more sound than Bitcoin.

A tongue-in-cheek saying, implying that a cryptocurrency or other asset can only increase in value. This is used to voice one’s bullish stance on an asset, although it may also be used sarcastically.

We are going to make it

The first iteration of the web, commonly referred to as the “read-only web.” Web1 was characterized by static websites that displayed information. There was little to no user interaction or user-generated content.

Starting in the 90s, the “read-write web” is characterized by user-generated content and improved user interfaces. This led to the creation of blogs and social media platforms, as well as sites like Wikipedia and YouTube. Web2 placed more emphasis on user experience and interoperability between different applications and websites, giving us the vast network of connected websites and resources that we are familiar with today. 

Represents the next phase of the internet and, perhaps, of organizing society. Web 1.0, the story goes, was the era of decentralized, open protocols, in which most online activities involved navigating to individual static webpages. Web 2.0, which we’re living through now, is the era of centralization, in which a huge share of communication and commerce takes place on closed platforms owned by a handful of super-powerful corporations—think Google, Facebook, Amazon—subject to the nominal control of centralized government regulators. Web3 is supposed to break the world free of that monopolistic control. 

 The smallest denomination of ether, named after cypherpunk and cryptocurrency pioneer, Wei Dai. 10^18 gwei = 1 ether.

A Whale is someone who has a lot of ETH (any crypto really, stock or NFT) and can change the market dynamic for a project by buying a lot of assets or purchasing assets at a significant price. Many projects rely on whales to get attention and social proof that it’s a good project to own.