Blockchain Glossary

Crypto enthusiasts and the blockchain sector has developed a language all of its own. Here are some of the common abbreviations/terms and their meaning.

HODL

Hold on for dear life. Famously someone on Bitcointalk got drunk and meant to write hold. To hodl is to hold your cryptocurrency and not sell it during a dip.

Blockchain

A set of data “blocks” which are chronologically linked and provable via cryptography.

Moon

When a cryptocurrency surges in value. To the moon.

SHA256

A cryptography algorithm which is used to create a fixed length data hash of a variable length data string.

Hash

A hash is generally used to describe the output of a cryptography algorithm used to secure blockchains.

Hashrate

The number of SHA256 or hashing calculations a hardware or software application can process per second.

Fiat

Fiat currencies are the government issued currencies we have been using without question in recent times such as USD/EUR/GBP etc.

Whale

A big spender or someone that holds a huge amount of coin/tokens.

ICO

Initial coin offering. Crypto equivalent of an IPO where a project releases a significant amount of tokens to the public.

FOMO

Fear of missing out, investing psychology term which helps explain the later stages of bubbles.

FUD

Fear, uncertainty and doubt. Negative rumours spread intentionally to hurt a project or drop the price of a cryptocurrency.

FUDster

A person or entity that is spreading FUD.

DYOR

Do your own research, often quoted when giving advice as a disclaimer that investors should conduct their own investigations in to a project.

Bull(ish)

Believing the market will go up.

Bear(ish)

Believing the market will go down.

ATH

All time high for a token or crypto markets in general.

Altcoin

Any other cryptocurrency that isn’t Bitcoin.

Shitcoin

An altcoin that isn’t liked

Tokens

A digital asset that is held on a 3rd party blockchain such as Ethereum. Many projects either solely use the Ethereum ERC20 smart contract to create a tokenized store of value or use it as a way to integrate with 3rd party wallets and exchnages.

Pump and Dump

A trader or conglomerate of traders who start purchasing and promoting a particular altcoin and then once the tractions starts to build dump all their tokens and crash the market making a profit on their holdings.

Bagholder

Someone who is left holding an altcoin after the price has crashed during a pump and dump.

Shilling

Personally promoting or advertising a cryptocurrency project/ICO/token.

ROI

Return on investment, different people use different percentage calculations. 100% can sometimes be considered break even point or doubling up.

TA

Technical analysis is the study of charts to predict the future movements of a tradeable asset.

Candlesticks

A type of chart which is used often in technical analysis.

Nonce

Number once, used in cryptography as a number reference. A nonce is added to data to create a unique hash.

Mining

Testing multiple data,nonce combinations via an algorithm such as SHA256 and searching for a resulting hash that contains leading zeros.

PoW

Proof of work is the system that Bitcoin made famous where miners are rewarded for finding a hash matching a set difficulty (number of leading zeros).

PoS

Consensus is achieved by stakeholders running nodes that operate the blockchain. Stakeholders are rewarded in a way similar to interest payments on their holdings.

Nodes

Individual computers attached to the blockchain form a decentralized network.

51% attack

When 51% of the nodes on a network are operating maliciously with a majority to gain consensus.

ASIC

Application specific integrated circuit is hardware designed specifically to carry out the SHA256 hashing algorithm. ASIC devices are normally long rectangular devices that make a high pitched wurring sound and generate large amounts of heat when operating. Server farms will stack these up by the thousand to generate as much hashing power as possible.

Smart contracts

Simple programs that run on computers attached to the blockchain. Ethereum operates the most widely used smart contract platform. Code is written in solidity and then deployed to the network where it can be interacted with by 3rd parties.

DApp

Decentralized application, a program that runs without any centralized control.

Private Key

The secret code used to generate a public key for ECDSA digital signing. Data can be signed with a private key and then verified to prove identity using a public key, the signature and the data.

Public Key / Address

A non-secret code that is used as a location from which you send and receive funds. It is secured by the private key. A private key can generate a public key but not the other way around.

https://jsecoin.com/crypto-glossary/