Crypto Slang: DYOR, NFA, WAGMI, FUD... the Jargon Decoded

The essentials

Caution acronyms

• DYOR (Do Your Own Research): a reminder that nobody will check for you. Often added at the end of a post recommending a project.
• NFA (Not Financial Advice): a disclaimer stuck onto almost every "call." It doesn't make the advice any more reliable.
• DYOR NFA: the two together, the classic signature of a post pushing a token.
• IMO / IMHO (In My (Humble) Opinion): "in my view."
• TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read): the one-line summary of a long text.
• AFAIK (As Far As I Know).
• FWIW (For What It's Worth).
• IYKYK (If You Know, You Know): hints at insider info, often to create curiosity.
• ICYMI (In Case You Missed It).

Greeting and talking to the community

• gm / gn: good morning / good night. Crypto's ritual "hello," posted at any hour.
• ser: "sir" with a deliberate typo. Polite or mocking tone: "ser, this is a Wendy's."
• fren: friend. "gm frens."
• anon: an anonymous person. A common way to address someone you only know by their handle.
• fam: family, a project's community.
• OG: an old-timer, present since the start of a project or a cycle.
• wen: "when." "wen token?" (when is the token coming out?), "wen airdrop?", "wen moon?"
• soon™: the vague promise of a team that won't give a date.
• LFG (Let's f***ing go): a cry of enthusiasm.
• WAGMI (We're All Gonna Make It): collective optimism.
• NGMI (Not Gonna Make It): said of someone making a bad decision.
• GMI: the opposite of NGMI, "gonna make it."

Market mood

• Bullish / bearish: optimistic (the bull charging upward) or pessimistic (the bear swiping downward).
• Bull market / bear market: a rising or falling market over several months.
• Crab market: a market going nowhere, sideways, like a crab.
• Bull run: the big rally phase of a cycle.
• Altseason (or "alt szn"): a period when altcoins rise faster than bitcoin. "szn" means "season."
• FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt): the bad news, true or exaggerated, that pushes a price down. Careful: calling every criticism "FUD" is a bagholder reflex.
• FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out): the fear of missing the train, which pushes you to buy after a big rise.
• HODL: "hold" misspelled in a post that became famous on the BitcoinTalk forum in December 2013. Holding your crypto despite volatility. The backronym "Hold On for Dear Life" was invented afterward.
• Moon / to the moon / mooning: a price taking off. The 🚀 says the same thing.
• Pump / dump: a sharp rise / a sharp fall, often quick.
• Dip: a decline. BTD / BTFD (Buy The Dip): "buy the dip."
• Capitulation: the phase when the last sellers give up and sell at a loss, often near a low.
• Up only: "it only goes up," generally ironic.
• Number go up (NGU): mockery of those who only watch the price.
• It's so over / We're so back: the two extreme moods, sometimes in the same day.
• Hopium / copium: hope as a drug / the art of reassuring yourself after a loss.
• Cope: making excuses for yourself.
• Sell the news: selling the moment good news lands, because it was already priced in.
• Probably nothing: said ironically to flag something important.
• Few understand: irony aimed at those who think they're smarter than the market.

The cast of characters

• Degen: "degenerate." A trader who takes enormous risks (memecoins, leverage). Often claimed with pride.
• Ape: to ape into a project is to buy fast and big, with no research.
• Whale (🐋): a wallet holding enough to move the price. Small holders are shrimps.
• Normie: someone outside crypto.
• Maxi: maximalist. A "Bitcoin maxi" thinks only bitcoin matters.
• Moonboy: a permanent optimist who calls out wild prices.
• Paper hands (🧻🙌): someone who sells at the first dip.
• Diamond hands (💎🙌): someone who holds no matter what.
• Bagholder: someone stuck with tokens that have fallen (their "bags").
• Exit liquidity: the late buyers who let the first ones in sell. "You're their exit liquidity" means "you're buying what they're selling."
• KOL (Key Opinion Leader): a crypto influencer. Their "calls" are sometimes paid for.
• Shill / shiller: to promote a token, often without saying you hold it or are being paid.
• Bagwork: promoting the tokens you hold yourself.
• CT (Crypto Twitter): the crypto community on X.
• Smart money: wallets reputed to be well informed (funds, profitable traders) that others follow.
• Insider: someone with information before the public.
• Cabal: a small group coordinating to pump (then sell) a token.
• Larp / larper: playing a role, pretending to be what you're not ("larping as a rich trader").
• Midcurve: from the bell-curve meme. Someone who overthinks and gets it wrong, between the beginner and the expert who share the same simple answer.
• Chad / based: someone admired / a courageous stance.
• Galaxy brain / gigabrain: (supposedly) brilliant reasoning, often ironic.
• Reply guy: someone who comments on every post of a well-known account to get noticed.

What you do (the verbs)

• Dig / digger: to dig. "Doing your dig" means digging through a project's information (docs, contracts, team, investors) before everyone else. A digger spends their days hunting for promising projects before they become known. See our research tips.
• Alpha: useful, little-known information. Alpha leak: sharing that info. Alpha published in front of 100,000 people is no longer really alpha.
• Farm: carrying out actions (volume, quests, deposits) to earn points or an airdrop. See the airdrops glossary.
• Flip: buying to resell quickly at a profit.
• Snipe: buying in the very first second of a launch, often with a bot.
• Fade: betting against an idea or a trend ("I'm fading this narrative").
• Rotate: moving your gains from one sector to another (from memecoins to AI, for example).
• Stack sats: accumulating satoshis, the smallest unit of bitcoin.
• Touch grass: get off your screen.
• Engagement farming: posting to harvest interactions, not to inform.
• Ratio: when a reply gets more likes than the original post, a sign the public disagrees with the author.

Scams and bad projects

• Rug / rug pull / getting rugged: the team walks away with the money (pulls the liquidity, sells everything). Soft rug: gradual abandonment of the project. See spotting a rug pull.
• Honeypot: a token you can buy but not resell.
• Exit scam: a platform or project that disappears with the funds.
• Ponzinomics: a token economy that only holds up as long as new buyers keep arriving.
• Vaporware: a project that promises a lot and delivers nothing.
• Shitcoin: a token with no utility or value. Memecoin: a token based on a joke or a meme, openly so.
• Gem: a "nugget" still little known. The word is heavily used to sell dubious projects.
• 100x: multiplying your stake by 100. A common scam promise.
• Rekt: "wrecked," ruined after a big loss or a liquidation.

Emojis to know

Examples decoded

• "gm ser, wen token? 👀" → Hello, when is the token coming out? I have a feeling it's close.
• "Aped a bag, full degen, DYOR NFA 🚀" → I bought a lot without thinking, it's very risky, check for yourself, this isn't advice.
• "Paper hands got shaken out, diamond hands WAGMI" → Those who sold in the dip lost out, those who held will be fine.
• "Bro is exit liquidity for the cabal, ngmi" → He's buying what the insider group is selling, it won't end well for him.
• "Been digging this one for weeks, alpha soon" → I've been digging into this project for weeks, I'll share my info soon.

Sources

• CoinGecko — Crypto Glossary (A to Z)
• Ethereum.org — Glossaire Ethereum

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