This article will help you understand a majority of the acronyms and terminology used in Crypto and DeFi.  This vocabulary list will help explain the meanings of these new terms being used by cryptocurrency communities.  We provide 3 crypto pop quizzes at the end of this article with increasing difficulty to test and help retain the information you learned.

1. Easy Quiz
2. Advanced Quiz
3. Expert Quiz

Choose which crypto terminology or acronym from the Table of Contents you would like to learn about.

Table of Contents:

• Altcoin
• All-Time-High
• All-Time-Low
• Buy-The-Dip
• Centralized Exchange
• CoinMarketCap
• Directed Acyclic Graph
• Dollar Cost Average
• Decentralized Finance
• Do Your Own Research
• ERC-20
• ERC-721
• ERC-1155
• Ethereum Virtual Machine
• Faucet
• FIAT
• Flippening
• Fear Of Missing Out
• Fear Uncertainty Doubt
• Hold On For Dear Life
• Initial Coin Offering
• Interplanetary Files System
• Lightning Network
• Market Cap
• Non-Fungible Token
• Not Going To Make It
• Number Used Only Once
• Peer To Peer
• Proof Of Stake
• Proof Of Work
• Technical Analysis
• Transactions Per Second
• Transaction
• Year To Date

What is an Altcoin?

In cryptocurrency, an altcoin is any other cryptocurrency besides Bitcoin.  The term Altcoin Season refers to a cryptocurrency market condition where meme coins and other lesser-known tokens soar in price. 

What is ATH (All-Time-High)?

ATH is an abbreviation of the cryptocurrency term all-time-high or all-time-high, meaning exactly the highest value of all time. This term refers to the price of an asset and is very often used in the environment of cryptocurrency investors and speculators, although it also applies to traditional financial markets.

What is ATL (All-Time-Low)?

All-time-low, or ATL, is an abnormally low price point. A crypto asset reaches its all-time low when the price of its coin is lower than it has ever been before.

What is BTD (Buy The Dip)?

"Buy the dip" means purchasing an asset after it has dropped in price. The belief here is that the new lower price represents a bargain as the "dip" is only a short-term blip and the asset, with time, is likely to bounce back and increase in value.

What Does CEX Mean? Centralized Exchange

Centralized exchanges (CEXs) are a type of cryptocurrency exchange that is operated by a company that owns it in a centralized manner.

What is CMC? CoinMarketCap

CMC or CoinMarketCap is a cryptocurrency data website that is commonly used for researching cryptocurrency prices.

Directed Analytic Graph (DAG) meaning

A directed acyclic graph (DAG) is a conceptual representation of activities depicted by a graph, which is visually presented as a set of circles.

Dollar Cost Average (DCA) meaning

Dollar-cost averaging, or DCA, is an investment strategy that reduces market risk by spreading out the purchase of security over several smaller purchases.

What is DeFi or Decentralized Finance?

DeFi is short for decentralized finance, an umbrella term for peer-to-peer financial services on public blockchains.

What Does DYOR Mean? Do Your Own Research

DYOR is an acronym for Do Your Own Research which is defined as the process of doing your own personal research before putting your money at risk.

What is ERC-20?

A token standard used by the Ethereum Blockchain.  An ERC-20 token is a standard used for creating and issuing smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain.

What is ERC-721?

ERC-721 is an Ethereum-based non-fungible token or NFT. This means that each token is unique and as a result, not interchangeable.

What is ERC-1155?

ERC-1155 is a token standard that enables the efficient transfer of fungible and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in a single transaction.

What is EVM? Ethereum Virtual Machine

EVM or the Ethereum Virtual Machine is a virtual component that is contained in every Ethereum node and is able to execute bytecode for contracts. Smart contracts are usually written in high-level languages like Solidity and are then converted into EVM bytecode.

What is a Faucet?

Faucets in cryptocurrency are a way of rewarding users with instant payments of crypto in exchange for performing tasks on a website or app. Like Bitcoin, this works based on a decentralized system using blockchain technology as a ledger to underlie the crypto.

What Does FIAT Mean?

FIAT is currency or money that is issued and backed by a government.

What is the Flippening?

A name used to describe the moment when Ethereum (ETH) manages to surpass Bitcoin (BTC) in terms of market capitalization.

What Does FOMO Mean?

Short for Fear Of Missing Out, FOMO can be used in everyday life, but in crypto, It refers to the sense of urgency to buy assets that are increasing in value.

What Does FUD Mean?

FUD short for Fear Uncertainty and Doubt refers to negative comments or criticisms about cryptocurrencies.

Hold On For Dear Life (HODL)

HODL short of Hold On For Dear Life is an acronym commonly used to encourage the long-term holding of cryptocurrencies.

What is an ICO?

ICO short for Initial coin offering is a way for a cryptocurrency company to raise capital to then be used by the company in a blockchain environment to create a new utility, app, or service.

What Does IFPS Mean?

IPFS short for InterPlanetary File System is a protocol that many NFTs (or non-fungible tokens) point to as their underlying asset.

LN Lightning Network

LN short for Lightning Network is a layer 2 payment protocol on top of Bitcoin and is intended to enable fast transactions among participating nodes.  The Lightning Network has been proposed as a solution to the bitcoin scalability problem and has performed incredibly well.

What Is Market Cap?

Market Cap is the market capitalization of a cryptocurrency and refers to the total value of a specific cryptocurrency.

What Is An NFT?

NFT short for Non-Fungible Token is a unique cryptographic token that exists on a blockchain and cannot be replicated.

What Does NGMI Mean?

NGMI short for Not Going To Make It is commonly used in cryptocurrency when one believes they have made a bad decision.

What Does NONCE Mean?

NONCE short for Number Used Only Once is a random or semi-random number that is generated for a specific use.

P2P Peer-To-Peer

Peer-to-peer (P2P) refers to the direct exchange of assets from one user to another.

PoS Meaning

Proof-of-stake is a consensus mechanism for processing cryptocurrency transactions.  POS consensus mechanisms work by adding new blocks to a blockchain by validating entries into a distributed database while keeping the database secure.

PoW Meaning

PoW short for Proof of work is a decentralized consensus mechanism that requires members of a network to expend effort solving an arbitrary mathematical puzzle to prevent anybody from gaming the system. 

What Is Technical Analysis? (TA)

TA short for Technical Analysis is used to predict the price behavior of assets such as cryptocurrencies.

What Does TPS Mean?

TPS short for Transactions Per Second is a unit of measurement used to indicate the speed and scalability of a blockchain.

TX Meaning

Tx is short for "Transaction" and is commonly found preceding a number.

What Does YTD Mean?

YTD short for Year to Date is a metric that examines how an asset has performed so far in a calendar year (beginning on January 1).

3 Crypto Pop Quizzes

Want to see how much you just learned about cryptocurrency? Try these fun multiple-choice pop quizzes, they don't take very long.

1. Easy Quiz
2. Advanced Quiz
3. Expert Quiz