This time I summarized the specialized terms of the cryptocurrency circle, the most complete explanation in history! From simple to complex, whether you are a beginner or an expert, I believe you will find what you need!
Common Types
[Fiat Currency] Fiat currency is legal tender issued by the state and government, which is guaranteed only by government credit, such as the RMB, US dollar, etc.
[Big Cake/Coin King] Bitcoin (BTC)
[Auntie] A nickname for Ethereum (ETH).
[Retail Investors] Refers to those trading cryptocurrencies, typically new or inexperienced investors in digital currency.
[Private Placement] A type of financing activity. Cryptocurrency private placement is a way to invest in cryptocurrency projects, and it is also the best way for cryptocurrency project founders to raise funds for platform operations.
[ICO] (Initial Coin Offering abbreviation), the first issuance of coins. Derived from the IPO concept in the stock market, it refers to the act of initially issuing tokens for blockchain projects to raise Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other universal cryptocurrencies. ICO private placements and public offerings include rounds for team internal subscriptions, fundraising, etc.
[First-level Market] The first-level market refers to the ICO issuance market, generally including the original allocation of the team, corresponding tokens obtained by investors, private placements participated in by large institutions, and public offerings aimed at the public. These all belong to the first-level market of digital currency, which has characteristics of low cost, high risk, and high returns.
[Secondary Market] The secondary market is the circulation market. Once the ICO fundraising is completed, trading can begin, which is divided into off-exchange trading and on-exchange trading, with the largest secondary market being various exchanges.
[Token] Usually translated as a certificate. Token is one of the important concepts in blockchain, and its more widely known name is 'cryptocurrency', but in the perspective of professionals in the 'chain circle', its more accurate translation is 'certificate', representing a proof of rights on the blockchain rather than currency.
[Zen Holding] Refers to not caring about the price trends of digital currencies after buying, planning to hold for the long term, and not selling regardless of how low the cryptocurrency asset price falls.
[Airdrop] The act of the project party giving away tokens is called an airdrop. Airdrops are currently a very popular cryptocurrency marketing method. To let potential investors and cryptocurrency enthusiasts receive information related to the tokens, the token team often conducts airdrops.
[Candy] Tokens given away by the project party are called candy.
[Wallet] Generally refers to a blockchain wallet, a place to store one's cryptocurrency assets, which is secure and can be divided into cold wallets and hot wallets. It is not recommended for newcomers who are not familiar with it to use.
[Cold Wallet] Simply put, it is a wallet that is not connected to the internet, also known as an offline wallet. Being offline is generally safer than a hot wallet.
[Hot Wallet] Refers to a wallet connected to the internet, also known as an online wallet.
[White Paper] An official document that introduces the company's (project's) product. Usually used to assess the quality and application scenarios of the project.
[Circulating Market Value] Circulating Value = Circulating Volume × Latest Price; refers to the circulating value of a certain cryptocurrency calculated based on its circulating volume at market price.
[Telegram Group] A foreign encrypted social software that requires the use of a VPN.
[VPN] Also known as scientific internet access, refers to V-P-N. The reason for the hyphen is that it is sensitive, so I won't elaborate further. Currently, many exchanges cannot be directly accessed through domestic networks, requiring the use of a VPN to connect. For specific methods, one should consult friends nearby or ask in groups.
[KYC] Identity verification, generally requiring the provision of identity documents or passports.
[Pulling the Plug] A sarcastic remark by users about trading platforms' servers failing at critical moments, implying that exchanges deliberately disconnect servers to prevent user access to achieve some purpose.
Market Trends
[Bull Market] Refers to a market trend where the market shows overall growth, prices continue to rise, and the outlook is optimistic.
[Bear Market] Opposite to a bull market, it refers to a market trend of continuous decline, showing a phenomenon of overall falling prices.
[Consolidation] The price of a cryptocurrency is unstable, with small fluctuations (either up or down).
[Main Uptrend] Originating from wave theory, it refers to the wave that lasts the longest during an upward trend. This is a common market trend during a bull run. The opposite market trend is sometimes called a 'main downtrend.'
[Slow Decline] The overall market trend is showing a downward trend, with coin prices slowly declining.
[Consolidation] Also known as: Sideways. The price fluctuation range is small, and the coin price is stable.
[Waterfall] Also known as: a dive. Refers to a sudden large drop in the market, just like a waterfall, falling straight down, causing pain for onlookers.
[Positive News] Also known as favorable news. Refers to news or circumstances that help the price of cryptocurrency rise, such as policies, macro environments, etc.
[Negative News] Generally refers to news unfavorable to the market, such as Bitcoin technical issues or central banks' suppression.
[Blowout] Market conditions affected by negative factors lead to prolonged stagnation. During this period, the market will be very suppressed. Once the negative factors are exhausted or removed, the market will show explosive growth.
[Rebound] The coin price, while falling, receives support from technical aspects or capital involvement, causing the trend to reverse from falling to rising. The rebound is smaller than the drop.
[Reversal] The coin price reaches a bottom after falling, with no further decline possible, reversing from a downtrend to an uptrend. A common form is the 'V-shaped reversal'. A rebound is the basis for a reversal, and the reversal amplitude far exceeds that of the rebound.
[Pullback] Refers to the temporary decline in the price during a strong upward trend, called a pullback. The drop is smaller than the rise.
[Kimchi Premium] The South Korean public's enthusiasm for investing in cryptocurrencies leads to the price of digital currencies in South Korea being higher than in other countries most of the time, hence referred to as 'kimchi premium'.
[Half Cut] Refers to the price of a certain digital currency dropping to half of its previous price, for instance: dropping from 2 yuan to 1 yuan is considered a half cut.
[Breaking Issue] Breaking refers to falling below, and issue refers to the issuance price of digital currency. In the cryptocurrency circle, breaking issue means that a certain digital currency has fallen below its issuance price (i.e., ICO price).
Position Types
[Position] The ratio of the funds in your account to the funds used to buy coins.
[Building Position] Also known as opening a position. Refers to the trader buying a certain amount of a coin.
[Full Position] All account funds are used to buy virtual currency. Commonly referred to as 'going all in' or 'all in'.
[Half Position] The funds used to buy coins occupy half of the total funds.
[Supplementing Position] Buying virtual currency in batches, e.g., first buying 1 BTC, then buying another 1 BTC.
[Adding Position] You hold BTC, are optimistic about BTC's development, and then buy more BTC while BTC is rising.
[Reducing Position] Expecting risks in the future, sell part of the held currency.
[Empty Position] Not participating anymore, just watching. In the cryptocurrency circle, this can be understood as selling all held virtual currencies and converting them all into funds.
[Locking Position] Locking position generally refers to an investor opening a new position in the opposite direction when the market shows a trend contrary to their operation after buying and selling contracts, also known as hedging or lock order, even whimsically called butterfly flying double. The so-called locking position is actually another term for hedging. For newcomers doing forex trading in the forex market using leverage, the fundamental reason for locking positions is to avoid losing too much on their positions, so they open a position in the opposite direction of their initial position.
[Light Position] The funds used to buy coins occupy a very small proportion of the total funds.
[Heavy Position] The funds used to buy coins occupy a large proportion of the total funds.
[Liquidation] Not participating anymore, selling all coins, preparing to observe the market with an empty position.
Trading Types
Fiat trading and cryptocurrency trading can be conducted through over-the-counter or on-exchange trading methods.
The concepts of on-exchange trading and off-exchange trading mainly come from the securities market.
[Fiat Trading] Refers to using legal tender such as US dollars or RMB to purchase BTC, ETH, USDT, and other special cryptocurrencies acting as 'fiat currency' within the circle. Payments can be made via card, Alipay, or WeChat directly.
[Cryptocurrency Trading] Refers to trading between virtual currencies (e.g., using Bitcoin to purchase Ethereum or vice versa).
[On-Exchange Trading] Also known as exchange trading; it involves matching trades on virtual currency trading platforms, where the buying and selling prices are public, and real-time quotes are displayed by the platform. It is a method of trading based on competitive bidding on exchanges.
[Off-Exchange Trading] (OTC, over-the-counter) also known as peer-to-peer (offline) trading; refers to trading conducted outside of exchanges.
① Online P2P: Some trading platforms have developed peer-to-peer off-exchange trading systems, such as Okex and OTCBTC. Users can decide the prices at which to buy or sell and publish trade orders, with users freely selecting transactions, and the platform does not handle funds; (for example, a seller publishes a fixed quantity and price of Bitcoin trading order on the platform. If a buyer chooses to purchase, they must exit the platform application, operate directly to pay the seller’s Alipay, WeChat, or online banking account. The seller confirms receipt before selecting to release the coins on the platform.)
② Online B2C: Users can directly buy or sell Bitcoin through the platform, with prices set by the platform. After collecting users' payments, the platform will directly release Bitcoin to the buyer or, upon receiving Bitcoin, will release funds to the seller. The B-side funds or Bitcoin are either owned by the platform or come from partner merchants;
③ Offline Trading: In addition to trading platforms, there are also intermediaries who gather buying and selling demands. Intermediaries charge a fee, often occurring in WeChat groups, QQ groups, etc. Additionally, people can also exchange virtual currency through face-to-face transactions, with some websites offering services to publish face-to-face trading information.
[Trading Pair] EOS/ETH, such a display refers to trading pairs, indicating how many ETH are needed to purchase one EOS, similar to the concept of 'grams/yuan'.
[Market Order] Refers to transactions conducted at the current price for buying and selling, where market orders have priority for execution. If you complete a transaction faster, you can use market orders.
[Limit Trading] Refers to transactions conducted at a specified price for buying or selling, also known as commissioned trading or order trading.
[Arbitrage] Refers to the existence of price differences for the same cryptocurrency across different exchanges, where one buys from a lower-priced platform and sells on a higher-priced platform to earn the price difference. It is important to pay attention to the speed of transferring coins, as sometimes the speed of transferring coins can affect your earnings.
[Cutting Losses] A more pleasant term for 'liquidation'. After buying virtual currency, if the price drops, selling to avoid further loss. Fearful of larger drops.
[Cutting Leeks] A group of investors entering the cryptocurrency circle who operate carelessly and are harvested by manipulators, with a new batch of investors entering. Without good investment experience, it is easy to be harvested.
[Long Position] Holding a certain cryptocurrency for a long time.
[Short-term] Holding a cryptocurrency for a short period to achieve profit targets, which may range from a few hours to a few days or weeks, depending on the market.
[Take Profit] Selling the held virtual currency after achieving a certain profit to secure the gains.
[Stop Loss] Selling the held virtual currency after incurring a certain level of loss to prevent further loss from expanding.
[Stuck] You bought the coin, it dropped, and you can't bear to sell it. Congratulations, this is called being stuck.
[Breaking Free] After buying virtual currency, if the price drops causing a temporary accounting loss, but later the price rebounds, turning losses into gains.
[Missing the Boat] Due to a pessimistic view of the future market, selling virtual currency only to see the price rise continuously, failing to buy back in time, thus missing out on profits. Perfectly missing out is called missing the boat.
[Roller Coaster] You bought a coin, it went up, you were excited, and then a few days later it dropped back down. It’s like riding a roller coaster—just a thrill with no lasting result.
[Hoarding Coins] You are optimistic about the future development of this coin and want to make a hundredfold or thousandfold return to achieve financial freedom, buying this coin in large quantities and hoarding it.
[Going Long] What most people do daily, buying low and hoping to sell high. Generally refers to a bullish outlook.
[Short Selling] An operation played by futures contract traders. The seller expects the price of the coin to fall in the future, sells the coins they hold, and buys them back at a lower price once the price drops to profit.
[Bottom Fishing] Buying at a suitable price range when a cryptocurrency has dropped.
[Market Control] The proportion of coins held to the circulating amount is large.
[Lifting the Market] The main force, for some purpose or after a period of accumulation, begins to raise the price of the coin.
[Washing the Market] Manipulators or large financial groups control the market through funds, making the market rise and fall, scaring out indecisive retail investors to achieve excessive profits.
[Accumulating Positions] Generally done through market washing, luring out retail investors, after which manipulators take over the coins sold by retail investors, allowing them to accumulate more coins, achieving control over the market (generally accumulation operations are conducted at lower prices).
[Market Dumping] A stock market term. Generally, there are two situations for market dumping: one occurs when the coin price is rising, and manipulators want to clear out following investors by aggressively selling at a certain price, creating a false appearance of a downturn, enticing retail investors and followers to sell; the other occurs when a manipulator has achieved their goal of manipulating the price, at which point they sell off their holdings significantly to escape.
[Hedging] Generally, hedging involves conducting two trades that are related to the market, in opposite directions, with equivalent quantities, offsetting profits and losses. In the futures contract market, one buys the same quantity of positions in different directions; when the direction is determined, the opposite position is closed, retaining the positive direction to gain profits.
[Position] A position is a market agreement, committing to the initial position of buying and selling contracts. Buyers of contracts are bullish, expecting a price increase; sellers of contracts are bearish, expecting a price decrease.
[Long Position] Expecting the price of the coin to rise in the future, buying a certain amount of digital currency at the current price, and selling at a high price after the price rises to earn a profit from the price difference, characterized by buying first and selling later.
[Bearish] Expecting the price of the coin to fall in the future, selling the digital currency in hand at the current price, and buying back after the market drops to earn a profit from the price difference. Characterized by selling first and buying later.
[Leverage] Leveraged trading, as the name suggests, involves using a small amount of capital to invest multiples of the original amount in hopes of obtaining several times the returns from fluctuations, or incurring losses.
[Overbought] The coin price continues to rise to a certain height, with buying power generally exhausted, indicating that the price is about to drop.
[Oversold] The coin price continues to drop to a certain low point, with selling power generally exhausted, indicating that the price is about to rebound.
[Inducing Long] Refers to the main players or manipulators intentionally creating the illusion of rising coin prices to induce investors to buy, resulting in a price drop instead of a rise, trapping investors who followed in.
[Inducing Short] A term used in both cryptocurrency and stock markets, simply referring to mainstream capital aggressively shorting, creating a clearly weak market appearance, leading investors to conclude that the market will continue to drop sharply and panic sell.
[Cross-Trading] A trading tactic used by manipulators. The specific operation method is to open accounts at multiple exchanges simultaneously, offering prices at each exchange in a tug-of-war manner to manipulate cryptocurrency prices.
[Turnover Rate] Refers to the frequency of buying and selling a certain cryptocurrency in the market within a certain period. It is one of the main indicators for evaluating the liquidity of a cryptocurrency.
[Market Manipulator] Refers to traders or large holders with substantial financial strength who can profoundly influence price trends. Market manipulators typically use methods like market support, control, cross-trading, and aggressive selling to control cryptocurrency market prices. Due to their significant influence on price trends, phrases like 'manipulators cutting leeks' and 'killing dog manipulators' have emerged.
[Market Manipulator] Refers to individuals profiting by manipulating the market. Market manipulators generally earn from retail investors' money, hence retail investors refer to manipulators as market manipulators.
Supplement
Cryptocurrency Circle: The natural circle formed by cryptocurrency players.
Big Cake: A nickname for Bitcoin (BTC).
Auntie: Similar to 'Ethereum', a homophonic word for 'Ethereum', often used in various pyramid scheme communities.
Market Manipulator: A person who profits by manipulating the market in the cryptocurrency circle, often referred to as a malicious scammer in the cryptocurrency circle.
All In: Transliteration of 'show hand', refers to putting all your money into the cryptocurrency market or a specific coin.
DDVP: An organic phosphorus pesticide, a tool for rights protection in the cryptocurrency market and a nemesis for exchanges.
Waterfall: Describes a large drop in coin prices, like a waterfall.
Rebound: When the coin price declines, it rebounds due to having fallen too quickly.
Consolidation (Sideways): The price fluctuation range is small, and the coin price is stable, with the highest price not differing much from the lowest price.
Slow Decline: Coin prices slowly decline.
Pullback: In a bullish market, the strong rise in coin prices may lead to a temporary decline, termed a pullback. The drop is smaller than the rise.
Private Placement: A way to invest in cryptocurrency projects, and it is also the best way for cryptocurrency project founders to raise funds for platform operations.
Locking Position: Generally refers to an investor opening a new position in the opposite direction when the market shows a trend contrary to their operation after buying and selling contracts, also known as hedging or lock order, even whimsically called butterfly flying double.
Analysis of the entire financing process of first-level market projects in the cryptocurrency circle: Seed round, Angel round, Private placement round, Public offering round!
Seed round: Refers to the earliest stage of financing. While most startups rely on funds from their founders or close relatives and friends, some companies will seek third-party 'seed financing,' which is a form of financing conducted in the earliest stages.
Angel Round: The angel round, referring to angel investment, is when an individual invests to assist entrepreneurs with specialized skills or unique concepts who lack their own funds, taking on high risks and enjoying high returns after successful entrepreneurship, or it can refer to informal investors or non-formal venture capital institutions making a one-time early investment in original project ideas or small startups. Angel investment is a special form of venture capital.
Private placement round: Private placement refers to the act of raising funds from a specific group of people, as opposed to public offerings which target a wide audience. Public offerings involve raising funds from an unspecified large crowd, like bank-sold funds; private placements must not advertise publicly.
Public offering round: Also refers to the ICO stage, generally not lasting too long, and providing different discounts across several rounds. It mainly consists of two steps:
1. An institution claims to be researching blockchain technology, with transferable tokens embedded in public chains.
2. Investors exchange mainstream coins or platform coins for tokens as a certificate.
First-level market: Refers to tokens that have not yet been listed on exchanges, and the participation price is far below the listing price, which is inherently a low-risk, high-return certificate.
Missing the Boat: After selling virtual currency due to a pessimistic view of the future market, the price rises continuously, and the investor fails to buy back in time, thus missing out on profits.
Slapping Thigh: Describes extreme regret, usually used after making a mistake.
[Arbitrage] Refers to the existence of price differences for the same cryptocurrency across different exchanges. Arbitrage involves buying from one exchange and selling on another to profit from the price difference.
Pulling the plug: A sarcastic remark by users about 'exchange server failures', implying that the exchange deliberately shuts down the server to achieve some undisclosed purpose.
Position: Refers to the ratio of actual investments to actual invested capital.
Full Position: Buying virtual currency with all available funds.
Reducing Position: Selling part of the virtual currency but not all of it.
Heavy Position: Compared to available funds, the share of virtual currency is large.
[Light Position] Compared to available funds and virtual currency, the share of available funds is larger.
Empty Position: Selling all held virtual currency and converting all into funds.
Building Position: Buying virtual currency.
[Supplementing Position] Buying virtual currency in batches, e.g., first buying 1 BTC, then buying another 1 BTC.
Full Position: Buying all virtual currency with all available funds at once.
Take Profit: Selling the held virtual currency after achieving a certain profit to secure the gains.
Stop Loss: Selling the held virtual currency after incurring a certain level of loss to prevent further loss from expanding.
Bull Market: Prices continue to rise, and the outlook is optimistic.
Bear Market: Prices continue to decline, and the outlook is bleak.
Bullish (Going Long): The buyer believes that the coin price will rise in the future, buys coins, and sells them at a high price after the price rises to profit.
[Bearish (Going Short)] Seller, believes the coin price will fall in the future, sells coins held (or borrows coins from the trading platform), and buys them back at a lower price to profit.
Cutting Losses: After buying virtual currency, if the price drops, selling to avoid further loss. Or borrowing coins to short, but if the price rises, buying back at a loss.
Stuck: Expecting the coin price to rise, but after buying, the price drops; or expecting the price to fall, but after selling, the price rises.
Breaking Free: After buying virtual currency, if the price drops causing a temporary accounting loss, but later the price rebounds, turning losses into gains.
Inducing Long: The coin price has been consolidating for a long time, the possibility of a decline is high, most shorts have sold their virtual currencies, and suddenly the shorts pull the price up, inducing the longs to believe that the price will rise, causing them to buy, only for the shorts to suppress the price and trap the longs.
Inducing Short: After the bullish buys virtual currency, they purposely suppress the price, leading the bears to believe that the price will drop, prompting them to sell, resulting in falling into a trap set for the bulls.
Overbought: The coin price continues to rise to a certain height, and buying power is basically exhausted, indicating that the price is about to drop.
Oversold: The coin price continues to drop to a certain low point, with selling power generally exhausted, indicating that the price is about to rebound.
Swing Trading: Refers to the investment method where participants buy at high prices and sell at low prices in the cryptocurrency market. This operation method is an effective approach tailored to the current fluctuating characteristics of the cryptocurrency market, allowing for effective risk avoidance, preservation of capital strength, and cultivation of market sensitivity.
Hash Rate: Simply put, it is a function that compresses a message of arbitrary length into a fixed-length message digest. The higher the computing power, the higher the hash value and the faster the efficiency.
Hash Rate: Assume mining is like solving an equation, and only by substituting each integer can it be solved. The hash rate is the speed at which data is processed per second. The higher the computing power, the higher the hash value and the faster the efficiency.
Mining: At regular intervals, the Bitcoin system generates a random code at system nodes, and all computers on the internet can search for this code. Whoever finds this code produces a block and receives a Bitcoin reward; the creator of this block is the miner, and this process is called mining.
Mining Pool: An automated mining platform allowing miners to contribute their computing power to mine blocks together, receive block rewards, and distribute profits based on their contribution of computing power (i.e., miners join the pool—provide computing power—earn profits). This enables miners to obtain a stable, continuous income rather than relying on the small probability of receiving a Bitcoin reward from mining a block once.
Simply put, everyone works together to mine a piece of gold mine, and after digging out a piece of gold, it is distributed based on the progress of the workers.
Order Placement: Refers to entering the price you wish to buy or sell when trading on a platform (this price is set by yourself), then submitting it as an order, which will create an order. Once your cryptocurrency reaches the price you want to buy or sell, it will be executed automatically.
Market Order: A market order is an instruction to buy or sell a specified quantity of futures contracts at the best available price in the market at that moment.
Limit Order: This is where you specify the price at which you want to buy or sell and submit this price to the system for execution, while also specifying a deadline for the order; canceling an order means you are canceling an already submitted order.
Hedging: Refers to simultaneously conducting two trades that are related to the market, in opposite directions, with equivalent quantities, offsetting profits and losses.
Leverage Trading: As the name suggests, it involves using a small amount of capital to invest multiple times the original amount in order to expect a return that is several times the volatility of the investment target, or to incur losses.
Limit Trading: Investors can set buy prices below the market price or sell prices above the market price. When the market price fluctuates to the set price, it is executed. When the set price deviates significantly from the market price, it may result in failure to execute.
Market Order: Transactions conducted at the current market price. To some extent, it can ensure that investors' buy and sell orders are executed in a timely manner. However, at the same time, investors cannot predict their transaction prices before placing a market order, which carries a certain level of uncertainty. Generally speaking, the more volatile the market, the greater the uncertainty risk of the execution price in market transactions.
Basic principle of transactions: Price priority, time priority. A higher buy price takes precedence over a lower buy price for execution, while a lower sell price takes precedence over a higher sell price for execution. If the commission prices are the same, the order with an earlier listing time takes precedence over the one listed later.
ICO: Initial Coin Offering, the first issuance of tokens, derived from the IPO concept in the stock market, is the act of initially issuing tokens for blockchain projects to raise Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other universal cryptocurrencies.
Candy: Candy refers to the digital currencies distributed for free to users when various digital currencies are just issued at ICO, which is a way for virtual currency project issuers to create momentum and publicity for the project.
Airdrop: Airdrops are currently a very popular cryptocurrency marketing method, most of which are obtained for free. In order to let potential investors and cryptocurrency enthusiasts receive information related to the tokens, the token team often conducts airdrops.
Breaking Issue: Breaking refers to falling below, and issue refers to the issue price of digital currency. In the cryptocurrency circle, breaking issue refers to a certain digital currency falling below its issuance price.
Token: Usually translated as a certificate. Token is one of the important concepts in blockchain, and its more widely known name is 'cryptocurrency'.
DEX: Decentralized Exchange.
HODL: It is 'hodl' not 'hold', meaning 'Hold on for dear life', indicating that this coin has great potential and will rise significantly in the future.
FOMO: Fear of Missing Out, refers to those who have not yet entered the market fearing that others will profit while they miss out.
ATH: All Time High, the highest price in history.
