Are you a soy boy or a bag holder? Do you have diamond hands?
And are you ready for the Flippening?
As if cryptocurrency isn't confusing enough already, the digital dough has spawned its own language.
Given crypto's history of wild rides, a lot of investors probably have words of their own they'd like to use -- most of which have four letters.
Language is an ever-changing thing, with words and expressions going in and out of fashion with brain-busting speed.
New Tech, New Words
"New technologies are accompanied by new language because they're new; that is, things and processes that never existed before need a place in the vocabulary so that we can talk about them," said Michael Adams, an English professor at the University of Indiana.
"We all adopt technology so easily that we often can't imagine life without it or the words we use to operate and live with the technologies," he said.
Adams noted that "CPU" entered the English language in 1962, “hard drive” in 1983, “app” in 1987, “URL” in 1992, and “thumb drive” in 2002.
"We use such words without a second thought because we take them for granted just as we take computers for granted," he said, "but all of these words followed more or less immediately on development of the technologies they represent."
"New technologies often come with new terms," said Anne Curzan, dean of Literature, Science, and the Arts at the University of Michigan. "Often we need new words to talk about new things, and sometimes because they inspire lexical creativity in the space. And sometimes we need a new word to talk about the old technology because of the new technology."
These are called "retronyms", she said, and examples include "landline", "acoustic guitar", and "silent films".
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Look It Up
Merriam-Webster recently said it had added 370 new words to the dictionary for September, including "altcoin," which is defined as various cryptocurrencies considered alternatives to established cryptos -- particularly bitcoin.
The people at Uphold sat down and analyzed the language used in the volatile crypto sector to list the most unusual terms that investors need to know.
The digital trading platform came up with a cryptionary -- their term -- that is intended to help the novice navigate through this linguistic netherworld.
Uphold said that the hashtag #cryptoterms has racked up a stunning 537,100 views on TikTok, driving demand with searches for “crypto lingo cheat sheet”, which skyrocketed 256% in the last 12 months.
TikTok has been a source of all kinds of savings and investment talk. FinTok, a sub-community of the short-form video hosting service, offers videos of people sharing financial advice.
Now just about everybody knows HODL, the grandpappy of crypto parlance, which stands for “hold on for dear life” and refers to holding onto cryptocurrency tokens or coins for an extended period of time.
Holding the Bag
"Soy boy" is used to insult someone in the crypto space who can’t handle the dips of the market.
"Bag holder" refers to investors who hold onto digital assets that decrease in value until it is worthless, so it is hardly a compliment.
"Diamond Hands", on the other hand, refers to holding onto an investment no matter the volatility.
"This person is seen to have a high-risk tolerance and won’t sell their digital assets at the first sign of trouble," Uphold said.
"The Flippening" is one of the most controversial topics in the crypto space, Uphold said, as it refers to the possible moment when Ethereum overtakes Bitcoin as the most valuable asset.
And speaking of Ethereum, the Merge, a software update of the Ethereum blockchain, is set for Sept. 15 and it is supposed to be more eco-friendly, more secure, and cheaper for users.
Going Ape
Other crypto terms include "Ape In", a derisive term to describe a person who buys a digital token without much research; and "Bitshaming", which mocks a bitcoin holder for not having a massive value in bitcoin and being rich yet.
"Rekt" is a reduced rendition of "wrecked", where an investor suffers a huge financial loss by a bad investment and is severely damaged by the outcome.
This last might one might hit a little too close to the bone for some crypto investors.
In fact, some of these people might have fallen victim to a "pump and dump", where an individual spreads misleading or false information in order to inflate the price of a new digital asset in the market.
And let's not forget "whale," which denotes crypto holders with disproportionately large amounts of cryptocurrency. Whales can influence the market with their buying and selling power.
