What Does HODL Mean? A Complete Dictionary to Cryptocurrency Lingo

HODL my whales and wait for the moon.

If you’re looking at investing in the highly volatile (and sometimes lucrative) world of cryptocurrency, you’ll find yourself bombarded with a whole bunch of buzz words and acronyms that make no sense.

If you’re asking yourself, “why is everyone talking about whales, fiat and mining?” then you’ve come to the right place.

Here is your complete list to understand all the words used in the crypto world so you can understand what you’re investing in.

And no, this article won’t discuss whales driving Fiat cars into a mine. But that would be so cool, wouldn’t it?

Altcoin: An altcoin refers to all cryptocurrencies that aren’t Bitcoin. It’s a mashup of the words ‘alternative’ and ‘coin’.

ATH: ATH means ‘all-time high’ and is a term used to indicate when a coin has reached its highest ever price.

ATL: ATL means ‘all-time low’. Like ATH except it refers to a coin’s lowest ever price.

Bear Market: A bear market is when the major cryptocurrencies have fallen at least 20 per cent.

Blockchain: A blockchain is a system of recording information that makes it impossible to change or hack. The information is stored in ‘blocks’ that link to one another.

Bull Market: A market where crypto prices are rising and people are buying.

Crypto: Short for cryptocurrency.

DCA: Short for dollar-cost averaging is a strategy of investing by dividing the total amount you want to invest and investing it periodically instead of all at once.

Exchange: An exchange is a platform where you can buy, sell, swap and send crypto.

Fiat: Fiat is money whose value is tied to a government-issued currency. The Australian currency is fiat.

FUD: FUD means 'fear, uncertainty and doubt' in the crypto world and is a strategy used to discredit the validity of cryptocurrencies.

HODL: HODL was a phrase coined in a Reddit forum. A user was encouraging people to hold their coins and don’t sell, but misspelled ‘hold’ and wrote ‘hodl’. Of course, the internet loved it.

Initial coin offering (ICO): This is when a company is looking to raise money to create a new coin. In return for investing money, people get coins.

Mining: Bitcoin and other cryptos are created by solving complex, cryptographic equations with the help of high-powered computers. Solve the equation and you’re rewarded with a coin. This is called mining.

Moon: Moon or mooning (no, not that kind of mooning) is used when people believe a cryptocurrency is going to soon rise in price. The higher it rises, the closer it gets to the moon (metaphorically of course).

Pump and dump: This is when false hype is created about a cryptocurrency causing the price to surge.

Shilling: Shilling is when someone with a large following or influence—like Elon Musk—promotes a coin. Musk does this a lot with Dogecoin.

Staking: Staking is when you lock up your coins to earn rewards.

Wallet: A crypto wallet is an app that allows crypto users to store all their coins in one place. Some people will go as far as to have a hardware wallet (think USB stick).

Whale: Crypto whales are people or companies that who hold a large number of coins of certain cryptocurrencies. We’re not talking about someone who owns $1,000 of Bitcoin. We’re talking about people and companies that own at least $100 million of Bitcoin and other cryptos.