This post will be frequently updated.

I appreciate that many of you may not have any significant prior experience trading, investing or analysing today’s crypto industry. For this reason, I want to clarify relevant terminology before any further discussion of the underlying technology or walking you through detailed market analysis and investment strategies. It is critical that you gain a deep appreciation for all metrics and terminology discussed below:

Altcoin – While Bitcoin is one of the most popular and recognized cryptocurrency, there are thousands of other coins being traded on the market (such as Ethereum, Litecoin, Chainlink, etc). Altcoin is a term used to designate all cryptocurrencies alternative to Bitcoin.

ATH – ATH is the abbreviation of ‘All Time High’ and describes the highest value a cryptocurrency has reached.

Bag holders – A bag holder is someone who has a position in a certain coin, which is not worth as much anymore. Often this is accompanied with the hope that this position will be worth something again.

Bearish Market – This defines a market where there is a clear negative price trend, i.e. price will decrease.

Block – A block is a file in which blockchain data is stored. Each block relates to it’s previous block, making it a chain. This is why it’s called ‘Blockchain’.

Blockchain – An unchangeable record of all blocks in a network – these are stored in chronological order.

Bot – Automated trading software that decides when the best to hold a coin or to sell is known as a bot.

BTFD (Buy the F****** Dip) – When people are selling for no specific reason (maybe FUD), the value will decrease and this should be the perfect time to buy.

Bullish Market – This is term is not exclusive to crypto, but rather to any open-market. It defines a market that has an obvious upwards price trend, i.e. price will increase in the long-term.

Buy wall – Sell wall – When you take a look at the order book, most exchanges will as well provide a graph for the “market depth”. A buy wall is the sum of all the limit orders for buying at the same specific price (green). The sell wall on the other hand is the sum of the selling orders, mostly red.

Consensus – Consensus is reached when all nodes on a network verify that a transaction is valid on the blockchain.

Cryptocurrency – Any form of decentralized digital currency that relies on cryptography for security.

DYOR – It stands for ‘Do your own research’. It is possibly the most important dogma in the cryptocurrency world. It is a quick way of saying that no financial advice is given and you must do your own research before you make an investment.

Fiat – Fiat money relates to all currencies issued by governments. Examples are the Euro, U.S. Dollar and Australian Dollar.

FOMO (Fear of missing out) – This phenomenon is an obsessive phobia of missing an interesting event or a profitable opportunity. This abbreviation basically describes a coin that is hyped, and investors are eager to buy, willing to pay more than the actual value. They overlook weaknesses or doubts in order not to miss a “good” opportunity.

FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) – The idea behind this is that market participants may spread misleading or inaccurate information in order to cause an asset’s price to decline. As you have probably noticed there are lots of negative articles about crypto or Bitcoin in general, FUD describes the outcome of a message.

Fundamental Analysis – Describes the evaluation of stock or coin which measures the intrinsic value of an asset and analysing the factors that could influence its price in the future.

Green Dildo – A green dildo is a common term in the crypto language, meaning massive green candles/price rises.

Going Long — a margin trade where you profit from a price increase.

Going Short — a margin trade where you profit from a price decrease.

Halving – Halving occurs as blocks are mined, essentially cutting the minable reward by half after a certain number of cryptocurrency blocks have been mined.

HODL –  One of the most used abbreviations in crypto is “HODL”. This spelling mistake was once made by someone accidentally or intentionally on a forum. Others refer to it as “Hold On for Dear Life”. Basically, it describes an investor who is holding a certain coin through thick and thin.

ICO – This is the Initial Coin Offering and is similar to a company’s Initial Public Offering (IPO), marking when the company’s shares are first available for public purchase on a stock exchange. Similarly, the ICO marks the point when a coin first becomes available for public purchase. Just like a company with stocks, only a portion of the total coins available are sold to the public.

An ICO is primarily done as a means of generating cash, which is used to fund further development behind the coin (i.e. expand the team of engineers, develop further technology, improve marketing etc.).

Ledgers – A database containing all the details of a transaction, or exchange of assets.

Market Cap – The market cap of a coin, short for market capitalization, refers to the total value of all outstanding coins (i.e. coins currently available on the market).

The market cap is calculated by multiplying the price per coin times the total number of coins currently available for purchase on the open market.

Mining – This is how new coins are created into the Blockchain. You can think of it as ‘printing’ new money and keeping it for yourself. Unfortunately, this process is not a simple matter of printing on paper, you must use your computer to solve very long and complex mathematical equations, in return you can keep the newly mined coins. The speed at which you extract new coins depends on the computational power of your machine, typically supercomputers are used. When a coin is first released mining time is generally quite short. However, there is usually a limited supply of coins available, and therefore it becomes increasingly difficult and complex to mine new coins.

Mining Difficulty – This value determines how long it takes to mine and obtain a new coin.

Moon (Or “to the moon”, “when moon?” “when lambo?”) – Describes that a coin has a strong bullish movement. People who expect a coin to “moon” think that the coin will increase in value. You might have asked yourself, why I selected this featured image and this is the answer to your question. It is a popular innuendo in the crypto world.

Nocoiner – Someone that does not possess any cryptocurrency, is also called a nocoiner.

Nodes – All members of a business or financial institution who can exchange assets are known as nodes.

Pre-mining – This occurs when coins are mined ahead of the public launch. Because of the extremely low difficulty levels, a massive number of coins can be extracted. Usually, this is done by the developers of the coins or a small number of elite miners.

PoD – The Proof of Developer was developed to protect users in case the developers are instigating a scam by releasing a false coin into the open market. This service will identify and guarantee for the legitimacy of the team of creators behind the coin. It is worth noting that many successful coins were released by unknown developers, most famously Bitcoin.

Privacy Coin – A privacy coin is a cryptocurrency that focuses on security and anonymity of the users. Some examples are Pivx, Dash, and Monero. There are several methods to make a transaction anonymous.

Pump and Dump – ‘Pumping’ basically means buying a large amount of crypto (or stocks) in order to artificially increase the price of a specific coin. It’s a form of price manipulation that involves artificially inflating an asset price before selling the assets at a higher price.

Rekt – Shorthand for “wrecked.” Rekt by a coin or getting rekt means that you suffer significant losses.

ROI – ROI is an abbreviation for ‘Return on Investment’. This is an indicator to show the ratio between your initial investment and the return on it. The formula is ((current value – investment) / investment) x 100. Example: if 1 Ether deposit in an ICO total has become worth 1.6 Ether, then the ROI is 60%.

Satoshi – A satoshi (sat) is the smallest amount of bitcoin and is named after the creator Satoshi Nakamoto. It is the eighth decimal place, so 0.00000001 BTC.

Satoshi Nakamoto – Satoshi Nakamoto (my daddy :P) is the alias of the creator of Bitcoin, who wants to remain anonymous. Nobody knows who it is.

Shill – To shill a coin means that people promote a coin in order to increase the public interest in that coin. Usually Youtube or Twitter “experts” are shilling coins due to their wide range of influence.

Shitcoin – A shitcoin is a coin with no intrinsic value. Shitcoins are usually short-term bets to make profits.

Technical Analysis – Technical analysis is a means of examining and predicting price movements in the financial markets, by using historical price charts and market data.

Weak Hand – Having a weak hand means that the investor is selling their coins as soon as the price starts to dip, instead of analysing the situation.

Whale – A whale is a term used to refer to huge players/investors, or institutions, that hold large amounts of digital currencies. If a whale sells a lot of their stake, it can cause the price of a cryptocurrency to dip by flooding supply.