The vocabulary problem
Crypto has developed a large and fast-evolving body of jargon — a mix of finance terms, protocol names, and internet slang that hardened into technical vocabulary. This glossary covers the terms you'll actually meet reading market commentary or trading, grouped by topic, with links to the full guides where a term deserves more than a definition.
Price and market structure
- Kimchi premium — the gap between crypto prices on South Korean exchanges and global venues; a closely watched Korean demand gauge. Full story in the kimchi premium guide.
- Kimchi discount / reverse premium — the same gap when Korean prices trade below global ones.
- Bull / bear market — sustained rising / falling markets.
- Ranging (sideways) — price oscillating in a band with no sustained direction.
- Support / resistance — price zones where declines stall / rallies fail. See support and resistance.
- ATH — all-time high.
Orders and execution
- Market order — fills immediately at the best available price.
- Limit order — fills only at your chosen price or better.
- Stop-loss — a pre-placed order that exits automatically at your loss limit.
- Order book — the ladder of resting buy and sell orders at each price.
- Slippage — the gap between expected and actual fill price.
- Liquidity — how much size a market absorbs without moving the price. More in order types.
Futures and leverage
- Long / short — positions that profit from rising / falling prices.
- Leverage — controlling a position larger than your capital (10x = ten times).
- Liquidation — forced closure of a leveraged position when losses exhaust its margin. See liquidation data.
- Funding rate — the periodic payment between long and short positions designed to keep perpetual futures prices aligned with spot. See funding rates.
- Long/short ratio — the balance of long vs short positioning. See the long/short ratio guide.
- Open interest (OI) — total outstanding futures positions; the market's leverage footprint.
- Perp (perpetual future) — a futures contract with no expiry; crypto's dominant derivative. See futures trading.
Analysis
- RSI — momentum oscillator (0–100); above 70 reads overbought, below 30 oversold.
- MACD — trend-shift indicator built from moving average differences. Both covered in RSI & MACD.
- Moving average (MA) — average price over N periods, drawn as a line; 20, 50 and 200 are the widely watched ones.
- Bitcoin dominance (BTC.D) — Bitcoin's share of total crypto market cap. See Bitcoin dominance.
- Altseason — a stretch where altcoins broadly outperform Bitcoin.
- Fear & Greed Index — composite sentiment gauge from 0 (fear) to 100 (greed). See the index guide.
- Divergence — price and an indicator disagreeing (new price high, lower indicator high) — often an exhaustion hint.
Culture and psychology
- HODL — crypto slang for holding an asset rather than selling; born as a typo of "hold" and permanently adopted.
- FOMO — fear of missing out; buying because price is running.
- FUD — fear, uncertainty and doubt; negative sentiment or rumor-mongering.
- Whale — a holder large enough to move markets.
- Diamond hands / paper hands — holding through pain / selling at the first wobble.
- Averaging down — buying more after a decline to lower the average entry price.
- Dollar-cost averaging (DCA) — investing fixed amounts at regular intervals regardless of price; distinct from averaging down. The psychology behind these terms: trading psychology.
Tokens and chains
- Coin vs token — a coin runs on its own blockchain (BTC, ETH); a token is issued on top of another chain (USDT, UNI).
- Stablecoin — a token pegged to a fiat currency, usually the dollar (USDT, USDC).
- Staking — locking coins to secure a proof-of-stake network for rewards. See staking.
- DeFi — financial services built from smart contracts instead of intermediaries. See DeFi.
- Gas — the fee paid to execute a blockchain transaction; varies with network congestion.
- Airdrop — free token distribution to qualifying wallets — and a favorite disguise for scams.
- NFT — a token representing a unique asset rather than an interchangeable unit.
- Seed phrase — the 12–24 word master backup of a wallet; whoever has it, owns the funds. See wallets.
New to all of it? The beginner's guide puts these pieces in order.