DYOR HODL KYC MOON POS POW RIG - Crypto 101 Terminologies

Hello frens!

Are you guys seeing/hearing any crypto related news lately at all??

Bitcoin is breaking 3 months resistance of $50k and headed to new ATH (All time high) so are other alts led by eth, ada and many more!

well, you may have heard some words that they use and thinking what they mean 🤔
That's why today I want to share some of those crypto terms often used when they talk about crypto.

I will only touch most-heard ones since there are tons more, but if I get enough requests, then I will be happy to come back for some updates :) 
(or you could simply add it on the comment below, so others can learn it from you also!)

Just by quickly reading this, you will sound like a "somewhat expert" in the space🤓

These are the terms I cover and other contents here:

1. Alts
2. Bitcoin
3. Blockchain
4. Bearish
5. Bullish
6. DeFi
7. DEX
8. DYOR
9. FOMO
10. FUD
11. Gas
12. Hodl
13. KYC
14. Moon
15. Pump and Dump
16. PoS
17. PoW
18. Rig
19. Whale
20. Staking
21. Satoshi Nakamoto

⚠️Before jumping into the contents, I would need to share some disclaimer. Everything on this article is educational purpose only and not a financial advice so, when you decide to invest into some crypto, please Do your own research. With that out of the way, Let's dive in, Shall we?

1. ALTS (Altcoins)

・Alt coins are alternative coins which are crypto coins and/or tokens that are NOT Bitcoin. The biggest Alt coin by the market cap is Ether or Ethereum right after Bitcoin, and there are 11,383 and counting number of alts exist at the time of writing. Why there are so many you asked? well, they all have different reasons, purposes for its existence. Some are used as an utility for their platform, some are privacy focused and some are just for fun🙌

2. BITCOIN

・Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency which introduce the blockchain technology to modern world. A decentralized peer to peer digital cash system. It is still relatively new, yet already creating more than $2T market capitalization leading all other cryptos together and it is growing very fast. It is referred to as "Digital Gold" as it has Maximum Value of 21,000,000 which is set coded and no one can change. For that reason, it is limited resource that the world wants to own. as a result, Bitcoin is traded around $48,000 per coin at the time of writing and had ATH of approximately $64,000.

3. BLOCKCHAIN

・Blockchain is a distributed public ledger in short. Think of it as a database which is managed by computers around the world decentralized manner meaning not like traditional databases which are managed by the big tech companies and it is temperable and mutable. Blockchain databases are immutable and not temperable so one the data is sent to the group of blocks that are connected one another, it is there forever and no one can change at the same time, anybody can see it publicly.  Since all the data sent to blockchain is encrypted and distributed computers around the word to keep record up to date, it is nearly impossibly to beak or hack. because the hack would have to attack all nodes(computers) which operate transactions at the same time and there are literally thousands of nodes if not millions are there, so yeah.

4. BEARISH

・Bearish is a term used when they talk about crypto market is downtrend. It is not only used for crypto market, but also stock exchange market and similar markets. I think it is because the shape of its chart looks like a bear facing to the right on four paws and it is downward from its shoulder or back to the nose. When the market is bearish, exchange volumes are relatively low and people have less excitement on the mark. Also referred to as "Winter market" (a bear getting ready to hibernation)

5. BULLISH

・Bullish is the opposite from bearish, and uptrend in the markets so people are relatively happier when they talk about bullish. it is also used not only for crypto markets but also other markets such as stocks and similar ones.

Also when someone has huge support or belief on certain projects or coins/tokens, the term is used to describe as "I am bullish on Bitcoin and Eth" for example. that means this person is betting/putting investment on those projects because they believe in those projects to succeed.

6. DeFi

・DeFi is sort of an acronym for Decentralized Finance. Again there are no middle man to deal with your financial needs such as lending, borrowing and getting much higher APY (annual percentage yield). Basically all the stuff we do with banks currently could be replaced with this decentralized manner and no need for banks 👋 Be our own bank is totally AWESOME!😇 by lending your idle crypto assets, you get to earn some interests which are normally ripped off by traditional banks aka mafia. There are plenty of platforms and services available out there already. so check them out!

7. DEX

・DEX is an abbreviation for Decentralized Exchange. Traditional centralized exchange is called CEX and those are co-exist at this moment, but I would imagine no need for CEX since with this new technology "blockchain" allows us to remove any mediators for any transactions. We can do it  peer to peer directly for a lot lower fees and faster. The biggest difference between DEX and CEX is that you control all of your funds on former vs they control your funds on latter. It sounds great at the same time, remember that you own responsibilities as well. that means whatever happens to your wallet or funds, there are no one to ask for help whereas with CEX, it depends on the case but they could help you with say finding your missing funds and other customer service type of help. With DEX, some platforms have customer support, but if you control the private key, then they cannot access to do with your cryptos.

8. DYOR

・Do Your Own Research. the crypto industry is still relatively new and there are a lot of bad actors who try to take advantage of this phenomenon by scamming users. Since the technology is new, not many people are sophisticated enough to see the alert and fall for it. So before investing your money to any cryptos, please Do You Own Research 🧐

9. FOMO

・Fear Of Missing Out is commonly used in crypto space also. Because everything is new and looks shiny to investors or crypto enthusiasts, when we see candle sticks or charts are going upward pretty quick (which happens A LOT in crypto), people rash to buy the coins/tokens, then soon after it starts crash(not all but some). There are people intentionally coordinate to trick many people into buying sh*tcoins and take your money and leave the market/project. We will cover this P&D more later at 15 of this list.

10. FUD

・Fear Uncertainty Doubt. We all have such state in our lives and that exists in crypto market. Usually some news spread FUD to intentionally make people believe it is time to sell their holdings so its price drops significantly then here comes those who are waiting for the moment to buy the dip. Yes some source is more reliable than others but then again, before following the crowd, please DYOR!

11. GAS

・This is pretty notorious one especially talking about ETH network fee. By design, it gets pretty high when a lot of people are transacting in the ethereum network sending and receiving cryptos/tokens and/or interacting with smart contract on the ethereum blackchain. This is especially noticeable when you are deal with DeFi or DEX using your own hot, cold wallets to interact with. so just be aware of that. You can check the current ETH gas fee on many sites such as CoinMarketCap.com so I would suggest to check before the transaction.

12. HODL

・This simply is typo of "Hold" to begin with. Now that represents a crypto specific term and became very popular among crypto communities when they talk about just holding the crypto instead of selling it when it is not performing well. So When they say "I just HODL" just means they are strong believer of the underlying assets.

13. KYC

・KYC stands for Know Your Customer. It is basically identity verification process which many financial institutions require its users. If you are required, then you would need to give your information such as Name, Address, Email address, Phone number, Driver License or Passport and sometime your selfies. Personally I am not a fan of this so I would avoid when possible. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of platforms especially DEX or DeFi even CEX offer NO KYC which is great! but when dealing with CEX or centralized service, just be aware that they could change their policy whenever they feel like it. so people are moving towards decentralization more and more real quick. It is possible thanks to Blockchain technology. 🙏🏻

14. MOON

・To the moon or Mooning is describing the underlying assets are about to skyrocket or (wishing to do so🚀). So all crypto believers and hodlers especially early adaptors or buyers of some cryptos spread the word to encourage others to join the trip to the moon🚀 which obviously means the price of the asset skyrockets and you make so much money in short time (a lot of times in crypto). At the same time, this is one of biggest reasons why there is scam project exist to trick people which leads to the next one Pump and Dump. 

15. PUMP & DUMP

・Pump and Dump scheme is actually nothing new. This exists since any exchange markets started. You could even see in Stock market and such, but it is extremely common in crypto space. How this thing works is that before launching a new project ICO or IDO or basically initial coin offerings to the public, they get this hype out of social media accounts such as twitter, telegram, facebook group, reddit, discord and more so those who are new to the space (or everyone really) try to catch "one in a lifetime opportunity" to earn so much in short period of time! Scammers take advantage of that mentality and a lot of times even pay to some celebrities or influencers to promote their tokens to pump it, then once many people invest in the asset, they dump hug chunk or all of their holdings and rest of investors suffer from losing so much money... So again DYOR and be aware of such scheme⚠️

16. POS (Proof of Stake)

・Proof of Stake is a consensus mechanism used in some blockchain networks. Bitcoin started with PoW or proof of work to facilitate transactions on chain, but PoS is used and projects that are using this type of consensus are increasing more and more. Not only energy efficient, but also hodlers could earn additional cryptos by just hodling the assets and stake it. APY or APR could vary depending on the platforms which offer, they are 1% ~ 100% or sometimes even more! As opposed to the PoW consensus networks, you as a hodler are the validator for the transactions so if you want to earn passive income, the assets with PoS are very much recommended💰 and being the validator does not mean it requires some work on your end! so simply earn possibly. There are 2 types of PoS. One is pure PoS and the other one is delegated PoS. The pure one is directly earn from your own wallet and with the other one, you need to find and choose delegators to stake your assets. DYOR on that also 🤑

17. POW (Proof of Work)

・Proof of Work consensus is used for a lot of crypto transactions as a matter of fact, Bitcoin introduced this so that whoever runs a node get reward from working on everyone's transactions and it is called "mining". How blockchain transactions work is that instead of using mediators like banks it connects directly peer to peer, but the reason why we use bank is for trust matter and for that reason, blockchain miners (computers around the world) validate each transaction before push it to the block. Because of this, Bitcoin network is extremely secure. So whoever runs this node gets incentives. Only con is this consume electricity. So if you are place where electricity costs a lot, then not a good idea to run/mine cryptos. (Still possible just a matter of whether or not profitable)

18. RIG

・So a rig is referred to the crypto mining computer. There are many types that you can find on internet and you could purchase those easily especially after China Crackdown in May this year 2021, a lot of Chinese miners are selling their mining rigs online. So if you are interesting running nodes and earning money from it, you could try setting up in your garage or somewhere. Types of rig are CPU, GPU and ASIC mining rig. Nowadays you can find Wireless network mining rig which Helium project offer also. DYOR 🤩

19. WHALE

・Whales🐳 are those who hodl big chunk of underlying assets and move the markets in either direction they want. The more decentralized projects are, the less whales to worry about. When whale make the move, the market move either way upward or downward and  that's when bring regular folks like us FOMO and FUD. Somewhat trying to manipulate the market. so if you believe in the projects, coins and tokens, you know what to do. HODL! 🙌

20. STAKING

・Staking is a way to earn passive income with your own assets. As I mentioned at PoS section of this article, crypto networks run on PoS consensus protocol, you have option to stake your assets. It depends on where you stake your assets, it gives you pretty good APY / APR comparing with traditional banks (which is pretty much nothing). Many platform both CEX and DEX or even hot wallets and cold wallets offer decent rewards on staking the assets. so if you are interested in, I could share my personal choice of platforms to stake, but as always I suggest DYOR. If you want to know the suggestion, please ask me on the comment down below, so I would respond to that 🤓

21. SATOSHI NAKAMOTO

・Last but surely not least. Satoshi Nakamoto is the creator of the blockchain technology as well as the first cryptocurrency Bitcoin back in 2008 ish published bitcoin white paper in 2009 in response to the financial crisis in 2008. Thank you Satoshi!!! so much for bringing this amazing technology to people on earth. After he published the white paper and confirmed that bitcoin and blockchain network is working as expected, he has left the project and completely disappeared. Until this day, we still don't know who this is which is why bitcoin and blockchain are more scarce also. No one can stop this and the change is inevitable. Hugely positive way in my opinion. So one day I will meet Satoshi and thank him/her for this awesome creation that solve so much and many aspects of our lives' problems😇

Conclusion

It was a lot to learn and digest but I bet it would be worth it to learn early and join this fantastic journey to witness the world changing 🤩 To me everything has two sides and this technology gives us hope and bright future as oppose to the other dark side which a lot of people are somewhat force to focus on. Personally I would like the bright side, so I would stick with it and keep stacking more cryptos and earning by staking each day💰
Dollar is losing its value each year, so the sooner the better to switch your savings to crypto assets because more business and projects are coming up with ways to integrate cryptos into our daily activities and only a matter of time we do not need banks, fiat currencies and mediators or someone between. And we the people govern and keep the control with our own assets and live freely and happily doing purely what we love to do with our limited time = life. Hope you join it soon and let's see the change together 🙌

Now I want to hear your opinion (hopefully positive ones). so please add some comments below 💬

Thank you for reading! Let's HODL to the Moon 🚀 🌝