The cryptocurrency world took the mainstream media by storm in late 2017. All of a sudden, market capitalizations for digital assets skyrocketed. Then price volatility took hold. Either way, it remains a constant topic of conversation and it isnt going anywhere soon. Given how often people are talking about cryptocurrency, to someone unfamiliar with the industry many of the words look eerily familiar. Suddenly the news is talking about gas, whales, tokens, or wallets but none of it is in the way you were expecting. While there are many key investment terms you should pay attention to if you want to buy cryptocurrencies - and a dizzying number of acronyms invented by the cryptocurrency world - here are the top 10 words that got a new definition once Bitcoin hit the mainstream.
What it meant before cryptocurrency: a large aquatic mammal of multiple varieties. Also known as Free Willy to some people.
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What it means in the cryptocurrency world: a large investor with the power to put a lot of money into one cryptocurrency - so much so that they cause major cryptocurrency market movements and can significantly alter the price of that coin just via their investment.
What it meant before cryptocurrency: getting precious metals and other goods out of the ground. What it means in the cryptocurrency world: the process of creating new cryptocurrency coins. Whether proof of stake or proof of work, mining is the process of using computing power to solve a cryptographic hash in order to create new coins. The coin, though, is actually just the reward. The actual function of mining (solving the cryptographic hash) is to maintain and verify transactions on the blockchain so that the cryptocurrency world can remain decentralized. In centralized transactions through a bank, for example, the bank takes the responsibility of verifying all the transactions. The bank spends resources to track the value of your account and the value you spend, ensuring that you dont spend more money than you have access to. Many banks charge fees for their accounts, which in theory provide the resources for the bank to afford you the security that someone sending you money actually has the money they claim to have in their accounts. The cryptocurrency world, on the other hand, has no central bank to verify everyones accounts. Instead, the transaction is sent out into the community and everyone uses computing power to connect the private key of the account holder with the transaction key for the specific transaction. The miner who solves the equation first is rewarded with a fresh, new coin.
What it meant before cryptocurrency: a utensil that you use to pick solid foods up off your plate or, colloquially, a split in a pathway (i.e fork in the road).What it means in the cryptocurrency world: taking inspiration from the fork in the road definition, a fork in cryptocurrency is when the team behind a coin, or a group of open source developers, change the technology behind a specific coin - Bitcoin, for instance. This can either be a hard fork - when the new set becomes a new coin unto itself (for example, Bitcoin hard forked and created Bitcoin Cash) or a soft fork, when the old nodes on the blockchain can interact with the fork if theres sufficient hash power. Forks happen because the team wants to make fundamental alterations to the coins blockchain structure or the developer community is dissatisfied with a coin. The reasons for these forks are numerous - from scaling, to speed of transactions, to personal preference - and each fork is a bit different. When a cryptocurrency fork occurs, one of three things happens:
What it meant before cryptocurrency: the place where you hold your money. You carry it in your pocket usually (or a purse), and it may or may not have a change pocket, card slots, and a place for cash.What it means in the cryptocurrency world: the place where you hold your digital currency. Except it gets a bit more complicated than that. There are many different types of cryptocurrency wallets. Each - whether hot, cold, physical, or online - do different things and balance convenience and security (which is a lot like a wallet versus a bank account or safe-deposit box for fiat currencies). Much like the wallet world for fiat currencies and cards, the cryptocurrency world has many different brands of wallets.
What it meant before cryptocurrency: a method of getting food to deserted or unsafe areas through dropping them from airplanes flying above, hooked up to parachutes for a safe landing. What it means in the cryptocurrency world: Airdrops are an alternative method of token distribution to mining and public token sales and are similar to a prize giveaway from a brand. Projects issue airdrops as a way of getting their coins or tokens into the hands of the community so that users can then begin spending, trading, and interacting with the currencys economy. For the most part, the cryptocurrency airdrop trend airdrops focuses on cultivating new users, rewarding existing holders, or a hybrid of the two.
What it meant before cryptocurrency: a section of a town or a building materialWhat it means in the cryptocurrency world: a block is a data container - all it does is hold the data on the blockchain. This means that it did keep a part of the building material old definition of the word because the data that is held within a block is what makes up foundation and builds up the blockchain structure. A block on the blockchain is also similar to a block of a city in the sense that both have addresses and names - except instead of Main Block or King Block or Wall Block, blocks on the blockchain are identified via their cryptographic hash.
What it meant before cryptocurrency: either a non-liquid state thing (water eventually turns into gas when heated) or, colloquially, short for gasoline, the fuel which makes most cars today run (Note: this is typically called Petrol in Europe). What it means in the cryptocurrency world: for Ethereum, this currently takes the form of a unit known as gas, which is used to determine the fee of each transaction that occurs on the Ethereum network.NEOs PoS system rewards users for holding NEO through giving them a secondary currency known as GAS. The role of GAS in the NEOs platform is to permit transactions, as it serves as a way of allowing users to pay for various fees.
What it meant before cryptocurrency: either a method of cooking breakfast potatoes (hash browns, corn beef hash) or to settle a matter (to hash it out).
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What it means in the cryptocurrency world: a hash contains securely hidden, or cryptographically encrypted, transaction data on a blockchain and is the key to blockchain construction and technology.A hash function is a computer-based algorithm or mathematical process that, when applied to digital data creates a hash output, or hash. The hash function turns transaction and user data into the encrypted hashes that make up a blockchain.
What it meant before cryptocurrency: a colloquialism for showing someone your bare butt. What it means in the cryptocurrency world: Mooning refers to when the price of a digital asset skyrockets. Users often ask (albeit mockingly) when they can expect the price of their held digital asset to moon.
What it meant before cryptocurrency: Taking its name from the corporate world, the identity of being a corporate shill implies you only do things for the benefit of a company - and that you lack your own moral compass or personality. What it means in the cryptocurrency world: A shill is a user or entity that aims to bolster the status and value of a targeted digital currency. Shills are often paid to promote a digital currency or have a significant stake. Shills typically use guerilla tactics to blend in as a genuine user and promote the features or prospects of a coin without others realizing their true intentions.
What it meant before cryptocurrency: either a small gesture (i.e. token of appreciation) or a specific-purpose coin (i.e. a subway token).What it means in the cryptocurrency world: a new structure of cryptocurrency. A token acts much like a stock, representing a certain piece of any asset that is fungible (a structure that is interchangeable; one stock option in a company is the same as any other stock option in that company). In this way, it takes some definition from the idea of a specific-use coin like a subway token. The difference is that when something becomes tokenized, it becomes theoretically trade-able across the board for any other token without the need to barter. For instance, if you tried to sell your subway tokens you may have to negotiate their value against another asset - for instance, a sandwich you want. If both were tokenized and had market-assigned value, then you could easily trade your tokenized subway coin for a token representing the sandwich on a token exchange.
Short for Lamborghini, Lambo is a term that has circulated in digital currency conversations since 2014. It refers to digital currency investors using their earnings to purchase luxury cars as a symbol of investment success. https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/945988644661207040Its a bonus word since it has not really been redefined - Lambo has always been short for Lamborghini. However, the social understanding of the word was changed by the cryptocurrency world to be about luxury cars in general, not just the one type of car.
While digital currency terms may seem alienating at first glance, many are easy to grasp with the right explanation. Further, many redefinitions are actually just applying the word to its closest cryptocurrency counterpart - wallet is a great example of that. Despite many of these terms having comical origins, they are indicative of the social nature of the digital currency movement. Additionally, these terms illustrate not only the relationship between digital assets and traditional assets, but also the fact that new language had to be created to describe the unprecedented arrival of digital currencies. Jack Filiba contributed to this piece
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