IYKYK (IF YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW)

Every online community develops its own lingo. Crypto devotees (people with “cryptosis”) have upped the game by using lighthearted slang to influence virtual currency values, con fellow investors, poke at “whales”—traders so big that their individual transactions can rock the market—and feather their own nests.

HODL

A guy on a message board once misspelled “hold” when advising netizens to hang on to a digital asset, and it’s been an inside joke ever since— though hodl is sometimes aptly misinterpreted as meaning “Hold On for Dear Life.”

FUD

“Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt” can be deployed strategically to create bad vibes around an emerging coin . . . or it can be a sassy dig at those who think the coin isn’t ready for a trip upwards in the trendline, also known as “to the moon” (signified by a ).

BTD

“Buy The Dip” (or BTFD, if you’re serious: “Buy The F--king Dip”): that’s the advice investors will give each other when cryptocurrency values are at a low point. If the market rallies, you’ll make a bigger profit. If it doesn’t, you’re a “bagholder”— stuck with a bag of currency that you can only sell at a loss.

PUMP AND DUMP

Traders invest in a coin when it’s cheap, causing the price to rise—or pumping it up—then dump it when prices reach a certain level, causing a collapse (and causing the poor schmoes along for the ride to get “rekt,” or financially wrecked).

FOMO

This is not your older sister’s “Fear Of Missing

Out” on concert ticket presales or college parties. This is an admission that you’ve bought the hype on a breakout performer in the crypto market, and you’re looking to maximize getting in on it early (or to add to that hype). —

Marie-Danielle Smith