Bitcoin Surges as Trump Reelection Odds Skyrocket
What Terms Do Investors Commonly Use?
Following the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, the price of Bitcoin has surged. This is due to the increased likelihood of Trump, who has positioned himself as a pro-cryptocurrency presidential candidate, returning to the White House. On Wall Street, opinions on cryptocurrencies are sharply divided between optimism and pessimism, but since the approval of related spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has been granted by U.S. securities regulators starting this year, it is clear that cryptocurrencies are being integrated into the formal financial market system. Amid this, on the 15th (local time), Bloomberg reported on commonly used terms among cryptocurrency investors.
Cryptocurrency Terms ‘A to Z’
Airdrop: Refers to the act of distributing cryptocurrencies for free. Similar to how a clerk might hand out some new samples at an offline store, new cryptocurrency issuers sometimes hold airdrop events to attract investor interest.
Aped in: Refers to investing a significant amount in cryptocurrency without sufficient market research. This often stems from the fear of missing out on a bull market, known as the ‘FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) phenomenon.’
Left curve: Investors who do not know much about cryptocurrency. Bloomberg reported that sometimes these investors achieve great results in crypto investments, leading seasoned investors to have a sense of respect for them.
Bitcoin maximalists: Investors who believe Bitcoin is the only valuable cryptocurrency. Despite concerns about Bitcoin’s extreme price volatility, they invest with this vision. Opponents are called noemies.
Hodl: An internet meme term encouraging holding onto cryptocurrency rather than selling it. It originated in 2013 from a participant’s typo of the word ‘hold’ on the BitcoinTalk forum.
Crypto bridges: Software platforms that connect different blockchain networks. They are important because they facilitate real-time exchanges between cryptocurrencies.
Crypto winter: A term referring to a cryptocurrency market downturn, first used when the market shrank by up to 88% in 2018. The opposite term is crypto spring.
Cold storage · Hot wallet: Cold storage refers to offline storage where cryptocurrencies cannot be withdrawn immediately, while hot wallets are online storage, such as exchanges, where immediate withdrawal is possible. Generally, it is harder to steal cryptocurrencies stored in cold storage.
Dapp: An app that operates based on a decentralized blockchain platform. Unlike traditional apps that store all information in a central database, dapps store information on the blockchain, providing transparency.
Diamond hands: The act of not selling cryptocurrency despite a market crash, believing in a price increase. This term is often used with diamond and hand emojis on U.S. communities like Reddit.
Gas: A small fee paid to miners for blockchain transactions. The more complex the miner’s computational work, the higher the fee.
Halving: The reduction by half of the rewards miners receive for cryptocurrency mining. Bitcoin, for example, is designed to undergo halving every four years to maintain scarcity, with the fourth halving applied last April. Halving is widely analyzed as a driver of long-term cryptocurrency price increases.
Memecoins: Cryptocurrencies created for fun, unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, which are built on specific technical designs. An example is Dogecoin, featuring the Japanese Shiba Inu dog. When Tesla CEO Elon Musk praised Dogecoin on social media in 2021, its price surged dramatically. According to CoinMarketCap, the market value of memecoins surpassed $50 billion last March.
Non-fungible token (NFT): Virtual tokens that prove ownership of digital assets using blockchain technology. The NFT market peaked in 2022.
Stablecoin: Cryptocurrencies issued with a fixed value to compensate for the high volatility of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Terra and Luna, which shook the cryptocurrency market with a major crash in 2022, are representative examples. The issuer, Kwon Do-hyung, began living as a fugitive after causing massive losses to investors worldwide and was arrested in Montenegro last March, where he remains detained as extradition proceedings continue.
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