NFT Speak đź’¬
MMC’s Glossary of NFT/Crypto terms
For anyone new to the crypto/NFT space, there’s a lot of new terminology that can at times seem like some sort of secret language. So the MMC has put together a guide to help you decipher a lot of the jargon you’ll be encountering along your journey into the world of NFTs…
10k Project
Refers to the size of the NFT collection. A 10k project has 10,000 unique tokens. While this began as a sort of standard size (with projects like CryptoPunks establishing that trend), it now just refers to this type of project and not the exact number. So a project with 8k or 7k could still be generalized as a 10k type of project.
1/1
“One of One” or one of a kind.
Airdrop
An airdrop is a cryptocurrency or NFT that is sent to your wallet free of charge. These are often given as “rewards” to early adopters and current holders. The promise of future airdrops is also used to incentivize people to hold their NFTs/crypto for the long term, instead of selling quickly for profit. Airdrops are “free” because the receiver pays no gas or even a cost to mint (the sender covers the costs). These are either sent directly to your wallet or require you to connect your wallet to a site where you can “claim” your free airdrop. Lately, most NFT airdrops have been on the Polygon network as the lower fees save the project money for them to use on other aspects of the project while still rewarding the community.
Alpha
Alpha refers to the degree to which a stock or crypto trader has beaten the market over a period of time. Hence the phrase, “Chasing alpha” essentially means chasing excessive gains.
Some projects will have an Alpha channel in their Discord for sharing tips, strategies, and more about potential NFT or crypto moves they think could be lucrative. There are even whole private Discord groups you can join by purchasing a membership (usually their NFT) where members can talk shop and trade tips and leads.
AMA
Stands for “Ask Me Anything.” An AMA session is a text, voice, or video chat where the Team makes themselves available for a period of time for the explicit purpose of delivering updates to the community as well as answering any questions the members may have.
Anon
Short for “anonymous.”
Ape / Ape in
Ape refers to someone who buys into something in an irresponsible manner without thinking it through, i.e. like a big dumb ape.
“Ape-ing in” refers to buying without doing proper research or going big with too much money in regards to your account size (i.e. without any risk management). A lot of times, people ape into a project out of pure FOMO (see definition below).
Audit (re: Smart Contracts)
A smart contract audit means hiring an outside company to review your contract code to check it for bugs or security risks. Getting an audit from a reputable company/team is a good sign a project is legit.
Avatar /Avatar project
An avatar is your online profile photo also known as a profile pic. An Avatar project refers to collections of a few thousand NFTs whose images are intended to be used as profile photos. (See also: PFP / PFP project)
Bag
A bag is a large amount of money.
Blockchain
A blockchain is a distributed database shared across a network of computers. There’s a lot more to it and it can be quite confusing so I suggest reading up or watching a video specifically made for that. But in essence think of the blockchain as a digital ledger where transactions are recorded as if “set in stone” and thus immutable. This information is decentralized, aka spread across a network rather than stored in one single location, and therefore more secure.
Burn
Burn means to destroy an NFT or cryptocurrency. An NFT burn can happen for a number of reasons. If a project was intended to be a 10k project but only sells 8k of them, the creators can “burn” those unsold NFTs and reduce the collection down to 8k, making the supply even more scarce (the other option is to mint them and hold them in the community wallet or vault for later use). Sometimes a team will offer incentives for holders to burn their NFTs, such as burning 2 of a collection which unlocks 1 new more rare NFT. Thus allowing the holder to have something more rare, while also making the original collection more scarce. Users might also choose to send an NFT to a burn wallet in the event they no longer want their NFT and disagree with the project for some moral reason. Quite a few projects that people later found to be offensive had users burning their NFTs rather than sell them and allow the creator to continue to earn royalties off future sales.
Burning is also used for cryptocurrencies as well. Many NFT projects have been implementing their own cryptocurrency token which have no monetary value but can be burned in exchange for various perks within the project’s ecosystem.
Burn Wallet / Burn Address / Eater Address
These are terms for an address where you can transfer your NFT or cryptocurrency to where it will be removed from circulation because the wallet cannot be accessed or assigned to anyone. Thus making it as if the token doesn’t exist. Think of it like dropping digital documents into a digital incinerator hence “burning” the token.
Burner Wallet
Not to be confused with “burn wallet.” A burner wallet is a disposable or junk crypto wallet. The intention of this is to protect your main wallet or vault wallet from exposure to security risks from connecting to various sites.
A user would create a burner wallet for minting NFTs and after minting transfer them from the burner wallet to their main wallet (usually a hard wallet). This way, if the website is illegitimate and tries to steal the contents of the wallet, no important assets are actually located on it, adding an extra layer of security to your belongings.
Clone / Copycat projects
Clone or copycat projects are projects that do not offer anything new or interesting and just ride the hype wave of other popular projects. They usually copy the popular project’s utility plans or roadmap, art style, or even their smart contract and tokenomics. (see also low effort)
Community
Refers to the members of that project, both holders and non-holders alike. The community is primarily based in the project’s Discord server where they can mingle and chat and enjoy each other’s company, but also includes interactions on Twitter as well.
Having a strong community is a very important, if not THE MOST important part of a solid NFT project.
Community Wallet
The wallet where the project team holds all the funds from the initial sale of the NFTs and secondary sale royalties. These funds are used to pay the team, cover project overhead costs, and finance the goals of the project, i.e. develop a video game, build a space in the Metaverse, finance a film, or donate to charity, etc…
Crypto Twitter
A subculture of Twitter consisting of people tweeting about crypto, NFT, blockchain, etc…
DAO
Stands for “Decentralized Autonomous Organization” which means a group that has no central leadership but is rather self-governed by the entire community. Decisions are made by votes where every member participates.
NFT projects with a DAO will allow various decisions to be made by the community members who hold the project’s NFT. Each NFT is allowed one vote, so the more NFTs of that collection you hold, the more voting power you have. The technology behind it allows for voting to take place without manipulation as you need an NFT in your wallet to access the voting system and each NFT only has one vote, so manipulation of the voting mechanism is prevented.
DD
Stands for “due diligence” aka comprehensive research. Doing your DD on a project consists of analyzing the goals, risks, and benefits amongst other things. Basically, the opposite of “aping in.” (see also DYOR)
Decentralized
This means having no central governing body. All of the info on the blockchain is dispersed among the network and not located solely in one place. A normal, centralized, system that is stored in one place can collapse if there is a single point of failure (ever been on a website that is “currently down”?). Well with the blockchain being decentralized, it’s not located in one place but many, ensuring that it won’t fail.
Ded
A purposeful misspelling of the term “dead” as in “that project is ded.” IT usually refers to a project that was a rug pull or where it was abandoned by the team or community for whatever reason.
Degen
Short for “degenerate” or “degenerate gambler.” Refers to someone who takes uninformed risks while chasing large gains aka chasing alpha.
Delist
To cancel the sale of an NFT you currently have listed for a set price. So if you have an NFT listed for sale at 0.1 ETH, you would delist it by canceling the sale and no longer having it listed (hence de-list) from the marketplace.
The reason community members will urge others to delist is that the less that are for sale the higher the selling price will go aka supply and demand. Delisting lowers the supply available to buy and thus, sellers can raise the price.
Derivative project
A derivative project is one that is not wholly original and is leveraging the popularity of another project’s art design or roadmap to attract members.
Diamond hands
Refers to a person who holds on to an asset no matter what. No bad news, volatility in price, or doubt in the zeitgeist will make someone with diamond hands sell. Their grip on their assets is so strong, their hands are made of diamond. (Opposite of paper hands)
Discord
A communication app where users can communicate through text chats, direct messages, voice channels, video calls, etc…
A Discord server is a group made up of various channels with a range of topics related to the group’s purpose.
NFT projects typically have their own Discord server made up of various channels with different topics. Some even have private channels only accessible to verified NFT holders.
Dox / Doxxed
Dox means to reveal identifying information about yourself or someone else. Doxxed means that the identities of someone has been revealed.
In the NFT space where a lot of scams tend to happen, a project with a doxxed team means the team has revealed their identities and therefore is putting their reputation on the line and will therefore be more accountable for the project.
Drop / Drop date
The “drop” is a term for when an NFT collection goes on sale aka begins their minting process. (see also mint / minting)
DYOR
Stands for “Do Your Own Research.” This is a caveat usually mentioned after someone posts a tip or recommends a project. The sentiment is to not blindly follow what someone else is doing (and therefore you don’t fully understand the risks or intended strategy) so the reader should do their own research to see if the recommended advice fits their personal financial plan.
ENS / ENS Address
ENS stands for Ethereum Naming Service, which is a Decentralized naming for wallets, websites, & more. So like buying a website domain, you can buy and ENS name for your crypto wallet. It’s basically a way to give your wallet address which a long string of numbers and letters starting with 0x, you can pick an easy to type name such as YOURNAME.eth instead.That was it’s easier to have people send you ETH, NFTs, etc… by using that name instead the long stringed wallet address.
ETH
Short for Ethereum.
Flip
To quickly buy an asset and sell it for profit, aka flip it. Just like people buy houses, fix them up quickly and “flip” them for a profit, so too do crypto and NFT traders. Flippers are more concerned with the short term rise in price bolstered by the amount of hype built up around the project versus being interested at all in what the project is actually about or planning to do in the future.
Floor / Floor price
The “floor” or “floor price” of an NFT collection refers to the lowest price of all the NFTs that are for sale. If the floor is dropping that means sellers keep listing lower than others in hopes of attracting a buyer to their token versus someone else’s. A rising floor means the price is taking off as demand for the NFTs or coins is increasing.
Floor is thin
This means that the price difference in a few of the lowest priced NFTs is vastly different that the next higher priced ones. For example, if 3 NFTs are listed at 0.05 ETH and the next highest NFT is priced at 0.09 ETH the floor is thin because after those 3 are purchased the floor will jump up to 0.09 ETH. When this large gap occurs with only a few NFTs, the floor is said to be “thin.”
FOMO
Stands for “Fear Of Missing Out.” This usually occurs when someone is acting emotionally rather than logically and rather than risk missing a buy that could lead to a lot of profit, they’ll buy based on the hype instead of concrete research.
Free mint
When a project offers NFTs for sale at zero cost. The buyer still has to pay the gas though as it still requires a transaction on the blockchain to take place.
Fren
A simplified version of “friend.”
FUD
Stands for “Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.” Used to refer to someone talking negatively about a project, aka fudding it. People who talk negatively are called Fudders. Talking negatively is referred to as “spreading FUD”
Gas
The transaction fees associated with buying/selling, transferring assets on the blockchain. The fees vary based on which blockchain and the data size of the asset in the transaction.
Gas fees are paid to the owners of the computers who process traffic on the blockchain aka “miners.” When a lot of people are making transactions at once, the amount of gas needed to process that transaction goes up. Not because the transaction is more complicated but because of supply in demand. Offering to pay more gas bumps you higher in the queue to get your transaction processed. When the network is flooded with lots of people trying to process transactions at the same time, this can result in a “gas war.”
Gas wars
A gas war can occur when one high anticipated and in-demand project is holding a public mint and there are more buyers than there are NFTs available. The NFTs will go to whichever transactions go through first, therefore buyers will try to move to the top of the line by putting a high gas fee on their transaction, others in turn try to go higher than them and so on and so forth and gas can rise to insane levels, sometimes costs 10x more than the actual NFT itself.
Generative art
Generative art is the term for which an artist will create a base template, say a “bored ape” and then create a number of varying attributes or traits for that template such as different facial expressions, accessories, colors, clothing etc… These are all made on different layers in programs such as Photoshop or Procreate and then exported into png files. These files are then run through a program that randomly will create (aka generate) X number, say 10,000, completely unique pieces of art by mixing different layers to create the desired number of combinations. The traits can be “weighted” but how often or not you want them to be used, hence traits used less frequently are more “rare” and can increase the value of that particular token. Though all tokens are one of a kind, based on its combination of traits, it might be more rare or more common.
There have also been projects where the art is entirely generated by using nothing but code which lays out a set of parameters to generate artistic visual works.
Generative art differs from traditional art that is individually hand-drawn one by one.
GM
Stands for “good morning” and is typically used when someone wakes up and gets on Discord or Twitter they begin with a “gm” message to start their day.
GMI
(See WAGMI / WGMI)
GN
Stand for “good night” and is typically used as a sign off when someone is done for the day and calling it a night.
Gwei
Pronounced “gway.” The “gw” is similar to the name Gwen. It’s short for gigawei, or 1,000,000,000 we. iThis is the unit in which Ethereum gas (aka transaction fees) are paid. Think of it like gallons (or liters) are to a car. Smaller transactions such as sending cryptocurrency need less gas to go (like a small car), whereas bigger transactions, such as selling an NFT, need more (like a semi-truck). Depending on network activity, the price of gas for ETH transactions fluctuates just like the fuel prices for your car.
Hard Wallet / Ledger Wallet
A hard wallet is a physical device that securely stores your private keys / seed phrases. The main purpose of a hardware wallet is to separate your private keys and your computer or phone which are more vulnerable to hackers.
HODL
A misspelling of the term “hold.”
It originated in 2013 with a post to the Bitcointalk forum by user GameKyuubi who posted “I AM HODLING” — in a drunk rant about have bad trading skills and therefore planning to simply hold his Bitcoin from that point on.
Also sometimes used as an acronym for “Hold On for Dear Life” especially when price is taking off at a high right.
IPFS
Stands for “Interplanetary File System” and is a decentralized way to store files, websites, and other data. The image files and metadata for NFTs are typically stored on IPFS so that they may not be altered or changed the way they could be if they were hosted on a project’s own website server. In that case, if the website server went down, so too would the metadata and image files the NFT links to, this does not occur with IPFS and is thus a more secure way of storing these files.
LFG
Stand for “Let’s Fucking Go!” and is used to express excitement about a project launch, big news, etc… and as a rallying cry when a project is taking off or when you’re anticipating a project to take off and want to hype everyone up.
Low effort
A low effort project is one where not much work or original thought has been put into it. These are often derivative projects, or clone/copycat projects that offer nothing new and are most likely cash grabs by the creators.
Marbles
Marbles is a random chance game on the Twitch streaming service and is often used as a random competitive giveaway system for Whitelist spots and free NFTs among other prizes. To enter, you simply type !play into the chat window and a marble with your username is entered into the game.
Metadata
A core aspect of NFTs. The metadata file, typically a .json file, contains all the information about the NFT’s traits and links to the image file.
Miners / Mining
Mining is the process of validating a cryptocurrency transaction and is performed by miners. The miners have computers set up solely for this purpose, some even have entire “mining farms” of computers. Miners receive payments in exchange for this work, such as gas from NFT transactions.
Mint / Minting
Minting is the process of buying a new NFT from the creator (as opposed to buying it on the secondary market — see OS). The first person to buy a new NFT essentially “mints” it and it is created on the blockchain.
Mint directly from contract
The process of minting an NFT directly from the smart contract on the blockchain rather than through the project’s website. This can be preferred because if a website isn’t set up to handle a high amount of traffic the site can stall out preventing users from minting before the supply runs out. Minting from the contract directly can also give you a few seconds head start when a public mint opens. The downside is that some NFT flippers use bots to exploit minting from the contract which prevents actual members of the community from minting an NFT.
MM / MetaMask
MM is short for MetaMask, a popular digital wallet where you can store your cryptocurrencies and NFT tokens. *NOTE: MetaMask differs from say a CoinBase wallet because you actually have the private keys to your wallet and are in full control of it.
Moon
Used to refer to strong upward price movement as in “this project is mooning” or as a positive outlook for future project movement as in “this project is going to the moon.”
NFA
Stands for “Not Financial Advice” and is used as a disclaimer after someone posts about their recommendations. It’s a way of clearing the poster from liability since they are not a certified financial advisor and should not be viewed as such. It is often accompanied by DYOR, Do Your Own Research.
NGMI
Stand for “Not Gonna Make It” and usually said about someone with a negative attitude or does something stupid like selling too low or buying into a bad project.
Non-Custodial
As in non-custodial wallet, means that there is nobody “controlling it” on the other end. Now this doesn’t mean, say MetaMask, doesn’t have employees working there working on the app, it means they’re just creating the wallet tech but do not manage the accounts etc… so if you lose your Secret Recovery Phrase, you can’t just call up customer service or request a password reset like you can with other apps and sites (which are custodial). This is why a MetaMask wallet is decentralized but a Coinbase account is not.
Official Links
This is self explanatory but I wanted to include it because you should ALWAYS only use a project’s official links and never click links from DMs claiming to be from the team as part of a “stealth drop” or some other fake excuse to steal your money.
OS
Stands for “OpenSea” which is the leading marketplace for NFTs. When you miss a project’s original mint, you must buy their NFT off the “secondary market” such as OpenSea.
Paper hands
Derogatory term for someone who sells their assets at the first sign of trouble or at what is perceived as too low of a price. Opposite of diamond hands, their hands are weak and crumple like paper at even a hint of bad news. People who are paper hands have usually fallen victim to FUD.
PFP
Stands for “profile pic” which is an avatar on social media. If an NFT project is described as a pfp project, that means it’s main purpose is the art which is to be used as your profile pic to show you are a member of that community. Lately, most projects tend to offer more usage of their NFTs than just a profile pic.
Presale
A limited sale window of an NFT mint only accessible to buyers that are on a list. This takes place before the mint is officially open to the public and is used to control gas prices and prevent a gas war for people who have been active in the community and earned a spot on the approved list, called a whitelist. Since the number of people on the whitelist are guaranteed an NFT if they so choose to mint during the presale window, they can wait to mint until gas is at a low price, thus avoiding a gas war as is common in public mints. (see Whitelist)
Private key
(see seed phrase)
Probably nothing
A phrase used ironically to say that something is a big deal.
Public sale
The official mint of an NFT available to anyone on a first come basis. If the demand is higher than the supply this typically results in a gas war.
Rarity
Rarity refers to the rank of the NFT in a collection based on its unique traits. Some traits are programmed to appear less than others and therefore NFTs with those traits are considered more rare. Having multiple rare traits increases the NFTs rarity and thus makes it more valuable. But it is important to remember that EVERY single NFT in a collection is unique. There has been less emphasis on rarity in the secondary market as some people are instead opting to purchase NFT that they find more visually appealing.
Rekt
Slang term for “wrecked” as in severely damaged or ruined. Typically used to describe a bad investment or a heavy financial loss.
Reveal
The process of showing the artwork of an NFT. Typically when you mint a new NFT the image is hidden for a short period (usually 24–48hrs) until the placeholder image is removed and the actual artwork is revealed. People who trade pre-reveal are burying and selling blind with no idea if they have a rare or common NFT. Not all projects have a reveal waiting period, some are instant;y revealed the moment you mint.
The waiting period is used to prevent people from minting, seeing they don’t have a rare one then selling it and buying another to try and get a rare one to flip. This can be harmful to a project if it causes the floor price to drop artificially and thus a reveal period can avoid this.
Royalties
Royalties are a percentage (up to 10%) of secondary sales that the creator receives in perpetuity. This aspect of NFTs is what is considered a game changer for artists’ revenue stream.
Rug pull
A scam. A rug pull, or a rug, is a project that looks to be legit but after minting the team disappears with all of the money. You typically still get an NFT but it is essentially worthless. Basically buyers are “having the rug pulled out from under them.”
Getting “rugged” means you got scammed but can also be used in other contexts such as if you are in a voice chat and get disconnected, people will say they got “rugged.”
Seed phrase
Also called a “key phrase,” a seed phrase is a list of normal words that act as your key to access your wallet. Unlike password, a seed phrase is generated by the application and not created by you (if an app is letting you choose a seed phrase it is probably a scam and should be avoided).
NEVER SHARE YOUR SEED PHRASE with anyone and keep it somewhere secure. It’s a good idea to keep a physical copy, like printed on a piece of paper, in a safe.
Ser
Slang for “sir” and is typically used ironically.
Shitcoin
A cryptocurrency with little or no value or purpose.
Snapshot
A snapshot is when a team records all the wallet addresses of all current NFT holders in order to distribute some sort of benefit like an Airdrop. Some snapshot dates are announced while others are stealth. Stealth snapshots are used to prevent people from buying an NFT, holding until the snapshot, and then selling in order to get the free Airdrop only.
Stake / Staking
The process of moving an NFT to a project’s vault in exchange for rewards like their own crypto tokens. A lot of NFT projects offer staking in exchange for their own community coin which can be used in the ecosystem of that project but typically has no monetary value (lest it be considered a security by the SEC).
When an NFT is staked it cannot be listed for sale until it is unstaked, therefore the more NFTs in a collection that are staked, the lower the available supply which could in turn raise the floor price if the demand is there.
Stealth drop
An NFT mint that is not announced in advance. This can be done to prevent bots from exploiting the drop and also to reward members of the community who are active and in the community when the stealth drop is announced.
Sadly, a lot of Discord servers are being hacked lately and posting fake links and DMs stating that the project is doing a “stealth drop” or “early mint” in order to scam people into thinking it’s a legitimate mint from the team.
Sus
Short for “suspicious” or “suspect” as in something doesn’t seem right about the project and it could be potentially a scam.
Sweep the floor
To purchase the lowest prices NFTs in a collection to raise the floor to a nearby price point.
TLDR
Stand for “Too Long, Didn’t Read.”
Utility
Either online or real world uses for an NFT other than a simple profile pic. Examples can include giving the holder access to a video game, in person concert or event, etc…
Vault
The smart contract where staked NFTs and cryptocurrencies are stored during staking.
Vibe
To talk, chill, relax, and hang out with each other and just generally have a good time together.
WAGMI /WGMI
Stands for “We Are Gonna Make It” and expresses sentiments of making smart choices that will result in success i.e. wealth, riches, and a great life.
Wallet / Wallet address
Your wallet is where you store your cryptocurrencies and NFTs. The address of that wallet is a string of unique numbers, thus keeping the owner’s identity secret.
It’s important to note that different cryptos work on different blockchains which use different wallets and coding. So if you accidentally send Ethereum to a Bitcoin wallet address you’re essentially trying to put a square peg in a round hole and that cryptocurrency will be lost forever.
Wen
Slang for “when” as in “wen moon?”
Whale
Whales people with a lot of wealth who buy in big on projects. Whales are important because they have the power to move prices. For example, if a whale owns 100 NFTs and wants to keep the 10 rares and dump the 90 commons and isn’t concerned with price, they could list them at or below floor which could cause others to panic and list theirs as well or lower and cause the price to crash. The opposite is also true. Since all wallets are on the public blockchain you can see if a whale is buying up a lot of NFTs in a collection, which is a sign that they see value there and can cause others to jump on board thus raising the floor price exponentially.
Whitelist
A whitelist is a list of wallet addresses that have been approved for a presale. This list is coding into the contract and only wallets on that list can mint during the presale period.
The benefits of getting a whitelist spot are that you are guaranteed an NFT if you choose to mint and you can therefore wait until gas is cheapest during that period to mint your NFT. You also have the advantage of possibly selling your NFT on the secondary market at a higher price because if a project is in demand and people are scared they won’t get one in the public mint, they might pay extra before the public mint opens to guarantee they get one.
YGMI
Variation of WGMI meaning “You are Gonna Make It.”
