Blockchain’s must-know terms for non-tech folks before trading NFTs
Why you should know NFT terms?
NFT is one of the most interesting topics on the internet today. However, it’s still fairly new and somewhat elusive, especially for non-tech folks. This space runs very fast, and you need to be up-to-date on the lingo that the community uses. Below is a head start by providing the most important NFT keywords. As a result, you will understand information and buy NFT effectively, avoid being scammed, and be easier to integrate into the NFT community.
25 must-know terms
Airdrop: An airdrop refers to sending cryptocurrency coins/ tokens or NFTs for free to different wallet addresses. Some NFT projects may airdrop free companion NFTs to reward the original NFT collection holders.
Ape in: Ape in usually refers to people who rush into buying a new NFT or coin without doing much due diligence or research. It is, however, always advised not to ape in any projects without having proper research and understanding on what you’re buying!
Burn: An NFT can't be 'deleted', however it can be 'burned'. Burning an NFT effectively destroys the token and removes it entirely from the Ethereum blockchain.
DAO: Decentralized Autonomous Organization. DAOs are not governed by one single person or entity. The rules and governance of each DAO are coded in smart contracts on the blockchain and cannot be changed unless voted upon by the members of the DAO.
Diamond hands: Diamond Hands refer to someone who has high-risk tolerance for high volatility assets. Diamond Hands don’t panic sell their assets no matter the value of the assets decrease or increase.
Paper hands: It’s the opposite of diamond hands, which refers to someone who is nervous and panic sell or flipping their position too soon instead of holding them long-term.
Floor price: In the NFT market, the floor price is the lowest amount of money you are able to spend to become a member of a project (own an NFT). It’s the most popular metric for tracking a project’s performance over time and its relative success compared to others.
FUD: FUD is short for “fear, uncertainty, and doubt”. FUD is commonly seen when the price of a coin/ NFT project drops, or when there is some sort of negative news or rumors. People tend to panic sell their assets when there is FUD.
Gas: Gas is the fee we need to pay to the blockchain network for all sorts of transactions. The fee is paid to the “miners” of a blockchain network to compensate for the computing energy required to process and validate transactions. High gas fees commonly occur when there is a lot of demand on the network, like during the beginning of the minting process of a new NFT project.
Gas war: Gas wars occur during a project launch or high-value sales when a large number of people compete to get their hands on an NFT. Essentially, the demand will be higher than the number of transactions the Ethereum network can process at a time. To win a gas war, some end up paying insanely high gas fees.
Trait: A distinguishing quality or characteristic is called a trait. Some examples of trait categories can be a jacket, hat, facial expression, and what the character is holding in their mouth. Each category would then have a certain number of unique traits, which are more specific, and each unique trait would appear a certain number of times in the NFT collection. Trait Sniper - a useful NFTs ranking tool - is named after this word.
Minting: When you’re buying a completely new NFT from the creator, you’re ‘minting’ it. It’s basically the process of creating that NFT on the blockchain.
MM: MM is shorthand for MetaMask, the most popular NFT wallet in the Ethereum ecosystem.
OS: OS is shorthand for OpenSea, the leading NFT marketplace on Ethereum.
Reveal: The word here is pretty self-explanatory, but its meaning in an NFT context may not be. For new generative projects, the artwork won’t actually be created until the NFT is minted, and you won’t know exactly what you get until after you buy it. In other words, the art only reveals itself after it’s purchased. It’s up to the creators behind the collection whether they reveal happens immediately, when the collection sells out, or with a delay of 24 or 48 hours for instance.
Rugpull: A ‘rugpull’ is something I hope you’ll never experience! It’s essentially a scam where the people behind a seemingly legit project disappear with all the money immediately after launch. You might get an actual NFT in return for what you paid, but it’s most likely worthless and not even tradeable on a secondary marketplace.
Snapshot: In relation to the airdrops mentioned above, a team will often take a snapshot at a certain point in time to determine who’s eligible.
Sweeping: ‘Sweeping’ is another commonly uttered term because of people’s interest in a project’s ‘floor’. To ‘sweep the floor’ means to buy up a large number of the cheapest NFTs in a collection on the secondary market. Teams sometimes do this or are asked by the community to do this, for their own projects. Other times it may be done by a single individual, referred to as a ‘whale’.
Whale: A ‘whale’ is basically someone with a lot of money, either available to invest or already invested in a high-value NFT project. Thus, someone with 1,000 ETH in their account would be considered a whale, just like someone with 200 Bored Apes would. Whales are important because of their power to move markets, either upward by buying a lot from a given collection or downward by selling.
Royalty: NFT royalties give you a percentage of the sale price each time your NFT creation is sold on a marketplace. NFT royalty payments are perpetual and are executed by smart contracts automatically.
Volume: The volume of trade refers to the total number of shares or contracts exchanged between buyers and sellers of security during trading hours on a given day. Higher trading volumes are considered more positive than lower trading volumes because they mean more liquidity and better order execution.
Metadata: The metadata of an NFT is essential all the necessary and unique data making that NFT exactly what it is. Perhaps most interestingly, the metadata defines how a piece of art or a collectible looks. That’s why you’ll sometimes have to refresh the metadata on OpenSea before you can see how your newly minted NFT looks.
NFA: Short for “not financial advise”. “I see huge potential in this crypto gaming token, and I’m gonna buy some today. NFA, though.”
Whitelist: A whitelist is similar to a VIP list, or a guest list for an event. If you’re on it, you get perks. Sometimes it’s early access. It could also mean you get to buy an NFT at a lower price.
Flipping: Flipping refers to buying items at low prices and selling quickly for a profit. Flipping is gaining popularity in the NFT space, where people buy and sell NFTs to make a quick profit, especially during the early stages of the projects when there are higher demands.
The insider’s abbreviations and intentional misspellings
GM: Short for Good Morning. A common way of greeting in Twitter/ Discord space. It is more than a greeting as it expresses the idea that "we are early" and our future is bright, so people may even use it instead of GN (good night).
GMI/WAGMI/NGMI/WAGNGMI: GMI means ‘Going to make it’, as in “If you buy and hold on to this awesome NFT, you’re gonna become rich and have a great life!” (more or less). WAGMI, naturally, means ‘We’re all going to make it’. NGMI on the other hand means ‘Not going to make it’. Use these terms as frequently as possible to be perceived as a true NFT insider.
Ser: ‘Ser’ means ‘sir’ but is usually used ironically. In other words, if someone uses ‘ser’ in a sentence, don’t take the message too seriously.
Ded: Simply a misspelling of ‘dead’, for instance, used to refer to a project that was rugpulled.
Hodl: a misspelling of ‘hold’. ‘HODL’ has later been assigned the acronym ‘Hold On for Dear Life’ to make it seem less stupid, I guess. I’m personally gonna hodl on to the original version!
LFG: ‘LFG’ means ‘Let’s fucking go!’. Pretty self-explanatory. It’s used in excitement about new project launches, big NFT news, etc.
Moon: I’m sure you’ve heard of people saying “To the moon!” in crypto/NFT space often. When the price of a coin/NFT goes to the moon, it means it goes up/ skyrocket a lot.
Wen: ‘Wen’ means ‘when’. That’s it. It’s just another silly misspelling used ironically by NFT and crypto people, often in “Wen moon?” which loosely translates to “When will the price of this asset increase exponentially?”
Conclusion
Then, as you become more fluent in NFT, you will soon find more unfamiliar keywords or even new uses of the keywords I mentioned above. But it doesn't matter, practice makes perfect, don't forget the practical experience, that's really how you become a pro.
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