The Comprehensive Web3 Dictionary

The wonderful world of Web3 is full of slang, acronyms and meme culture. For newcomers, this jargon can be difficult to understand and navigate. 

Don’t worry, Liteflow has you covered! We have built this living resource to make sure everyone understands slang within the lexicon. We will regularly update this glossary to make sure it is current and comprehensive. 

A

Airdrop: The sending of tokens to wallet addresses as a way to increase adoption, promote awareness, or reward users. 

Alpha: Valuable insights or information, usually related to crypto or NFT trading, providing an edge to those that take action.

Ape In: To invest in a cryptocurrency or NFT project, sometimes without much knowledge and influenced by FOMO or hype.

ATH (All time high): The highest price an asset has ever sold for

ATL (All time low): The lowest price an asset has ever sold for.

B

Bearish: In reference to a bear market, this is a belief that an asset or the market as a whole will decrease in value over time

Blue Chip: NFT projects expected to be successful and profitable in the long-term, often featuring a high floor price, brand recognition, utility and big endorsements. Current Blue Chip NFT projects include BAYC, CryptoPunks, World of Women, and Cool Cats. 

Bridge: A protocol that enables separate blockchains to interact, facilitating the transfer of assets, data, and other information across systems. 

Bullish: In reference to a bull market, this is a belief that an asset or the market as a whole will increase in value over time. 

BUIDL: A variation of the word “build”, meaning to develop and contribute to the creation of new blockchain-related technology.

Burn: The act of removing tokens from the circulating supply, typically carried out by transferring the asset to an inaccessible wallet address. 

C

Centralized: A hierarchical structure in which activities or an organization are controlled by a single authority or managed in one location.

Cold Wallet: An offline storage method for fungible and non-fungible tokens, often hardware devices or sheets of paper containing private keys. 

Collection: An NFT collection is an assortment of non-fungible tokens released by a creator or brand, containing a set number of tokens. Often, these collections are composed of many NFTs related to the same style or theme, with small variations from token to token. 

D

DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization): An organization governed by users and based on rules encoded as a computer program. DAOs replace traditional corporate hierarchies with mission-oriented guidelines living on a blockchain. 

dApp (Decentralized Application): An application that runs on a blockchain and can operate autonomously, independent of any centralized authority.

Decentralized: A system that functions by replacing central authorities with a distributed peer-to-peer network. 

Degen: A term applied to people who make large risky investments, or used broadly in reference to anyone active within crypto and NFT spaces.  

Diamond Hands: Someone who holds onto a specific token because they are die-hard believers and refuse to sell despite falling prices, market conditions, or FUD. 

dNFT: A dynamic non-fungible token, which can change based on programmed circumstances, including external events and data. This is made possible via the smart contract that has automated updates, telling the NFT when and how it should change. 

E

ERC-20: A technical standard for the creation of fungible tokens using the Ethereum blockchain.

ERC-721: A technical standard for the creation of non-fungible tokens using the Ethereum blockchain, where each token is unique

ERC-1155: A technical standard for the creation of non-fungible tokens using the Ethereum blockchain in a way that’s fungibility-agnostic and gas-efficient. 

ENS: The Ethereum Name Service is a distributed, open, and extensible naming system, mapping readable domain names like liteflow.eth to machine-readable Ethereum addresses.

F

Fiat: A form of currency declared by the government to be legal tender, not backed by a commodity such as silver or gold. 

Flippening: A cryptocurrency prophecy of an event in which Ethereum becomes more valuable than Bitcoin in terms of market cap. 

Floor/Floor Price: The lowest possible ‘buy now’ price for an NFT collection. If the floor price is 2 ETH, then that’s the lowest price available for an NFT from that collection.

FOMO (Fear of Missing Out): Anxious thoughts brought on by the potential of missing an investment opportunity, especially after the asset already increased in price. 

Fork: A change executed to a blockchain’s protocol, commonly taking two variations, a hard-fork or a soft-fork. (see: hard-fork, soft-fork)

Fractionalized Ownership NFT: A non-fungible token that has been divided into fractions, each sold individually. 

FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, & Doubt):When negative news related to an asset begins to trend, ultimately proved to be false or exaggerated.

Fungible: Easy to exchange or trade for something of the same type with identical value.

G

Gas: A blockchain transaction fee paid to network validators for their work, dependent on the real-time network demand and the transaction’s complexity. 

Genesis: The first NFT collection minted by a creator or brand, associated with value due to the nature of being a premiere collection. 

GM (Good Morning): An insider greeting among NFT and crypto circles, shorthand for “good morning”.

Gwei: A denomination of ether used as a unit of measurement for gas prices on the Ethereum network. 10^9 gwei = 1 ether. 

H

Hard Fork: A large change made to a blockchain network’s protocol requiring the formation of a new change.  

HODL: A variation of the word “hold”, also understood as an acronym for “Hold on for Dear Life.” Referring to holding on to an asset despite dropping prices. 

I

ICO (Initial coin offering): A form of funding using cryptocurrency in which a quantity of coins is sold to investors in exchange for fiat or a more stable cryptocurrency. 

L

Layer 1: Refers to the base network and its underlying infrastructure, such as Ethereum or Bitcoin, which can validate and transact without the need for another network.

Layer 2: Refers to a secondary framework or protocol built on top of a layer 1 blockchain, usually to improve transaction speeds and cost efficiency. 

Liquidity: How quickly an asset can be traded into cash or another asset. Liquidity pools exist on decentralized exchanges, where asset holders can earn rewards by depositing their assets for traders to buy and sell them in a decentralized fashion. 

LFG (Let’s F*cking Go): Acronym used to build hype in NFT communities.

M

Mainnet: A term used to describe a blockchain protocol that is fully developed and deployed, with cryptocurrency transactions being broadcasted, verified and recorded on the blockchain. 

Market Cap: The total value of all a company’s shares of stock, or in the case of crypto and NFTs, the total value of all the tokens that have been minted. 

Metaverse: A virtual space from which users can interact with others in a computer-generated environment. 

Minting: The process of creating a fungible or non-fungible token asset on a blockchain so it can be bought, sold, and traded. 

Moon:A term applied to increased valuation of assets, inspired by the “sky-high” location of the moon. Investors often use the term “mooning” when a crypto or NFT project is performing well. 

N

Non-fungible Token (NFT): A digital asset based on Ethereum’s ERC-721 token standard, that cannot be copied, substituted or subdivided. Recorded on a blockchain, enabling authentication of the asset and immutable certification of its ownership. 

NFT Domain: Domains that live on a blockchain, providing users with complete ownership of their stored data. The primary benefit is to simplify transactions by replacing long wallet addresses with simple domain names, easily creating and hosting Web3 websites. 

NGMI (Not going to make it): The opposite of WGMI or GMI, signifying a trader made a bad decision by selling a project too early or buying in too late. 

O

OG: Stands for “Original Gangster”, referring to experts in a specific field that were around since the beginning. 

P

P2P (Peer-to-Peer): Enabled by decentralized platforms, a P2P service enables two individuals to interact or transact directly without third-party intermediation.

Paperhands: Referring to an individual that buys an NFT or cryptocurrency planning to hold it, but then sells the asset at the first sign of trouble for a loss. 

PFP: Profile picture, in the world of NFTs referring to the profile pic category that is popular among many successful projects

Private Key: An alphanumeric code required to access and authorize transactions from a blockchain wallet, often in the form of a seed phrase (see seed phrase below).

Protocol: The foundation software layer of a program, in blockchain referring to both layer 1 networks and layer 2 applications built on top. 

Public Key: An alphanumeric code used as the address for a blockchain wallet to which users can send digital assets, but cannot be used to access the contents of the wallet. 

Pump & Dump: A highly unethical and manipulative scheme in which assets like NFT or cryptocurrencies are promoted heavily, inspiring people to buy in and increase the price. The promoters quickly sell their assets as the price rises, triggering a sell off where many people suffer a loss. 

R

Rarity: Often equates to the value of an NFT, based on the total number in a collection or the rarity of a collection’s specific properties. 

Rekt: A variation of the word “wrecked”, referring to suffering a massive loss. 

Reveal: Referring to the moment that an NFT collection’s visuals are revealed to the public after mint. Some reveals are immediate, while others build hype by delaying the reveal. 

Rug Pull: A scam carried out by crypto or NFT projects, where-in they raise funding and subsequently run off with the investment capital. 

S

Seed Phrase: A string of words to be used as a master password to access a blockchain wallet, which can contain multiple wallet addresses, each with their own private and public keys.

Shill: Referring to someone that heavily promotes an asset like a cryptocurrency or NFT, to increase adoption and price. Shills tend to hang in comment sections, YouTube videos, and other engaging digital hubs where they can push their questionable assets. 

Shit Coin: A cryptocurrency with no utility and poor fundamentals, commonly inspired by memes or dogs.

Smart Contract: A piece of code that automatically executes according to its programmable instructions, a contract between two parties. Developers use smart contracts when building dApps on blockchain networks to enable permissionless and secure transactions.

Soft Fork: An update to a blockchain that is backwards compatible, not requiring the creation of a separate chain. 

T

Testnet (test network): A network for developers to test smart contracts and protocol updates before being deployed on mainnet. 

Touch grass: Can mean “calm down”, or used to imply that someone spends too much time online and should take time to go explore the real world. 

TPS: Transactions per second, a benchmark for blockchains to measure and compare power

Trait: Also known as attributes or properties, NFT collections often feature various visual traits. Traits make each NFT unique and vary the rarity which impacts pricing.

TVL: Total value locked, a measure of the assets locked within a dApp’s smart contract.

U

Up Only: A sarcastic implication that an NFT or other asset will only increase in value.

Utility: Utility NFTs are a broad classification of NFTs that offer holders real world applications, perks or rewards. Examples include access to events, merch drops, gaming, and real estate to name just a few. 

W

WAGMI: We’re all gonna make it, a commonly used saying among NFT communities to show support and get everyone hype af. 

Wallet:A hardware device or software application that stores the private keys to blockchain accounts. Instead of storing the actual assets, it’s home to the private key that verifies ownership of fungible and non-fungible tokens.

Web1: The internet’s first era, aka “the read-only web”, defined by static websites with no engagement or user-generated content. 

Web2: The second era of the internet, aka “the read-write web”, started with the ability for user-generated content, leading to blogs and social media platforms. As this era progressed, increasing focus was applied to user experience, interoperability, and connectivity, resulting in the internet we know today. 

Web3: The next era of the internet, aka “the read-write-trust web,” which is now beginning to unfold. It’s built around blockchain technology, enabling the decentralization of data and information. This iteration of the internet reduces or removes the control of centralized tech monopolies and returns the internet to the diverse people who use it. 

Wen: A variation of the word “When”, and a meme that is used to question “wen moon?” and “wen utility?”. In other words, when will a project pump or add some features that increase value. 

Whitelist: A common approach to dropping an NFT collection involves a private and public sale. People who make it to the whitelist can mint during the private sale, guaranteeing at least one NFT from the collection.