Crypto Glossary — Plain English, No Jargon

Crypto throws a new word at you every day. Here are twelve of the most-searched terms, defined in full — the complete glossary has 63, plus five one-page cheat sheets.

Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA)

Investing the same amount on a regular schedule — say $200 every month — instead of trying to time the market with one big buy. You automatically buy more when prices are low and less when they are high, which smooths out your average entry price over time.

Seed Phrase

A list of 12 or 24 words that acts as the master backup for a crypto wallet. Anyone who has the phrase can access the funds, so it belongs on paper in a safe place — never in a screenshot, a notes app, or any website that asks you to type it in.

Hot Wallet & Cold Wallet

A hot wallet is connected to the internet — a phone app or browser extension — and is convenient for everyday use. A cold wallet stays offline, like a hardware device or a paper backup: slower to use, but far harder for anyone online to reach.

Stablecoin

A cryptocurrency designed to hold a steady value, usually pegged one-to-one to a currency like the US dollar. Traders use stablecoins to park money inside the crypto system between trades without riding every price swing.

Market Cap

Short for market capitalization: the price of one unit multiplied by the total number of units in circulation. It is the standard way to compare the overall size of one crypto asset against another — a $1 coin is not automatically "cheaper" than a $100 coin without it.

Liquidity

How easily an asset can be bought or sold without moving its price. High liquidity means lots of buyers and sellers and tight pricing; low liquidity means your own order can push the price around — and getting out can be expensive.

Volatility

How sharply, and how often, a price moves. Crypto is famously volatile: double-digit swings inside a single week are normal. That is exactly why position sizing and patience matter more in crypto than in most markets.

RSI (Relative Strength Index)

A momentum indicator scored from 0 to 100 that estimates whether an asset has been bought or sold too aggressively, too fast. Readings above 70 are traditionally called overbought and below 30 oversold — a signal to pay attention, not an automatic instruction to trade.

Bull Market & Bear Market

A bull market is a sustained period of rising prices and optimism; a bear market is a sustained fall, often defined as 20% or more down from recent highs. The names come from how the animals attack: a bull thrusts upward, a bear swipes down.

HODL

Crypto slang for holding an asset through volatility instead of panic-selling — it started as a typo of "hold" that the community adopted as a philosophy. As a strategy, it means buying quality, sizing positions sensibly, and letting time do the work.

Gas Fees

The transaction fees paid to run operations on a blockchain network, most famously Ethereum. Fees rise when the network is busy, which is why the same transfer can cost cents one day and far more the next.

FOMO & FUD

The two emotions that move crypto markets. FOMO — fear of missing out — is the urge to buy because everyone else is buying. FUD — fear, uncertainty and doubt — is the wave of negative noise that triggers panic selling. Naming them is the first step to not trading on them.

The full glossary — 63 terms + 5 cheat sheets

Those twelve are the start. The complete Crypto Glossary + Cheat Sheets PDF defines all 63 terms the same way — plain English, no jargon, no hype — and adds the five one-page cheat sheets worth printing:

• Order Types at a Glance — market, limit and stop orders, and when each one makes sense
• DCA in One Page — the dollar-cost-averaging habit, with a worked example
• Reading a Candlestick Chart — the anatomy of a candle and the patterns that matter
• Fees Checklist — every fee to check before you trade, so costs stop surprising you
• The Risk Rules Card — the position-sizing and drawdown rules that keep one bad week from ruining your year

Eleven pages, one PDF, yours to keep and re-read whenever a new term shows up.

This glossary is an educational reference. It is not financial advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy or sell any asset. Always do your own research before making investment decisions.