Address
A long string of letters and numbers that represents a wallet. Also known as a public key, this is your public address where you can receive crypto.
Airdrop
An airdrop is a marketing campaign that sends tokens to wallets that fit a certain criteria (usually holders of existing crypto).
Alpha
Alpha is early investment advice that puts you ahead of the crowd.
Apeing in
Apeing in means buying an NFT project without doing your due diligence.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin was the very first cryptocurrency, and it was launched on January 3, 2009. It is an open-source decentralized peer-to-peer digital currency. Open-source means that anyone can see the code it’s built on, and peer-to-peer means that in order to use it, you don’t have to go through a central authority like a bank, but can send Bitcoin from one address to another with no intermediary. The Bitcoin white paper was published on October 31, 2008, by Satoshi Nakamoto, a secretive figure whose identity has never been revealed.
Block explorer
Like a search engine for transactions on a blockchain, block explorers let you look up transaction hashes to see details about your transaction.
Blockchain
Blockchain is the technology that underpins Bitcoin and other crypto. A blockchain is a distributed digital ledger (like a fancy Excel sheet) in a decentralized network. Transactions are secured with cryptography and stored in a chronological chain of data contained in blocks. Once a transaction is recorded to a blockchain, it can’t be reversed or erased.
Burn
Burning an NFT is kind of like deleting an NFT, but much more fiery. If you burn an NFT, you take it out of circulation by sending it to a wallet address owned by nobody. This will make the NFT completely inaccessible. When you do this, all the NFT’s transactions will be preserved on the ledger, but the data will be inaccessible.
Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrency, or crypto, is any form of currency that exists digitally and uses cryptography to secure transactions. Cryptocurrencies don’t have a central issuing or regulating authority, instead using a decentralized system to record transactions and issue new units.
DAO
DAO stands for decentralized autonomous organization. A DAO is governed by its members, so it’s a community-led organization that has no central authority. Decisions made by the community are executed by smart contracts. Proposals, voting, and the code itself can be publicly audited.
Dapps
dApps, or decentralized applications, are apps that are built on a decentralized network (aka blockchain) such as Ethereum. Some dApps are public, open-source, and are free from control or censorship by any single authority.
dApps are like regular apps, but not account based (so no email and password combo). Instead, you interact with dApps by signing into them with a crypto wallet.
Decentralized
Decentralized means that no one authority has control over the organization or network – there is no single point of failure. Instead, responsibility and decision-making powers are distributed among community members or users of the network.
DYOR
DYOR stands for do your own research, definitely something you should do before apeing into an NFT project.
Ethereum
Ethereum is not only a blockchain, it's also a technology that can be used for payments, a cryptocurrency (known as ETH), and a marketplace of financial services, games and apps that can’t steal your data or censor you. Ethereum was the first protocol to introduce smart contracts, making it the first programmable blockchain (which makes dApps like OIX possible).
Exchanges
Exchanges are online marketplaces where users can buy, sell, and trade cryptocurrency.
Fiat
Fiat is cash money, like dollars or euros. You can trade fiat for cryptocurrencies at many exchanges.
Floor
The lowest price available for an NFT in a collection.
Gas
The fee required to send a transaction or execute a smart contract on the blockchain.
Listing
Listing an NFT means you are putting it up for sale.
Metaverse
A digital universe with aspects of social media and gaming, with real-time interactions, financed with digital money (crypto).
The metaverse is the successor to today’s Internet - an embodied internet facilitated by virtual and augmented reality headsets. The metaverse is the next step in the evolution of online space, and it is going to be a place to work, play, live, and everything else.
Mint
The creation of a new NFT. Minting turns a digital file into a unique token on the blockchain.
Network
Network is another term for blockchain, and can be used interchangeably. Some examples of networks are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon, Cardano, and Solana.
NFT
NFT stands for non-fungible token. NFTs are basically data that is added to a file. In return, a unique signature is created on a blockchain for each NFT. That signature can represent anything from a JPEG, a tweet, a poem, a song, a meme, digital art, a trading card, or plain text.
Non-fungible just means that something cannot be exchanged or swapped out with another of the same thing.
NFTs provide individuals with clear ownership of digital items.
P2E
P2E stands for play-to-earn, where you play games like Axie Infinity to earn tokens.
PFP
PFP stands for profile picture, which lots of NFTs are used for, especially on Twitter.
Polygon
Polygon is a layer 2 protocol that runs on top of Ethereum. Layer 2s work on top of a network rather than using their own blockchain. Ethereum is a very popular network, and more crowded networks have higher fees. Polygon has much lower fees, making it a more economically attractive option for minting NFTs.
Private key
Every address on the blockchain (also known as a public key) has a corresponding private key, which is like the password to access and spend your funds.
Seed phrase
Your seed phrase, also known as a secret phrase, or a recovery phrase, is a series of words (usually 12 or 24) that is the unencrypted version of your wallet's master private key.
Your seed phrase is like your bank account, home address, and ATM pin all in one. If someone gets ahold of it, they can take all your crypto.
Self-custody
There's a famous saying in crypto - not your keys, not your coins. Self-custody means that you actually own your digital assets because you control the private keys and seed phrase of your wallet.
As long as you have your own non-custodial crypto wallet like MetaMask your crypto is in your custody. This is in contrast to keeping your crypto at an exchange like Coinbase.
Shilling
Shilling is when someone is talking up a project, either because they’re passionate about it, or in order to sell you something, whether it be a new token or NFT collection. If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. But often people shill out of sheer excitement – if someone asks you to shill them your work, they’re inviting you to show it off and talk about it!
Smart contracts
Smart contracts are programs that live on a blockchain that run when certain conditions are met. Smart contracts allow transactions and agreements to be carried out without the need for a central authority, legal system, or external enforcement mechanism. This means buyers and sellers don’t have to trust each other – you only have to trust the code.
Tokens
Tokens are a type of cryptocurrency that can run on their own blockchain, like Bitcoin, or run on another blockchain, like Chainlink (LINK) runs on Ethereum.
Trustless
An environment where there is no centralized authority such as a bank.
Unlisting
Unlisting, or delisting an NFT means that you are taking it off the marketplace so it is no longer for sale.
Wallet
A wallet in crypto refers to software that you can use to interact with your cryptocurrencies. A wallet lets you store, send, and receive different cryptocurrencies. You can use your wallet to sign into dApps like OIX. One popular choice of wallet to interact with the world of web3 and NFTs is MetaMask, but any wallet with WalletConnect will do.
A hot wallet is connected to the internet, so it is online and easily accessible. A good rule of thumb is to only store the amount of crypto in a hot wallet as the amount of cash you would store in your physical wallet.
A cold wallet is meant for long-term storage and larger amounts of crypto, and is much safer than a hot wallet. Examples of cold wallets include Trezor and Ledger.
WalletConnect
WalletConnect is an open source tool that enables a mobile wallet to easily connect to decentralized web applications (dApps), and interact with them from your phone.
Web3
Web3 is the next evolution of the World Wide Web, as well as being a catchall term for the world of crypto and NFTs. Similar to the Internet you know and love, but built on the blockchain.
White / Allowlist
A list of addresses that get early and guaranteed access to mint NFTs at a specific date and window of time.