TerminologyCommonly used abbreviations, words, names and phrases on bitcointalk.
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Bitcointalk[/size][/anchor]
'Alt'
Alternative, for example, an altcoin is an alternative to bitcoin.
'ANN'
Announcement.
'Bounty'
A sum of money offered as a reward. The reward is given to the first person to satisfactorily complete the relevant task.
'BT'
BitcoinTalk, this forum.
'Cosbycoin'
Someone hacked into this forum and injected some code that, among other things, causes a bunch of Bill Cosby popups, simulates uploading of a wallet.dat file, changes all avatars to images of Bill Cosby, and even changes the word bitcoin to Cosbycoin.
'Bump' & 'Bumping'
Bumping is posting in a thread with the sole purpose of moving the thread to the top of the recent posts list. Often posts of this nature include the word 'Bump'.
'Early Adopter Envy'
A sense of jealousy for those who were able to buy a significant amount of bitcoins at a fraction of the price they are today.
'Edit', '/edit:' & '[Edit]'
A note to inform the reader that this part of the post has been edited.
'GLBSE'
GLobal Bitcoin Stock Exchange. An exchange that provided services to users to buy/sell assets, stocks & bonds. This exchange has now closed.
'Goxxed'
MtGox is a bitcoin exchange that many claim is plagued with technical problems. The term 'goxxed' refers to being impeded by technical issues.
'M', 'Mr M' & 'The Manipulator'
A real or imagined agent who controls the market value with his vast reserves of fiat and bitcoins.
'OBO'
Or Best Offer.
'OP'
Original Post / Original Poster. This could refer to either the user that started the thread or the first post in the thread. If you are in the hardware section then it could also mean 'Over Power'.
'Pizza'
An often referenced event. The most bitcoins paid for a pizza is 5,000 BTC. In fact, it was two pizzas for 10,000 BTC.
(See -
The pizza thread)
'PPT'
Pirate Pass Through. An investment operation run by Pirateat40 which many claimed was a ponzi scheme, which in fact it was.
'Scamcoin'
An altcoin which is designed just to con people out of money.
'Scammer Tag'
A scammer is someone who has stolen other people property using manipulation. Anyone found guilty of scamming gets a scammer tag which is publicly visible on all their posts.
'Shitlist'
A list of bitcoin scammers.
(See -
bitcoin-shitlist.com)
'Shut Up And Take My Money!'
Used to imply that a financial offer is at least poorly thought out or at worst a con.
'Sockpuppet'
A sockpuppet is an online identity used for the purposes of deception.
'Sounds Legit' & 'Seems Legit'
Its a safe assumption that when you read this phrase it is actually sarcasm. You should read it as 'I don't trust you and I think your trying to con me'.
'Sticky'
A sticky thread is a thread that will stay pinned to the top of the recent posts list and will not move even if a new post is posted.
'Three-pronged Attack'
Named after a method made famous by Bruce Wagner. A multi-vector attack which includes indirect techniques combined with more direct ones.
'We're Going To Pattaya!'
Originally coined by Bruce Wagner. It's now the de facto response when a major announcement is forthcoming.
'WTB', 'WTS' & 'WTT'
Want To Buy / Want To Sell / Willing To Trade.
'YABC'
Yet Another Bitcoin Company.
'YMMV'
Your Mileage May Vary. It is used as a disclaimer that "this claim for results will be different for every person".
'Zhoutonged'
Zhou Tong is the creator of Bitcoinica, a margin trading platform that no-longer exists. Being 'Zhoutonged' means loosing all your money.
'1) Start bitcoin business. 2)
3) Profit!'
A humorous way of suggesting there may be a flaw in someone's plan or logic.
'+1' & '-1'
I agree with you / I disagree with you
'<*>tags</*>'
In order to convey subtle meanings in a statement, tags are often used. For example, you can convey sarcasm as follows - "<sarcasm>Good idea!</sarcasm>".
'@'
Used to direct a question or statement at someone. For example '@OP' would mean the following is directed at the original poster.
Bitcoin'Address'
An address is a metaphysical location where bitcoins can be stored. When you make a transaction, bitcoins are sent from one address to another.
(See -
Bitcoin Address)
'BIP'
Bitcoin Improvement Proposals. A system for submitting ideas for future development.
(See -
Wiki: Bitcoin Improvement Proposals)
'Bitcoin Foundation'
An organization setup for the purposes of standardizing, protecting and promoting bitcoin.
(See -
Bitcoin Foundation)
'Bitcoind'
Bitcoin Daemon. A program that implements the bitcoin protocol for command line and remote procedure call. This makes it useful for integration with other software or in larger payment systems.
'Block'
A block is a record of all or some of the most recent transactions.
(See -
Wiki: Blocks)
'Blockchain'
To publish a block a miner must solve a cryptographic puzzle which links the block being published with the previous block, forming a blockchain.
(See -
Wiki: Blockchain)
'Block Party'
A party celebrating the halving of the block reward.
'Block Reward'
Miners get a reward, a fresh batch of bitcoins straight out of the oven, every time they successfully publish a block.
'Brain Wallet'
A brain wallet refers to the concept of storing bitcoins in one's own mind by memorization of a passphrase. The passphrase is used to generate all your private keys and addresses. It should be noted that if you forget your passprase then your bitcoins are lost forever.
(See -
Wiki: Brainwallet)
'Browser Based Wallet'
An online wallet, usually accessed via a website.
(See -
Wiki: Browser Based Wallet)
'BTC'
Bitcoin. Used as a postfix to specify that a denomination is in bitcoins. For example, one bitcoin can be expressed as '1 BTC'.
'Client'
The software application used to send and receive transactions.
'Coinbase'
All bitcoins can be traced back to the point where they were created as a reward for the miner. The coinbase transaction is the transaction inside a block that pays the miner his block reward.
'Cold Wallet' & 'Cold Storage'
A wallet that has no connection to the internet (or other network). As it is stored 'off-line' it's not susceptible to attack via a network and is therefore more secure than its 'Hot Wallet' counterpart.
(See -
Cold Storage)
'Confirmations'
Depth of the block containing your transaction in the blockchain. When a block is published it has a depth of 0 as it is the top block. As more blocks are published the previous blocks get deeper in the chain.
(See -
Wiki: Confirmation)
'Deterministic Wallet'
A wallet that you need to backup only once. It creates all your bitcoin addresses, and private keys, from a random number called a "seed". Your wallet can be recovered from the seed, if the wallet file is accidentally deleted.
(See -
Wiki: Deterministic Wallet)
'Difficulty' & 'Difficulty Adjustment'
The bitcoin network has a target rate of block production which is one every ten minuets. In order to control block production rates the network adjusts the difficulty of the cryptographic puzzle miners need to solve in order to publish a block. Difficulty adjustments occur once every 2016 blocks, which is about every two weeks.
(See -
Wiki: Difficulty)
'Finney Attack'
A type of double spend attack originally described by
'Hal Finney'. It targets merchants accepting zero confirmation transactions and requires the cooperation of a powerful miner.
(See -
Wiki: Weaknesses)
'Fork'
1) See - 'Software Fork'.
2) See - 'Soft Fork'.
3) See - 'Hard Fork'.
'Genesis Block'
The first block of the blockchain released by Satoshi Nakamoto on Jan 4, 2009.
(See -
Wiki: Genesis Block)
'Hard Fork'
When there are a sufficient number of bitcoin clients on the network that disagree on the rules about how blocks are created and recorded in the blockchain. It leads to a split in the chain, one set of bitcoin clients follow one branch and another set follows the other. To fix hard forks some action must be taken by us.
'Hash'
A hash is a unique string of data. They are used in the bitcoin network and most often discussion of hash values relates to mining performance.
(See -
How bitcoin works)
'Hash Rate'
A unit a mining performance expressed as follows;
1 h/s = 1 hash per second
1 Kh/s = Kilohash per second. 1,000 h/s
1 Mh/s = Megahash per second. 1,000 Kh/s (1,000,000 h/s)
1 Gh/s = Gigahash per second. 1,000 Mh/s (1,000,000,000 h/s)
1 Th/s = Terahash per seond. 1,000 Gh/s (1,000,000,000,000 h/s)
'Hop', 'Hopping' & 'Hop Proof'
Pool hopping is the act of switching from pool to another. Miners do this in order to increase their likely profitability. There is a discussion on whether this if fair to non-hoppers, as their profit are diminished, so some pools implement 'Hop Proof' systems.
[anchor=Hot Wallet]'Hot Wallet'
A wallet that is accessible via the web, or other network connection. It should be noted that 'Hot Wallets' are vulnerably to a variety of online attacks and are not as secure as their 'Cold Wallet' counterparts.
(See -
Hot Wallet)
'kBTC'
KiloBitcoin = 1 thousand bitcoins = 1000 BTC.
'Krugman Fallacy'
The view that Bitcoin will not succeed because of its deflationary nature. People will "hoard" it instead of spending it, expecting it to raise in value later.
'mBTC' & 'BTM'
MilliBitcoin = 1 thousandth of a bitcoin = 0.001 BTC.
'Mine'
Mining is the act of linking blocks into the blockchain by solving cryptographic puzzles.
(See -
Wiki: Mining)
'Miner'
Mining software, or someone using mining software.
'Mining Rig'
A computer system, usually custom built and used for mining bitcoins.
'Node' & 'Full Node'
A computer that is connected to the bitcoin network. Nodes are described as full if they accept new incoming connections.
'Online Wallet'
See - 'Browser Based Wallet'
'Orphaned Blocks'
Whenever a 'Soft Fork' or 'Hard Fork' occurs, the blockchain is split into two paths. One of these chains will eventually be considered the valid one, and the other will be the invalid chain. Block that are in an invalid chain are called orphaned blocks.
'Paper Wallet'
A paper wallet is a way to store bitcoins by printing the addresses and private keys directly on a piece of paper, or other material.
'Pool'
A group of miners that all work together in order to improve their chances of solving a block.
'POS'
1) See - 'Proof Of Stake'.
2) Point Of Sale. Location where a transaction occurs, usually associated with electronic cash registers.
3) Piece Of Shit.
'POT'
Pay On Target. A type of reward scheme for miners that is similar to PPS. However, You get more for shares of higher difficulty, meaning you get a bigger reward if you're the block finder.
(See -
The POT thread)
'POW'
See - 'Proof Of Work'.
'PPS' & 'Pay Per Share'
A pooled mining reward scheme with an instant flat rate for each share that is solved. The payout is offered from the pool's existing balance and can therefore be withdrawn immediately.
'Proof Of Stake'
An alternative to Proof of Work. With Proof of Stake, the resource that's compared is the amount of bitcoins a miner holds rather than computational effort expended.
(See -
Wiki: Proof Of Stake)
'Proof Of Work'
Underpinning bitcoin is it's proof of work algorithm. It is a computational problem which when solved proves you expended some computational effort.
(See -
Wiki: Proof Of Work)
'Reward Halving'
Bitcoin enforces artificial scarcity by halving the reward given to miners every 4 years. Eventually, in the year 2140, all the bitcoins will have been mined and there will be just under 21 million of them.
'SAT' & 'Satoshi'
Smallest possible denomination of bitcoin, which is 0.00000001 BTC.
'Satoshi Client'
The original bitcoin client.
(See -
SourceForge &
GitHub)
'Share'
In pooled bitcoin mining, a share is awarded by a mining pool to the clients who present a valid proof of work for the current bitcoin block header that is being mined.
'Soft Fork'
1) A situation where two or more competing blocks are published at the same height in the blockchain. These kinds of forks will solve themselves without any intervention from us.
2) See - 'Software Fork'.
'Stale' & 'Stale Share'
Mining pools give each miner some "job" to be done - a bitcoin block header that the miner will hash in search of a share. When a new block is found, or new transactions are added to existing block by the pool, the old block header becomes stale. If someone finds a share calculated from the stale block header, it's considered a stale share and is wasted work.
'Taint'
Taint is a measure of how closely related your bitcoins are to a particular address. Taint is often used as a way of tracking stolen bitcoins.
'Thin Client'
A client that doesn't maintain a blockchain or validate transactions.
'TNBTC'
Bitcoin Test Net. The testnet is an alternative bitcoin blockchain that is used for testing.
(See -
Wiki: Testnet)
'Transaction Fee'
When you make a transaction it is possible to include a transaction fee. The miner that publishes the block containing your transaction gets to keep the transaction fee. It should be noted that once all the bitcoins have been mined the transaction fee will be the only reward for miners.
(See -
Wiki: Transaction Fee)
'TX'
Transaction.
'uBTC' & 'μBTC'
MicroBitcoin = 1 millionth of a bitcoin = 0.000001 BTC.
'Vanity Address' & 'Vanity Generator'
A vanity address is a bitcoin address that has been generated with a vanity generator and contains personalized words and numbers, much like a vanity license plate.
(See -
Wiki: Vanitygen)
'Wallet'
A data store for keeping private keys in.
(See -
Wiki: Wallet)
'Web Wallet'
See - 'Browser Based Wallet'
'51% Attack'
Bitcoin is designed with the belief that a single attacker will never have more than 50% of the total network processing power. If an attacker did have 51% or more they could perform a double spend, amongst other things.
(See -
Wiki: Weaknesses)
'
BTC'
The bitcoin symbol. Used as a prefix to specify that a denomination is in bitcoins. For example,
BTC1 = 1 BTC.
People'Atlas'
A member of this forum. He used to post frequently and the content of his posts were often questionable. Today, Atlas is still posting but the content of his posts has improved. The name Atlas is sometimes used to describe people with a high post count but very little meaningful content.
'Bruce Wagner'
Once the public face of bitcoin, he fell into disrepute after loosing his customers money claiming his business 'MyBitcoin' was hacked.
'Gavin Andresen'
Project leader of the open source, decentralized, and anonymous virtual currency project called Bitcoin.
(See -
Facebook: Gavin Andresen)
'Hal Finney'
Cryptographer and one of the earliest adopters of bitcoin. He was the first person besides Satoshi to run the bitcoin client, and was the recipient of the very first bitcoin transaction, when Satoshi sent ten coins to him as a test.
(See -
"Bitcoin and me" by Hal Finney)
'MNW' & 'Matthew N. Wright'
A previously productive member of this forum who foolishly made a 10,000 BTC bet. He lost the bet, didn't pay up,
and has now withdrawn from the forum and is now trying to make amends for his wrong doing.
(See -
The 10,000 BTC bet thread)
'Pirate', 'Pirateat40' & 'Trendon Shavers'
An infamous bitcoin criminal.
(See -
Wiki Pirateat40)
'Satoshi Nakamoto'
Inventor of bitcoin.
Places'CLAG'
Cryptocurrency Legal Advocacy Group. A trusted source of legal news related to cryptocurrencies.
(See -
CLAG)
'DCAO'
Secret society formed by MNW when he was rejected by the Illuminati and the Bilderberg Group.
'EFF'
Electronic Frontier Foundation / Electronic Freedom Foundation. An international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States.
(See -
The Electronic Frontier Foundation)
'FSF'
Free Software Foundation. Non-profit organization dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistributing, understanding, and modifying computer programs
(See -
Free Software Foundation)
'SA' & 'Something Awful'
A forum with strong opinions about everything, including bitcoin.
(See -
Something Awful)
'SR' & 'SilkRoad'
An online marketplace that is infamous for its illicit offerings.
Altcoins'DVC'
Devcoin, an altcoin designed to support open source developers.
'Dwolla'
A United States-only e-commerce company that provides an online payment system and mobile payments network by the same name.
(See -
Dwolla)
'DWUSD'
Dwolla USD.
'FRC' & 'Freicoin'
An altcoin with demurrage. Freicoins can be created forever as a reward for the miners. Each time a transaction is done a percentage of the freicoins in the transaction are destroyed, depending on how much time they have been held since the last transaction.
'IXC' & 'Ixcoin'
Altcoin with a faster rate of maturity. All Ixcoins will be mined 18 years before the last bitcoin.
'Liberty Dollar'
A private currency produced in the United States. The currency was issued in minted metal rounds (i.e. coins) and gold/silver certificates.
(See -
Wiki: Liberty Dollar)
'Linden Dollar' & 'L$'
A virtual currency that is used in the multi-player online environment called Second Life.
(See -
Wiki: Economy of Second Life)
'LR', 'LRUSD' & 'LREUR'
LibertyReserve / LibertyReserve USD / LibertyReserve EUR. A private currency exchange system issued by Liberty Reserve S.A. of San José, Costa Rica. Often used for transferring funds to and from bitcoin exchanges.
(See -
Wiki: Liberty Reserve)
'LQC' & 'Liquidcoin'
Defunct altcoin.
'LTC' & 'Litecoin'
Altcoin designed to be a lite version of bitcoin.
'MoneyPak'
A cash top-up card provided by the Green Dot Corporation.
(See -
Wiki: MoneyPak)
'NMC' & 'Namecoin'
An altcoin that is also a key/value store. It's primarily used as a domain name system.
'PP', 'PPUSD', 'PPEUR' & 'PPGBP'
Paypal / Paypal USD / Paypal EUR / Paypal GBP.
'PPC' & 'PPCoin'
Altcoin incorporating proof of stake.
(See -
Wiki: PPCoin)
'Ripple'
An open-source decentralized payment network with a monetary honor system based on trust that already exists between people in real-world social networks.
(See -
Wiki: Ripple)
'SC' & 'Solidcoin'
Defunct altcoin.
'SLL'
Second Life Linden. See - 'Linden Dollar'.
'TRC' & 'Terracoin'
An altcoin with a block production target rate of 2 minutes. A total number of 42 million terracoins will ever be produced.
'USD', 'EUR', 'GBP', 'CAD' & 'AUD'
U.S. Dollar / Euro / Pound Sterling / Canadian Dollar / Australian Dollar
'XRP'
See - 'Ripple'.
Business & Finance'ACH'
Automatic Clearing House. A network that processes large volumes of transactions.
'AML'
Anti-Money Laundering. A legal control that requires financial services, such as bitcoin exchanges, to detect and report money laundering activities.
(See -
Wiki: Money Laundering)
'Arbitrage'
The practice of taking advantage of a price difference between two or more exchanges. The aim is to profit from the difference between the market prices, by buying cheaper on one exchange and selling higher on the other. This also keeps the market price relatively similar across all the exchanges.
(See -
Wiki: Arbitrage)
'Ask'
The price a seller is willing to accept for a bitcoin. Along with the price, the ask quote will generally also stipulate the amount of bitcoins willing to be sold at that price.
'Bank Wire'
An electronic message system allowing major banks to communicate various actions or occurrences regarding client accounts. While the bank wire does not affect actual payments it will provide the financial institutions with knowledge of such events. It should be noted that 'Bank Wire' and 'ACH' are not the same thing as they use different transfer networks.
'Bear'
Someone who thinks the market value will go down. A bear market is a prolonged period of falling prices.
'Bid'
This is the opposite of 'Ask'. The price a buyer is willing to pay for a bitcoin and the quantity of bitcoins to be bought at that price.
'Bubble'
A self fueled surge in market price, where prices rise above their true value. It will continue to rise until the bubble bursts and a massive selloff occurs.
'Bull'
Opposite of bear, they think the market value will go up. A bull market is a prolonged period of rising prices.
'B2B'
Business-to-business. Commerce transactions between businesses, such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler, or between a wholesaler and a retailer. Contrasting terms are business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-government (B2G).
'CYA' & 'CYOA'
Cover Your Ass / Cover Your Own Ass. Describes a practices that serve to protect oneself from legal and administrative penalties, criticism, or other punitive measures.
'DCC' & 'CPC'
Dynamic Currency Conversion / Cardholder Preferred Currency. A financial service in which holders of credit cards have the cost of a transaction converted to their local currency when making a payment in a foreign currency.
'Deflation' & 'Deflationary'
The opposite of inflation, deflation is defined as a sustained decrease in the general level of prices for goods and services relative to a certain measure. It is measured as an annual percentage decrease. Currencies which are subject to deflation are described as being deflationary.
'Demurrage'
The expense incurred from carrying a currency over a period of time. Similar to inflation, demurrage deliberately diminishes the purchasing power of money, thereby discouraging hoarding.
(See -
Wiki: Demurrage)
'DMT'
Digital Monetary Trust. A proposed financial trust providing private, anonymous accounts for individuals and entities within the DMT system, in order to securely store anonymous capital or to make anonymous monetary transactions.
(See -
Digital Monetary Trust)
'Double Spend'
Double-spending is successfully spending the same money more than once.
(See -
Double-spending)
'EFT'
Electronic Funds Transfer. A system for transferring money from one bank account directly to another.
(See -
Wiki: Electronic Funds Transfer)
'Elliot Wave'
A form of technical analysis. It is use to analyse financial market cycles and forecast market trends by identifying extremes in investor psychology.
(See -
Wiki: Elliot Wave)
'Escrow Service'
Holds payments made for a service and releases them to the intended recipient only after it has been verified that the recipient has kept his end of the deal.
'Fiat'
Government issued currency.
'Fractional Reserve'
A banking system in which only a fraction of the deposits are backed by actual cash-on-hand and are available for withdrawal. This is done to expand the economy by freeing up capital that can be loaned out to other parties. Fractional-reserve systems permit the money supply to grow to a multiple of the underlying reserves of base money.
'Fungibility'
The property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are capable of mutual substitution, such as crude oil, shares in a company, bonds, precious metals, or currencies. Shoes are an example of a non-fungible good. You can't just wear someone else's, it's gross and they'll be the wrong size, so they are not mutually substitutable.
'Hording'
The act of obtaining bitcoins without the intention of spending them. Some argue that there is no difference between hording and saving.
'IANAL'
I Am Not A Lawyer. Used in discussions regarding legality of various activities, usually by people who have no business dispensing legal advice or opinions, e.g."IANAL, but it seems to me that the lawsuit was doomed to fail".
'Inflation' & 'Inflationary'
The opposite of deflation, a general increase in prices of goods and services relative to a certain measure. Currencies which are subject to inflation are described as being inflationary.
'Keynesian'
A school of economic thought inspired by the ideas of the economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynesian economics advocates a mixed economy, predominantly private sector, but with a role for government intervention during recessions.
(See -
Wiki: Keynesian Economics)
'KYC'
Know Your Customer. A legal requirement to make a reasonable effort to confirm your costumers true identity. This policy helps to prevent things like money laundering.
(See -
Wiki: Know Your Customer)
'Leverage'
In finance, leverage is a general term for any technique used to multiply gains and losses. A common way to attain leverage is by borrowing money.
'Limited Order'
A limited order is an order that is place above or below current market price. It may or may not be filled depending on the movements of the market.
'Liquidity'
Market liquidity is an asset's ability to be sold without causing a significant movement in the price and with minimum loss of value. Liquidity is characterized by a high level of trading activity. Assets that can be easily bought or sold are known as liquid assets.
(See -
Wiki: Market Liquidity)
'Long'
The position of bulls, "It's going UP UP UP!". A long position means the holder of the position owns bitcoins and will profit if the price goes up.
'Margin'
In margin trading the trader borrows money to trade with. The margin is a collateral deposit made to cover the credit risk of the lender.
'Margin Call'
When the margin falls below the minimum required to cover the credit risk of the lender, the broker or exchange issues a margin call. At this point the position is automatically closed and the margin is lost.
'Market Order'
A market order is an order to buy at market price. Market orders are always filled immediately.
'OTC'
Over The Counter. Off-exchange trading that is done directly between two parties.
'PCI'
Payment Card Industry. Denotes the debit, credit, prepaid, e-purse, ATM, POS cards and associated businesses.
'PCI DSS'
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. A proprietary information security standard for organizations that handle cardholders information for the major PCI cards.
'Ponzi Scheme'
A fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors.
(See -
Wiki: Ponzi Scheme)
'PR'
Public Relations. A strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their public.
'PSP'
Payment Service Provider. A provider of online services for accepting electronic payments by a variety of payment methods, including bitcoin.
'Pump And Dump'
A form of market manipulation where the price is artificially inflated, through false and misleading positive statements, so they can sell higher than they bought.
(See -
Wiki: Pump And Dump)
'ROI'
Return On Investment. The actual or likely return on money invested.
'SEC'
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. A federal agency which is responsible for enforcing financial laws.
(See -
Wiki: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commision)
'SEPA'
Single Euro Payments Area. A payment-integration initiative of the European Union for simplification and harmonization of bank transfers.
(See -
Wiki: Single Euro Payments Area)
'Short'
The position of bears, "It's going to ZERO!". A short position means the holder of the position has borrowed bitcoins and sold them, hoping to buy them back again when they are cheaper. They will profit if the price goes down.
'Slippage'
The difference between expected price and the price actually paid. Slippage often results when large trades are executed in a market with poor liquidity.
(See -
Wiki: Slippage)
'Speculation'
The practice of trading in an attempt to profit from short or medium term fluctuations in the market value. Also refers to prediction of future market value.
(See -
Wiki: Speculation)
'Spread'
The amount by which the 'Ask' price exceeds the 'Bid' price. This is essentially the difference in price between the highest price that a buyer is willing to pay for a bitcoin and the lowest price for which a seller is willing to sell it.
'TA' & 'Technical Analysis'
The arcane science of trying to predict future market value by drawing straight lines over top of squiggly lines.
(See -
Wiki: Technical Analysis)
'Tragedy Of The Commons'
A market failure scenario where production and consumption are unbalanced due to conflicts of interest. In the future, when the only reward for miners is the transaction fee, people might only want to pay a small fee. This would leave the miners disincentivized, and lead to a dangerously underpowered network.
(See -
Wiki: Tragedy Of The Commons)
'Volatility'
A measure of how unstable the market is, for example, frequent and large swings in market value would be described as a highly volatile market.
'Wall'
A wall is a relatively large limited order which influences the current market price. Placing bid walls and ask walls is a common tactic of the manipulator.
'Wire Transfer'
An international expedited bank-to-bank funds transfer.
(See -
Wiki: Wire Transfer)
'WOT'
Web Of Trust. A system that firstly forces its users to prove their identity and secondly associate that identity with positive/negative feedback from other users. The purpose of a web of trust is to help users identify trustworthiness in other users.
(See -
Wiki: Web Of Trust)
'#bitcoin-otc'
An over the counter market for bitcoins, with an open order book, and a web of trust based on GPG keys.
(See -
#bitcoin-otc)
Slang & Emoticons'AFAIK'
As Far As I Know.
'AKA'
Also Known As.
'BOT'
Back On Topic. Used when someone is going off the topic and posting stuff that isn't relevant to what is going on.
'Brony'
Male, usually adult, with the inexplicable interests of a little girl. Can usually be spotted by their choice of avatar, My Little Pony. (ya I know... "haters gonna hate.")
'BTW'
By The Way.
'CWOT'
Complete Waste Of Time. e.g "Unfortunately it was a CWOT"
'DILLIGAF?'
Do I Look Like I Give A Fuck?
'FTFY'
Fixed That For You. Appended to a modified quotation, as if the modification “fixes” a mistake in the original statement.
'FUD'
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. A strategic attempt to influence people by spreading negative and false information.
'FWIW'
For What It's Worth.
'FYI'
For Your Information.
'GIYF'
Google Is Your Friend. Implies that the information you seek, is easily found by searching the internet.
'IDGAF'
I Don't Give A Fuck.
'IIRC'
If I Recall Correctly.[/anchor]
'IMO' & 'IMHO'
In My Opinion / In My Humble Opinion.
'Jelly'
Jealousy.
'Libertard'
A derogatory combination of 'Libertarian' and 'Retard'.
'LMAO' & 'LMFAO'
Laughing My Ass Off / Laughing My Fucking Ass Off.
'LOL'
Laugh Out Loud.
'Moar'
A combination of 'more' and 'roar'. An expression of interest and desire, indicating the poster wishes more of the same or similar type of content thus provided.
'NSFW'
Not Safe For Work. Used to describe Internet content generally inappropriate for the typical workplace, as opposed to SFW, Safe For Work.
'Nym'
Pseudonym.
'OMG', 'OMFG', 'zOMG', 'zOMFG', 'ZOMG' & 'ZOMFG'
Oh My God / Oh My Fucking God. The "z" was originally a mistake while attempting to hit the shift key.
'OTOH'
On The Other Hand.
'o.o' & 'o_o'
A face with a blank stare.
'o.O', 'O.O', 'o_O' & 'O_O'
Shock, supprise or puzzlement.
'PPL'
People.
'ROFL'
Rolling On Floor Laughing.
'STFU'
Shut The Fuck Up!
'TANSTAAFL'
There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
'TL:DR'
Too Long, Didn't Read. Either used as a criticism or as a heading for a synopsis.
'Troll'
Someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages.
'WTF'
What The Fuck!
'xD'
A laughing face.
':p' & ':b'
A face sticking its tongue out, cheeky!
':/' & ':\'
A face with a skeptical, annoyed, undecided, uneasy or hesitant expression.
Technology'AES'
Advanced Encryption Standard. An algorithm for encrypting data.
(See -
Wiki: Advanced Encryption Standard)
'ASIC'
Application-Specific Integrated Circuit. An advanced type of hardware used for mining.
(See -
Wiki: Application-Specific Integrated Circuit)
'Bcrypt'
Most of the time when people mention BCrypt, they are talking about the adaptive hash algorithm, but it is also the name of an unrelated file encryption utility. Both are based on the Blowfish cipher algorithm published by Bruce Schneier in 1993.
(See -
Wiki: Bcrypt)
'BFL'
Butterfly Labs. ASIC developers.
'Bot'
Bots or robots are software applications that run automated tasks, such as bitcoin trading, over the internet.
'Botnet'
A collection of internet-connected computers whose security defences have been breached and control ceded to a malicious party.
'Brute Force'
An attempt to gain access to something by trying all possible keys until the correct key is found.
'Cloud' & 'Cloud Computing'
A collection of networked computers that share hardware and software resources.
'Crack'
Modification of software to remove or disable features which are considered undesirable by the person cracking the software.
'Dark Web'
A collection of websites that are only accessible over a Darknet. The Dark Web is actually a subset of the Deep Web, and as such is not indexed by standard search engines.
'Darknet'
Any network where connections are made only between trusted peers using non-standard protocols and ports.
'Deep Web' & 'Deepnet'
World Wide Web content that is not part of the Surface Web, and can not be found on any standard search engines.
'DES'
Data Encryption Standard. An algorithm for encrypting data.
(See -
Wiki: Data Encryption Standard)
'DL'
1) Download.
2) Dead Link. A non-functional hyperlink.
'DoS' & 'DDoS'
Denial-Of-Service Attack / Distributed Denial-Of-Service Attack. An attempt to make a computer or internet resource, such as a web site, unavailable to its intended users. Usually the attacker will attempt to overload the systems resources.
(See -
Wiki: Denial-Of-Service-Attack)
'DSA'
Digital Signature Algorithm. An algorithm for authenticating data.
(See -
Wiki: Digital Signature Algorithm)
'ECDSA'
Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm. An algorithm for authenticating data.
(See -
Wiki: Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm)
'FPGA'
Field-Programmable Gate Array. A type of hardware used for mining.
(See -
Wiki: Field-Programmable Gate Array)
'Git' & 'GIT'
Git is a distributed revision control and source code management system with an emphasis on speed. It enables software developer to work together as a team remotely from anywhere in the world. Git is a free software distributed under the terms of 'GPL'.
(See -
Git)
'GitHub'
A web-based hosting service for projects that use the Git revision control system.
(See -
GitHub)
'GPG' & 'GnuPG'
Gnu Privacy Guard. A cryptographic software suite that incorporate both encryption and authentication. GPG is a part of the Free Software Foundation's GNU software project.
(See -
Gnu Privacy Guard)
'GPL'
General Public License. The most widely used software license, which guarantees end users the freedoms to use, study, copy, and modify the software.
(See -
Wiki: General Public License)
'GPU'
Graphics Processing Unit. Can be used to play games or mine bitcoins.
'Honey Pot'
A honey pot is a "trap" expressly set up to attract people. Its purpose is to detect, deflect, or in some manner counteract attempts at unauthorized/illegal use of information or computer systems.
'IRC'
Internet Relay Chat. An internet base text messaging chat system that is designed to enable groups of people to communicate in real-time.
'Keylogger'
A piece of software that logs all keystrokes on a keyboard. They are often used nefariously to gain access to secret information such as passwords.
'LGPL'
Lesser General Public License. A software licence that is similar to GPL. The LGPL allows developers and companies to use and integrate LGPL software into their own (even proprietary) software without being required to release the source code of their own software-parts.
(See -
Wiki: Lesser General Public License)
'Merkle Tree'
A data tree structure whose leafs contain the data and a hash is generated at each branch all the way down to the root. Changing the data at any leaf results in a change in the root hash.
'MIT' & 'MIT License'
A free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is a permissive free software license similar to GPL. The license is also GPL-compatible, meaning that the GPL permits combination and redistribution with software that uses the MIT License.
(See -
Wiki: MIT License)
'MITM Attack'
A Man-In-The-Middle attack is a type of exploit where attackers intrude into an existing connection to intercept the exchanged data and inject false information.
(See -
Wiki: MITM Attack)
'Multi-sig'
A system that requires multiple cryptographic authentication keys.
'Nonce'
An extra bit of data provided to enforce uniqueness in a data set.
'PGP'
Pretty Good Privacy. An encryption system that provides both data security and authentication.
'Public Key' & 'Private Key'
1) In the context of Bitcoin. A private key is a secret number that allows bitcoins to be spent. Because the private key is the "ticket" that allows someone to spend bitcoins, it is important that these are kept secure.
(See -
Wiki: Private Key)
2) In the context of Public Key Cryptography. A cryptographic system that requires two keys. The public key is used to encrypt the data, and the private key is used to decrypt it.
(See -
Wiki: Public Key Cryptography)
'P2P'
Peer To Peer. A network architecture where all nodes cooperate on an equal basis, as opposed to the client server model.
(See -
Wiki: Peer-To-Peer)
'QR Code'
A QR Code is the two dimensional equivalent of a bar code. Instead of lines a QR Code is a two dimensional array of squares. Often bitcoin addresses and private keys are displayed/printed as QR codes.
(See -
Wiki: QR Code)
'RIPEMD-160'
RACE Integrity Primitives Evaluation Message Digest. An algorithm that generates a hash when provided with input data.
(See -
Wiki: RACE Integrity Primitives Evaluation Message Digest)
'SHA-256'
Secure Hash Algorithm. An algorithm that generates a hash when provided with input data.
(See -
Wiki: SHA-2)
'Sig' & 'Signature'
A cryptographic authentication key.
'Software Fork'
Splitting an open-source software project into two projects by copying the original project and developing it independently from that point onwards.
(See -
Wiki: Fork (software development))
'Tor', 'TOR' & 'The Onion Router'
A system that enables its users to communicate anonymously on the Internet. The routeing mechanism used by 'Tor' is a 'Darknet'.
(See -
The Tor Project)
'Trojan Horse'
A type of malware that masquerades as a legitimate file or helpful program but whose real purpose is, for example, to grant a hacker unauthorized access to a computer.
(See -
Wiki: Trojan Horse)
'UL'
Upload.
Other'Armory'
An open source wallet management application. While Armory is feature rich it does still require the 'Satoshi Client' to be installed and running in order to function.
(See -
Armory)
'ATM'
1) At The Moment.
2) Automated Teller Machine. An automated cash dispensing machine. Also known as an automated banking machine 'ABM' in Canadian English, cash machine, cashpoint, cashline and sometimes a hole in the wall in British English.
'Casascius'
Maker of physical bitcoins.
(See -
Casascius)
'Dox', 'Doxed' & 'Doxxed'
Documented. When a person is "doxxed", all their personal information is made available for all users to see. Names, addresses, phone numbers and school/work are not spared. This practice is sometimes used as a punishment for misdoings.
'Electrum'
An open source, lightweight (thin) client that doesn't download the blockchain. It instead connects to a remotely hosted server.
(See -
Electrum)
'Faucet'
A site which gives out free coins to get newbies started.
'Laundry'
See - 'Tumbler'.
'LE'
Law Enforcement.
'Martingale'
A betting strategy of continually increasing your stake until you eventually win, so that your eventual winnings will be enough to exceed all of your previous losses. It would be a viable strategy except that you might have a long-enough losing streak that you can't afford the exponentially-increasing stakes. Then it's disastrous.
'OT'
1) Off Topic.
2) Open Transactions. An open source software application that allows users to issue and manipulate digital assets.
'PM'
1) Personal Message.
2) Perfect Money, an e-payment system that is very similar to Liberty Reserve.
(See -
Perfect Money)
'Randian'
Follower of the views of Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist who developed a philosophical system she called Objectivism. Objectivism promotes an idea called rational self-interest, it states that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness.
'Tumbler'
A service that allows people to put their bitcoins in and then randomly hands them back and equal (perhaps minus a small fee) amount of bitcoins from someone else. These new bitcoins cannot be traced back to the old ones through the blockchain except by the tumbler operator themselves.
'UTC'
Coordinated Universal Time. A time standard by which the world regulates its clocks, it is the same as Greenwich Mean Time. As this is an international forum, dates and times should be expressed unambiguously. For example, the first block reward halving occurred on 28th Nov 2012 at 15:24 UTC.
