Personal finance can be confusing and investing in stocks can be intimidating for the uninitiated. Trying to understand buy points, dollar-cost averaging, cup and handle patterns of stock prices and other elements of stock marketing investing — not to mention the various indices that reveal market trends — often requires a lot of study or guidance from an expert.
Advertisement: High Yield Savings Offers
See: How Does Cryptocurrency Work – and Is It Safe?
Find: Breaking Down the Basics: Cryptocurrency
And then cryptocurrency investing storms onto the scene with a language all its own, largely driven by retail stock investors, millennials and social media. Some of the jargon applies to stocks, as well, as it was borrowed from meme-stock investors and bandied heartily on the Reddit sub-thread /WallStreetBets during the GameStop stock frenzy.
Here’s your guide to crypto jargon, so that whether you choose to invest or not, you’ll know what Elon Musk means when he pumps his fist to the sky on “Saturday Night Live” and declares, “To the moon!”
Diamond hands – When a crypto or stock investor has “diamond hands” it means they will hold onto their coins or shares even as the value drops. On March 19, amidst Bitcoin plummeting from over $45,500 per coin to under $40,000, Tesla TechnoKing Elon Musk tweeted “Tesla has” with emoji for “diamond” and “hands.” He credited the statement to Tesla’s “Master of Coin.”
Paper hands – On the other hand, someone with paper hands may sell stock or coin too early, losing out on unrealized profits. The analogy comes from poker, where someone may “fold,” or exit the game, if they believe they aren’t going to win.
HODL – Pronounced Ha-dill (rhymes with model), HODL means someone who doesn’t intend to sell their crypto or stock. The term originated in a Bitcoin forum in 2013 when someone misspelled the word “hold,” declaring “I AM HODLING.” The word also applies to meme-stocks.
Whale — A whale describes someone who holds a large percentage of a specific crypto. Investopedia writes that the top 20% of bitcoin holders own more than 80% of bitcoin. When these companies choose to sell coin, it can affect the market more than the singular actions of most investors. Surprisingly, Tesla is just on the cusp of being considered a whale, and the electric vehicle manufacturer doesn’t even own the most shares of any publicly held company, according to Fortune. It seems to be Musk’s tweets alone that move crypto value.
See: 4 Best Places To Buy and Sell Cryptocurrency
Find: 10 Cheap Cryptocurrencies To Check Out
To the Moon – It’s difficult to trace the origins of the phrase “to the moon,” but the meaning is self-explanatory. Just as landing astronauts on the moon in 1969 (and even today…) was a questionable proposition with high stakes for success, a stock or crypto that goes “to the moon” just means its price will rise to make investors untold profits.