Cryptocurrency Terms You Must Know (D-G)

Headlines shout a crash in the cryptocurrency market. And there’re many words you don’t exactly understand.

What’s “DApps”, “falling knife”, or even a “governance token”? Today, we explore the terms which begin with D all the way to G.

D

Dark Web (aka Deep Web): The part of the Internet that cannot be found through search engines. You’ll need a special software or configuration to access information on the dark web.
Things on the dark web are usually illegal and criminal.

Day Trading: Buying and selling a cryptocurrency within a day.

Dead Cat Bounce: A short recovery in a bear market before the downtrend resumes.

Decentralized: A network where authority and control is distributed.

Decentralized Applications (DApps): Open source applications that run on a network of computers instead of being run on a centralized server.

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO): An organization that that runs on hard-coded rules encoded in smart contracts.

Decentralized Exchange (DEX): A cryptocurrency exchange where users can trade cryptocurrencies directly from their cryptocurrency wallets without the need to go through an intermediary.
What are wallets? Which type of wallets should you use? Discover all about wallets here.

Decentralized Finance (DeFi): An ecosystem of decentralized applications (DApps) powered by blockchain networks.

Decryption: Decoding a message into readable text.
Eg. “185f8db32271fe25f561a6fc938b2e264306ec304eda518007d1764826381969” becomes “Hello”.

Deflation: A decline in prices for goods and services. This is the opposite of inflation.

Delegated Proof-of-Stake (dPOS): A system where anyone can provide a collateral (in the form of cryptocurrency) to govern the blockchain network. The job of validating each block on the blockchain network is delegated to others.

Depth Chart: A graphic representation of the bid and ask limit orders.

Derivative: A financial instrument which gets its price or value from a cryptocurrency.
Eg. Bitcoin CFD is a derivative of Bitcoin.

Digital Currency: A currency that exists only in digital form.

Distributed Consensus: An agreement reached by the computers in a network.

Distributed Denial of Service Attack (DDoS): A cyber-attack which aims to disrupt the operation of an application by flooding it with requests, preventing other legitimate requests to be processed.

Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT): A database where records are stored and shared across a network of decentralized computers. This is the basis for blockchains.

Divergence: A divergence is said to occur when the price of a cryptocurrency and the reading of a technical indicator (eg. MACD, RSI, Volume) are heading in opposite directions.

Diversify: The allocation of investment capital across the different categories of cryptocurrency to reduce overall risks.
How can you diversify within your cryptocurrency portfolio? What are the 6 major categories of cryptocurrency that you should own? Read about it here.

Do Your Own Research (DYOR): Researching and forming your conclusion instead of purely relying on tips.

Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA): An investment method where you set aside a sum of money to be invested in cryptocurrency without fail, regardless of the trend and price of the cryptocurrency.

Black arrows indicate a purchase on the 1st of each month

Dolphin: A person with a moderate holding of cryptocurrency.

Double Spending: A cryptocurrency which has been spent more than once.

Dump: A sudden sell-off of cryptocurrency.

E

Emission: The speed at which new cryptocurrency coins will be produced and released.

Encryption: Encoding a message from readable text to a string of alphanumeric text for security.
Eg. “Hello” becomes “185f8db32271fe25f561a6fc938b2e264306ec304eda518007d1764826381969”.

ERC-20: Cryptocurrencies that are designed and used on the Ethereum platform.

ERC-721: A cryptocurrency standard from non-fungible tokens (NFTs) built on the Ethereum platform.

Escrow: Cash or cryptocurrency is held by a third party while waiting for a transaction to be completed.

Ether: The cryptocurrency of Ethereum.

Exchange: A marketplace for buying and selling cryptocurrencies.
Need a recommendation? Discover the 9 important features a good cryptocurrency exchange should have by clicking here.

F

Fakeout: A situation where you bought/sold cryptocurrency and the price of the cryptocurrency reverses.

Falling Knife: Buying cryptocurrency while its price is still falling rapidly.

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO): The fear that you’ll miss out on a potentially profitable cryptocurrency trade.

Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD): A strategy that spreads fear, create uncertainty, or sprout doubt to influence others.

Fiat: Government issued currency.

FIat-pegged Cryptocurrency (aka Pegged Cryptocurrency): A cryptocurrency that’s linked to a government or bank-issued currency.

Fiscal Policy: Policies regarding taxation to affect the economy.

Fish: A person who holds small amount cryptocurrency.

Flippening: The moment when the market capitalization of Ether surpasses Bitcoin’s.

Flipping: Buying and selling cryptocurrency in a short period of time in a hope of making a quick profit.

Forced Liquidation: A trader’s position is forcibly closed due to being unable to meet his/her margin requirements.

Fork: See Chain Split

Full Node: A computer that downloads a blockchain’s entire history to help secure the blockchain network.

Fungible: An item is know to be fungible when a unit of it is indisguisable from another in terms of value and functionality.

Fundamental Analysis (FA): The study and analysis of a cryptocurrency’s underlying value by looking at the team, growth prospects, technology, adoption rate, and more.

Futures: A legal agreement to buy or sell cryptocurrency in the future at an agreed price and date.