NFT Glossary



NFT Glossary
Airdrop - New NFTs or cryptocurrencies that are automatically sent to your wallet for free. They can be airdropped for a number of reasons, such as to promote a new collection or reward someone for participating in a contest.
Alpha – Having access to important insider information and sharing (not publicly available) info about an NFT project with someone else.
AMA (Ask Me Anything) – A thread for the community to ask a developer questions about their project.
Ape In - To heavily invest in a new project, typically out of “FOMO”, and/or without doing your due diligence.
Avatar – A digital representations of users in online environments such as virtual worlds and games. Since NFTs are unique, they are the perfect way to represent avatars in the metaverse.
Beeple – Pseudonym for Mike Winkelmann, probably the most well known digital artist.
Blockchain – A decentralized record-keeping technology that provides accurate and secure data storage on a digital ledger.
Blue Chip – Well-known projects/tokens with the most stability.
Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) – A social club of NFT collectors who own Bored Ape NFTs.
Bridge – A bridge will move your tokens from one blockchain to another, and you can get back your tokens on the new chain.
Burning – Sending NFTs to the contract address so that they’ll be destroyed and no longer be transferable, although technically NFTs always remain on the blockchain.
CAT (Cryptocollectible Asset Token) – Short for CryptoKitties, one of the most popular NFTs on Ethereum.
Collectible – A unique piece of digital art that holds an intrinsic value. It can be a song, picture, video, or any other unique digital item.
CryptoPunks – A popular NFT collection.
DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) – Transparent members-owned community without centralized leadership encoded on the blockchain.
dApp (Decentralized Application) – Applications designed by developers and deployed on a blockchain to carry out actions without intermediaries.
DeFi (Decentralized Finance) – Decentralized finance.
Degen (Degenerate) – Investing that involves high risk and a lot of speculation and without doing due research.
Derivative – The creation of an NFT from the original art, like an art reproduction by another artist.
Diamond Hands – People who decide not to sell even under the pressure or high volatility of the market.
Do Your Own Research (DYOR) – DYOR refers to the idea that individuals should conduct their own research before making any decisions about investing in cryptocurrency.
Drop – Releasing new NFTs to the market.
ERC-721 – A recipe for building NFTs on the Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible blockchains.
Etherscan – A website that functions as an Ethereum blockchain network explorer.
Exchange – A platform that allows customers to trade cryptocurrencies for fiat money or other cryptocurrencies.
Farming – In farming you either Stake an NFT to receive tokens as a reward, or you can stake tokens to receive NFT as a reward.
Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) – In crypto markets, it usually refers to watching the tokens you do not own go through explosive upward price movements.
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) – Refers to information that is likely to push people toward a pessimistic view of the market.
Fiat Money – The traditional money as we know it (USD, euro, etc.).
Flipping – Buying an NFT at a low price and selling at a higher price to turn a profit.
Floor Price – The lowest NFT price in a collection.
Floor Sweep – To buy up the cheapest NFT in a collection.
Fractional Ownership – Partial ownership rights over an NFT.
Fungible Tokens – Interchangeable and tradable tokens, such as Ethereum and Bitcoin.
GameFi – Games that offer tokens of NFTs as rewards or prizes.
Gas Wars – When many people try to make a transaction quickly at the same time, and the gas fee increases ridiculously.
Generative Art – A project in which NFTs are generated from a pool of limited assets with the use of an autonomous system. Basically it means a computer program randomizes pre-built image layers to create the NFT art images.
Hashmasks – Digital paintings made by a globally-distributed team of 70 artists that offer consumers control over the art.
HODL – The term comes from misspelling the word hold. It refers to the action of not selling your cryptos. The term is now commonly expanded to stand for “Hold On for Dear Life.”
IDO (Initial Dex Offering) – New NFTs are launched via a decentralized liquidity exchange as a fundraising method for upcoming NFT projects.
IGO (Initial Game Offering) – A funding method where a game team sells in-game assets to support the game’s startup costs.
InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) – A means of storing NFT data that is considered superior to storing on an HTTP gateway URL, since the latter is tied to a specific provider.
Liquidity – The degree to which an asset can be quickly bought or sold in the market without adversely affecting the asset’s price. If your NFT has high liquidity, then you'll likely find a buyer. Metadata – The necessary and unique data that make up the NFT and defines how it looks.
MetaMask – A digital wallet used to access NFT marketplaces, such as OpenSea or Rarible. It is used as a browser extension.
Metaverse – A virtual 3D world where people can interact. It is a part of the NFT world as it leverages Web3, blockchain technology, and computer interfaces.
Migration – When NFT is transferred from one blockchain to another during a blockchain changeover.
Minting – The creation process of an NFT and by which an NFT becomes part of the blockchain.
Minting Interval – How often you can mint or create tokens.
Non-fungible token (NFT) – A blockchain-based financial security. Each NFT represents a unique digital asset like a piece of art, digital content, or media. Dragon Man was the first ever NFT and web3 movie to hit the market.
NFTfi – A platform for P2P loans that use one of your NFTs as collateral for the transaction.
NGMI (Not Going to Make It) – In the NFT space means that someone is about to miss a huge opportunity on a trade.
Noob – Someone who doesn't know much about the NFT market.
Open Editions – An NFT for which any number of editions may be minted, which is the opposite of a limited edition NFT.
OpenSea – The leading NFT marketplace on Ethereum.
Oracle – A code that offers smart contracts and serves as a bridge between different blockchains.
Paper Hands – Someone who sold an NFT at a price that’s perceived to be too low. It is the opposite of "Diamond Hands".
PFP (Picture for Profile) – In the NFT space, a PFP is an NFT that is a part of an NFT collection with cartoon profile-picture-like images.
PFP Project (Picture for Profile Project) – The same as a 10k project or an avatar project. This term is coined because the avatars in these NFT collections are often used as profile pictures on platforms like Twitter.
Play-to-earn Game – Games in which players can earn NFTs, that have real-world value and can be exchanged outside of game-play.
Polygon – Ethereum-compatible protocol platform for NFTs that provides cheaper, faster, and more secure payment transactions, because of cheap minting costs and low gas fees.
Private Key – A private key is a variable in cryptography that is used with an algorithm to encrypt and decrypt data.
Project – A collection of digital assets that are part of the same roadmap.
Public Key – A cryptographic key that allows people to access your wallet or NFTs. Similar to private keys but it doesn’t need to be kept secret.
Pump and Dump – When a group of "whales" buy large quantities of NFT to drive up the price to a peak. When the price peaks, the same people sell their position high for a hefty profit, therefore dumping the price.
Rarity – One of the critical factors to determine the value of an NFT. The overall rarity of an NFT is usually determined by calculating the scarcity of its individual traits, e.g. by averaging them or multiplying them together.
Roadmap – Explains and shares future actions for the NFT project and allows the community to see what's coming.
Rug Pull – A scam in which a NFT project is promoted only for its creators and developers to disappear and run away with the money. While you might get an actual NFT you purchased, they’ll most likely be worthless.
Sandbox – A community-driven gaming ecosystem where designers and artists can create, share, and monetize NFTs and gaming experiences on the blockchain, and is partnered with many industry giants.
Secondary Market – A place for the trade of NFT after it is minted, such as OpenSea.
Shilling – Promoting an NFT project and encouraging others to invest in a specific NFT as a marketing strategy.
Smart Contract – A self-executing digital contract. NFTs are minted and traded using smart contracts that assign ownership, access assets within the NFT, and manage the transferability of the NFT.
Snapshot – Used by NFT creators to determine who are eligible for airdrops.
Sweep the Floor – Buying all the NFTs at the floor price of the moment.
To the Moon – An expression of hope that an NFT project’s value will skyrocket.
Token – A piece resembling a coin issued for use by a particular group on specified terms.
Tokenomics – A coined word combining "token" and "economics" that refers to the economics of cryptos, DeFi, or NFTs.
Traits – Characteristics that make an NFT unique in the collection.
Utility-focused NFTs – NFTs with real-world use cases. Owning a Bored Ape NFT for example, grants benefits such as access to a collaborative graffiti board. Virtual Currency – A digital representation of value that is used as a medium of exchange and a store of value used mostly as a way for people to track, store, and send payments over the Internet.
Volatility – The amount and frequency of fluctuations in the price of an asset. An investment with high volatility is said to have higher risk.
WAGMI – Acronym for "We're all gonna make it," which encapsulates the unwavering belief of crypto and NFT enthusiasts.
Wash Trading – A price manipulation strategy, involves a trade operation where the buyer and seller are the same entity, creating an illusion that the asset is more popular than it actually is.
Web3 – A concept for a decentralized internet that uses blockchain technology.
Whale – An individual or a group with a lot of capital, which grants them the power to move markets either upward by buying, or downward by selling a lot from a given collection.
Whitelist – An exclusive list of users who get guaranteed early access to mint a new NFT collection.
Whitepaper – The official document made by an asset team that gives investors a clear picture of its concept and road-map.

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