Crypto Glossary

Crypto Terms

Alt / Altcoin

- Any token that is not Bitcoin, from Ethereum all the way down to UncleDoggy

AMM (Automated Market Maker)

- An automated market maker (AMM) is the set of algorithms that underpin decentralized exchanges (DEXs). An AMM is an autonomous mechanism that allows trading to occur uninterrupted by allowing a buyer or seller to exchange at any time without the need for another party.

APR (Annual Percentage Rate)

- APR is the amount by which your principal would grow if you kept it invested for one year without any compounding.

APY (Annual Percentage Yield)

- APY is the total expected annual yield, taking compounding into account.

Arbitrage

- Taking advantage of the differences between crypto exchanges by buying a cryptocurrency from an exchange with a lower price and then immediately selling it on a different exchange with a higher price. This process harmonises prices between markets, and rebalances liquidity pools on Automated Market Makers (AMMs).

Arbitrage Trader / Arbitrageurs

- Someone who engages in arbitrage trading, often performed via automated bots.

ATH / ATL (All-Time High / All-Time Low)

- The highest / lowest market value a coin has achieved.

Bearish / Bear Market

- When a token(or the market as a whole) is in a sustained downward trend.

BEP-2

- Binance Chain Evolution Proposal 2 (BEP-2) is the technical standard for the Binance Chain. Essentially it is a set of rules and specifications that must be followed for functionality within the Binance Chain ecosystem. BEP-2 is not compatible with Leonicorn Swap.

BEP-20

- Binance Chain Evolution Proposal 20 (BEP-20) is the technical standard for the Binance Smart Chain. Essentially it is a set of rules and specifications that must be followed for functionality within the Binance Smart Chain ecosystem. This is the protocol used within Leonicorn Swap.

BSC (Binance Smart Chain)

- Both the acronym for the Binance Smart Chain, as well as a colloquial term used to refer to BNB that resides on the Binance Smart Chain (BNB BEP-20).

Block

- The chunks of data that reside on the blockchain. Each block is similar to a page in a ledger, and is made up of a selection of transactions that occurred at a similar time. Once one block is processed (finalised) the next one begins.

Blockchain

- A blockchain is a distributed, publicly accessible, immutable ledger of transactions, used to track the owners of crypto assets.

BTC

- The market symbol for Bitcoin.

Bullish / Bull Market

- When a token (or the market as a whole) is in a sustained upward trend.

Burn

- Describes when a balance of tokens is sent to an address from which they cannot be retrieved. This is usually an intentional act, designed to remove a balance of tokens from circulation forever. Burning is completed regularly by the Leonicorn Swap team as a deflationary mechanism for both the LEOS and LEON tokens. Automatic burning is also completed by several features on the Leonicorn Swap DEX to reduce inflationary pressures on the LEON token.

Buy Back

- A term describing an act where the team buys some of the protocol’s tokens on the open market, and therefore removes them from circulating supply. These tokens may be subsequently burned or used in some other way, such as to provide liquidity.

Candle

- On trading charts candles represent the movement of the price over the selected time frame.Green candles indicate that the closing price was higher than the opening price (a rising market) and red candles indicate the opposite.

CEX (Centralised Exchange)

- A centralised exchange is an exchange where an investor must deposit their tokens to a wallet under the control of the exchange, in order to transact using those tokens.

Chain

- A blockchain.

Coin

- used interchangeably with token by many, but often describes a cryptocurrency that has its own blockchain, such as BTC, BNB, ADA or ETH.

Cold Wallet

- A wallet for storing tokens in a form that is not connected to the internet, and is therefore considered safer. These can take the form of a hardware wallet or a paper wallet. While safer than a hot wallet, all wallets are vulnerable if the seed phrase is not stored securely.

Contract / Smart Contract

- In simplest terms a smart contract is a computer program, stored on a blockchain, written to automatically execute transactions when predetermined conditions are met. Smart contracts are used to power all the functions on Leonicorn Swap.

Cryptocurrency / Cryptoasset

A coin or token that exists on blockchain, such as BTC, LEON, ETH, UNI.

Decentralisation

- Distribution of agency away from a central body or point.

DeFi (Decentralised Finance)

- Decentralised Finance is blockchain based finance that utilises smart contracts on blockchains instead of relying on centralised intermediaries such as exchanges, or banks

DEX (Decentralized Exchange)

- An exchange that allows users to exchange tokens directly from their wallet by interacting with an AMM. Colloquially used to refer to the whole of a protocol that includes such a mechanism, such as Leonicorn Swap

Diamond Hands

- Slang for strong hands (or willpower) to hold onto your tokens - especially when the value has decreased.

Dump

- Used to describe a sudden dramatic decline in market value of a token or tokens, or the act of selling a large number of tokens in one go.

Dusting

- Describes an attempt to defraud an investor by airdropping a number of tokens to their wallet unbidden. The tokens often deploy a smart contract that prevents the holder selling them without first connecting their wallet to a website that includes malicious code used to deprive the holder of their other assets.

NOTE: Unknown tokens that appear in a wallet should be ignored.

DYOR (Do Your Own Research)

- A Warning to ‘do your own research’ before proceeding with an investment, purchase, or transaction

Farming / Yield Farming

- Yield farming refers to staking (or lending) crypto assets in order to earn rewards in the form of additional tokens.Typically used to describe the act of staking a liquidity provider (LP) token.

Fiat

- Used colloquially to describe traditional currencies issued by central banks and governments (such as the US dollar).

FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)

- The emotion that causes people to buy tokens without due care, often during a sharp price rise. Also used to describe a period when many new investors are joining a project while the price is soaring.

Front Running

- When a large transaction that is pending is identified by a trading bot, which inserts a matching transaction with a higher gas fee, into the pending transaction queue, with the intention of being processed first and therefore profit from the price impact of the trade that it has ‘front run’.

Gas

- The fee required to successfully conduct a transaction on a blockchain. Also sometimes referred to as transaction fees, network fees, or block fees.

Governance

- The act of having a right to vote on critical decisions affecting the direction of a project or token. Normally linked proportionally to the holding a governance token

Governance Token

- A token that gives the holder a right to partake in governance.

HODL

- Slang for 'hold', meaning to hang on to your coins - especially when the value is down, or for extended periods of time.

Hot Wallet

- An online software wallet that interacts directly with the blockchain via the internet. While convenient, hot wallets are inherently more vulnerable and should not be used to store significant quantities of cryptocurrency. It is essential to take steps to reduce the vulnerability of these wallets.

ICO / IDO / IEO / IJO (Initial Coin / Dex / Exchange / Jungle Offering)

- The raising of funds through the sale of a token at or prior to launch.

KYC (Know Your Customer)

- A standard in the investment and gambling industries that require centralised operators, such as brokers, and exchanges, to verify the identity of their clients before allowing them to perform transactions.

Ladder Buy/Sell

- Buying or selling crypto in several smaller transactions over time, rather than in a single high value transaction. Typically performed to reduce price impact either on a single market, or on the overall value of the token.

Liquidity

- The total quantity of tokens available to exchange, for a given token. Low liquidity results in transactions causing higher price impact. Investors often provide liquidity to earn rewards through yield farming.

Locked Staking

- When a token is staked into a smart contract for a predefined term, and cannot be removed prior to the term ending. The rewards earned from a locked staking pool may also be locked or be harvestable depending on the terms of the pool.

Mint

- The process of creating a token (cryptocurrency or NFT) on a blockchain.

Memecoin

- A token created without any significant use case, which derives its value only from a belief it has not yet reached its ATH. Promoted as ‘fun’ these tokens are a significant risk for investors.

Moon

- A dramatic and meteoric rise in the value of a token.

Moonboi / Moonboy

- A crypto ‘fanboy’ often obsessed with the belief a token is ‘going to the moon’ soon.

NFA (Not Financial Advice)

- A notice that what someone is saying about cryptocurrency is not financial advice and shouldn't be taken as such. Usually used to protect one's self from legal repercussions.

NFT (Non-Fungible Token)

- A token which is unique and cannot be replicated. Often these tokens take the form of a piece of art: picture, animation, or multimedia artwork.

On-Ramp / Off-Ramp

- An exchange or protocol where it is possible to exchange cryptocurrency for fiat currency and send it to a conventional financial instrument, such as a bank account, or debit card account.

Panic Seller

- An investor who sells their tokens due to an unjustified fear that they will only go down in value.

Paper Hands

- Slang for weak hands (or low willpower), an inability to hold onto one's tokens (especially during downturns). Those who sell are often referred to as paper hands, especially if they do it in panic or prematurely

Passive Income

- Income earned through investments that accumulates without ongoing actions being taken by the investor, even while they sleep.

Presale

- The sale of tokens prior to the launch of a token or protocol.

Price Impact

- The effect that a trade will have on the price of the assets involved in a transaction. The amount by which buying or selling will move the price. When using the AMM, careful attention must be paid to price impact before completing a trade.

Principal

- The initial amount of funds put into an investment.

Private Key

- A string of letters and numbers used to access tokens, this is like a seed phrase and must never be shared.

Pump

- A sudden dramatic rise in the value of a token.

Pump & Dump

- Often used to describe projects with no longevity, such as memecoins, which will reach a single ATH before declining to almost nothing.

Reflections

- Rewards paid to investors as part of the smart contract tokenomics of a token, even when tokens remain in a holder's wallet.

Rekt

- A term that has come to crypto from gaming, literally means to lose badly. If you dumped all of your tokens at $0.01, only to see it hit $1.00 a day later you are ‘rekt’.

Renounced Ownership

- When a smart contract is written in such a way that once launched there is no owner, and therefore no-one who is able to change variables within the contract. Rarely practical for smart contracts that require ongoing management, such as those governing complicated mechanisms such as a DEX.

Rugpull

- A term to describe a collection of scams where a developer performs an act that suddenly or gradually transfers the value of the token to the developer at the cost of the investor.

Seed Phrase

- The unique, ordered string of words that is the key to a crypto wallet.

NEVER SHARE YOUR SEED PHRASE WITH ANYONE!

Slippage

- A variable that represents the maximum percentage an investor is willing to allow the price to change, while an exchange is being executed, without the transaction failing.

Smart Contract

- A program that executes the terms of a contract on a blockchain.

Stablecoins

- Cryptocurrencies with a pegged value, often locked to a fiat currency, such as the US dollar. These are typically used as an instrument for storing value to be used in future transactions, without being exposed to the volatility of the markets. As their value is comparatively stable they can easily be traded for other cryptocurrencies or converted to fiat.

Tether (USDT) and BUSD are examples of stablecoins that have their value pegged to the US dollar.

Stake

- Locking an amount of tokens to a smart contract, typically in order to receive a reward, either for a set period of time (locked staking) or in a pool that allows withdrawal on demand. When staked, coins will no longer appear in the holder's wallet and will be unavailable for trading.

Term

- The length of time an investment is made for.

Token

- A crypto asset that doesn't reside on its own chain.

LEOS is a token because it resides on the Binance Smart Chain.

Tokenomics

- The supply and demand characteristics of a token. Also used to refer to the variables in a token’s smart contract that are designed to control how the token, and its ecosystem, will behave.

TXID / Transaction Hash (Transaction ID)

- A unique reference number that is assigned to every transaction recorded on a block chain.

Vest

- Vesting describes a point in time at which an investor acquires the right to financially benefit from their investment. In terms of crypto assets this describes a process of locking an investment so it cannot be accessed for a predefined period of time.Developers often vest their tokens to reassure investors that they are protected from the risk of a rugpull.

Volatility

- How much the price of an asset has moved up and down over a defined time period. High volatility is common in crypto, and riskier investments may be more volatile than others.

Wallet

- A private repository of cryptoassets held by a user, which can send and receive tokens to other users, exchanges, or smart contracts.

Whale

- Someone who holds a large amount of a token.