Terms like ‘blockchain’ and ‘Bitcoin’ will certainly be very familiar to the average crypto trader, or even someone with casual interest, to everyone but the uninitiated in cryptography. But being an industry that does not rest for a minute, in crypto there are a multitude of buzzwords that have emerged which may not be so familiar. So, today the top 5 crypto buzzwords you probably don’t know.

HODl

This is actually quite a well-known crypto buzzword, but it means holding onto your cryptocurrency instead of selling it to those new to the game. It originates from the early days of cryptocurrency in 2013, when an apparently intoxicated person posted on a Bitcoin dedicated forum “I AM HODLING” (yes, it’s a spelling error!) This drunken mishap has since gone down in crypto folklore, with the term HODL being a backronym (hold on for dear life), being used especially in times of market turmoil to refer to individuals who are keeping the coins.

Bitcoin Maximalist 

This buzzword, as the name might suggest, means someone who is 100% dedicated to the cause of Bitcoin and is not interested in any other cryptocurrency. A Bitcoin maximalist sees the future of crypto as Bitcoin alone, and discredits any altcoin from being something of significant importance or part of that future. While not many will dispute that Bitcoin is the king of cryptocurrencies and undoubtedly has the greatest chance to realize mass acceptance, it remains to be seen whether it’s the one that crosses the threshold, or whether others join or not.

• Forking

To the surprise of absolutely no-one this word has little to do with the widely used cutlery piece in relation to crypto. Forking happens when a need emerges to make a shift to the blockchain of a cryptocurrency. For a number of reasons this might be necessary and there are soft forks and hard forks. The big difference is that you will see a soft fork as a ‘software upgrade,’ with the current consensus rules backwards compatible with the rules on the previous blockchain version.

REKT

It’s a slang of ‘wrecked’ first used by gamers, and has now been adopted by crypto traders. This buzzword describes a serious financial loss; the result of poor decisions or adverse market moves. A trader might say their position is ‘rekt’ if they hold a long position and the market price crashes, for example. One might say the same for a coin, or indeed the market itself.

DYOR 

Last but not least, the most important buzzword of them all is perhaps: DYOR, that is, do your own research! Ultimately only you will determine when to invest in cryptocurrencies, whether to go long or short, or how to exploit your place. If not, you could get REKT!

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If you’re a trader, miner or just a crypto enthusiast, you may want to try another cryptocurrency with your hand at some stage. It could be the interest that pushes you to do so, or the desire to extend your portfolio of trading or mining. Using a cryptocurrency exchange would be a great way to do that. What, you ‘d ask? Well, to get some crypto, it’s quick, simple, and you don’t need to start your own mining operation.

Reputation  

Although the crypto world is all about transactions and trustless processes, credibility is what makes or breaks the network. Like every sensible crypto owner does research before committing their assets to a network, they will look at what others think of the exchange in question. As the crypto world is very new, it is important to know who is who on the scene, at least as opposed to other financial markets.

Security 

Now, that you’re sure the exchange with your hard-earned crypto wouldn’t disappear, it’s time to make sure others don’t do it either. That’s where network security comes in. There are a few ways to determine if they have needed security at the platform. First of all, verify whether it has two-factor authentication (2FA) or not. Nowadays, to have one is basically a safety standard. Also, testing what sort of 2FA they have will be a good idea: Google authenticator, SMS codes, email authentication, etc.

Trading Volume 

Another criterion you could use for judging a crypto-currency exchange is its volume of trading. Although it might seem unusual to a miner or a person who just wants to buy some crypto out of curiosity, it is a very important part of any platform dealing with swaps and exchange.

You can’t afford to trade 20 BTC on a low volume market, after all, as there will be no interest for that. That means your transaction will take longer to process, and if you need to change your crypto fast, that’s just not going to happen.

Transparency 

Although there is no faith in the world of crypto, there are ways to ensure that your users can at least be confident with their money that you will not just vanish. Reputation and stability are good ways to go, but the one thing that can trust its users about is how cryptocurrency exchange makes their transactions transparent.

In essence, transparency lets you see what happens to your money once you start using the platform. There’s no secret fees or small print on a straightforward sale, you can see the price for every service and transaction right there and now

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Each crypto-currency uses its particular algorithm for encryption. It’s that the mining equipment decrypts, ensuring blockchain working, processing transactions, and collecting rewards in the form of a specific cryptocurrency’s coins. Without further ado, let’s immerse ourselves in the world of crypto hash functions.

 What Does Hashing Algorithm Means

Cryptocurrency algorithms are a set of specific mechanisms and rules for encrypting a digital currency. Miners use special equipment decode a specific crypto-currency algorithm. That process involves finding a hash.

If the correct hash is found, a new block will be created in the blockchain which will store transaction information, the hash of the previous block, the sum the miner receives, etc.

The decryption process (or coin mining) transforms a set of random data into ordered, systematic information, which is then registered in the blockchain. There are several dozen algorithms for crypto-currency today.

What is a Bitcoin hash and SHA-256

SHA-256 is a stable algorithm for encryption that has become popular due to the Bitcoin code. The SHA abbreviation is the Secure Hash Algorithm, and 256 means that a 256-bit hash is created by the cryptocurrency algorithm , i.e. a 256-bit string. The hash rate for Cryptocurrencies based on SHA-256 is measured in Gigahash units per second (GH / s). Creation of a block takes six to ten minutes.

In 2001 the United States National Security Agency invented the algorithm SHA-256. This is part of algorithm family SHA. Now, it is the only cryptocurrency algorithm from this family that passed the test of resistance to such types of attacks as collision detection and inverse image detection, which has a decisive solution based on this algorithm for the security of cryptocurrencies.

SHA-256 is still commonly used in several other systems , in addition to cryptocurrencies. Security protocols like TLS, SSL, PGP, SSH, based on SHA-256.

In 2009, when only a few people knew Bitcoin, ordinary computers were used for mining which used a central processor to perform calculations. They later started using more potent graphics processors. Yet Bitcoin ‘s success is immense now. The use of ASIC miners, special instruments with high computing power, has become lucrative in economic terms.

Equihash

Equihash is an anonymous algorithm for crypto-currency released in 2016. Zcash was the first crypto-currency to use Equihash as its basis. It takes 150 seconds to build the blocks, and hash is calculated in Megahash per second (MH / s).

This crypto-currency algorithm was developed by researchers at the University of Luxembourg, Alex Biryukov and Dmitry Khovratovich, who are part of the research group CryptoLUX. The architecture was introduced at a full circle in 2016.

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