Meme coin glossary: the terms every trader should know

Launching

• Launchpad: a site where anyone can create a coin in a few clicks.
• Bonding curve: a contract that sells a new coin directly and raises the price with each buy. See what is a bonding curve.
• Graduation: when a coin reaches its target and moves from the curve to a DEX pool. See graduation explained.
• Multi-chain launch: one coin launched on several chains at once. See multi-chain launch.
• Dev or creator: the wallet that launched the coin.
• Dev buy: the creator's own purchase at launch.
• Creator lock: the creator's coins can't be sold for a set time.
• Ticker: the short symbol of a coin, such as $OTTER.
• CA: contract address, the coin's unique address on the chain.

Prices and numbers

• Market cap (MC): price times circulating supply.
• FDV: fully diluted value, price times total supply.
• Liquidity: the money in a pool that trades are made against.
• Volume: how much was traded in a period, usually 24 hours.
• Slippage: the difference between the expected and the actual price of a trade.
• Price impact: how much your own trade moves the price.
• ATH: all-time high.
• Pump: a fast price rise. Dump: a fast fall.

Trading

• Ape: buy quickly, often without research.
• DYOR: do your own research.
• Take profit (TP): sell automatically when the value reaches a target.
• Stop loss (SL): sell automatically if the value falls to a limit.
• Buy the dip: buy automatically after a drop.
• Copy trading: following another trader's buys.
• Paper hands: sells at the first drop. Diamond hands: holds through drops.
• Bag: a position in a coin. Bag holder: someone stuck with a coin that fell.
• Exit liquidity: buyers whose money lets earlier holders sell.

Holders and safety

• Holder map: a picture of who holds a coin and how much.
• Top 10 share: how much of the supply the ten biggest wallets hold.
• Whale: a wallet holding a large amount.
• Sniper: a bot or trader buying in the first seconds of a launch.
• Bundle: one person buying through many wallets. See bundled launches.
• Linked wallets: wallets that sent a coin to each other.
• Rug pull: the people behind a coin take the money or make it unsellable. See how to spot a rug pull.
• Honeypot: a coin you can buy but not sell.
• Locked liquidity: pool money that can't be withdrawn.
• Mint: creating new coins. A coin with minting turned off has a fixed supply.

Chains

• Layer 2 (L2): a network built on Ethereum with lower fees, such as Base and Robinhood Chain.
• Gas: the network fee for a transaction.
• Bridge: moving money between chains.
• USDC: a dollar stablecoin, used on sasa for every price, buy and sell.
• DEX: a decentralized exchange, such as Uniswap.