Enjoy the New Jargon of NFT Art created by Fanny Lakoubay for Christie’s Education back in 2021 or scroll down for our own glossary.

The LAL ART Glossary

The NFT world started with finance and gaming. You’ll notice these origins in many words below, as the jargons from these worlds are now merging into this new crypto-twitter lingo. Enjoy!

1/1

This means a unique work, a short way to say it is an edition of one.

Airdrop

Airdrop refers to sending NFTs or tokens to users’ wallets, usually for free. Typically, projects airdrop NFTs to promote their collection or to reward someone for their loyalty, participating in competitions, and so on.

Alpha

This comes from the investing/hedge fund community, when a stock outperforms due to the manager’s knowledge vs. beta (the market’s performance). It became a synonym for good insights.

Anon

An anon is someone who is anonymous (or really pseudonymous) in the crypto space. Many collectors, artists and projects don’t reveal their real names.

AP

Artist proofs somehow disappeared from the crypto art space. The promise of automatic resale royalties (which are not enforced throughout yet) somehow replaced the need for the retention of an artist proof as a retirement fund.

Some projects, like Left Gallery, are trying to bring back APs by releasing unique editioned NFTs as 1+1AP, where the 1 NFT gets sent at the time of purchase to the collector and 1 NFT gets sent to the artist wallet.

Avatars

A digital representation of you! Therefore, Avatars can be 2d images that represent you online, or they can be 3d hyper-realistic beings ready for the metaverse. Avatars are human personification in the digital world.

Blockchain

A blockchain is a distributed ledger (or database) that can securely store information digitally. Notably, blockchains store data across distributed devices (nodes) of a worldwide computer network. In other words, a decentralized server stores and manages the information, instead of a single centralized server. The technology facilitates an immutable and transparent record of information, which is always accessible to the public. For this reason, blockchains are popular for their use in cryptocurrency and NFT systems.

Blockchain Art

Art that exists or interacts with the blockchain as NFTs or not. An academic paper from 2019 claimed, “There is no such thing as blockchain art”.

Bozo

A bozo means what a bozo has always meant. But those deep in the NFT scene are throwing it out left right and center. Guy gets scammed? He’s a bozo. Chooses the wrong project? Yeah he’s a bozo too. Do you have a ledger yet? Well you might be a bozo too.

Crypto Art

Crypto Art is the most accepted term for art-related NFTs and is used to describe the community of artists working in the space. It describes digital artworks that can be made “rare” and traceable via unique tokens (NFTs).

Crypto Twitter

Used to refer to Twitter (it is the same, not a different tool). Crypto Twitter is the sub-community of people interested in crypto and NFT subjects. Social media algorithms work as such as it only feeds you information around crypto after you expressed an interest in the subject.

Crypto Wallet

Your ‘gateway to Web3’: a wallet allows users to directly engage with the blockchain to make transactions. This is the replacement of a login and password for the blockchain-based platforms.

Dankness

Being cool, awesome, unique (comes from the meme culture: a dank meme is an exceptionally rare or off image gone viral as a gif most of the time)

DAO

DAOs or Decentralized Autonomous Organizations are organizations run on the blockchain by a group of people without any company hierarchy. These are governed by smart contracts that lay out the rules and regulations and make important decisions based on member votes. In other words, unlike a typical company, DAOs function autonomously and without any leadership.

DAPP

Decentralized apps or apps built on the blockchain, working with a crypto-wallet

https://images.app.goo.gl/FHkexY7diAjHmznb7

Decentralized Storage

Storage that allows creators to upload the digital files attached to their NFT through nodes of a peer-to-peer network. This is a preferred solution to centralized storage solutions, like Google or Amazon Web Services, that can at any moment remove the work. Examples are IPFS and Arweave.

DeFi

Decentralized finance and new blockchain solutions to replace centralized financial services with blockchain-based ones.

Degen

Degens are the collective noun for a certain group of NFT traders. Often self proclaimed, a degen will ape into a project with little to no research and can’t help but give in to the FOMO.

DEX

Decentralized crypto exchanges

Diamond Hands

On the opposite of paper hands, investors with diamond hands hold their investments through market swings.

Doxxing

Doxing or doxxing is the act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual or organization, usually via the Internet.

Drop

The verb comes from the music industry when an artist drops a new album. The word became popular with the streetwear industry (esp. the sneakers culture), and means that an artist or creator is releasing a new (rare) limited edition at a certain time.

Dutch Auction

A dutch auction is where the price starts high, and gradually decreases over time. Many Marketplaces use these types of auctions for NFTs.

DYOR

Do your own research. The world of NFTs is full of scams, therefore you need to be diligent to avoid scams!

Edition #1

The blockchain community is obsessed with #1 and genesis [anything], which comes from the cult of the genesis block of bitcoin owned by Satoshi Nakamoto. This cult translates into higher prices for edition #1 (and low edition numbers) vs. all other editions of limited-edition NFT series, such as Cryptopunks or Cryptokitties. A curated collection was even named firstedition.xyz for this reason. In relationship to the art market, we can see a close relationship with the notion of AP (see above).

ERC 721

Preferred token technical standard on Ethereum used for NFTs. There are others, such as modified ERC20 (Cryptopunks) or ERC1155, and probably many more to come.

More at https://academy.ivanontech.com/blog/non-fungible-tokens-explaining-nfts-erc-721-and-erc-1155

ERC 20

Token format for crypto-currencies and fungible tokens.

Ethereum

An open-source, decentralized blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ethereum is the second-largest blockchain besides Bitcoin.

Ethereum 2.0 or ETH2

Upgrade to the existing Ethereum blockchain (also Ethereum 1.0), which aims to increase the speed, efficiency, and scalability of the Ethereum network, enabling it to address the bottlenecks and increase the number of transactions. The pseudo names for Ethereum 2.0 are Eth2 or Serenity.

Floor

The lowest price that a specific project is currently selling for.

FOMO

Fear of missing out. A classic in the crypto space where everything is happening at light speed.

Fren(s)

A short way to say friend(s).

FUD

FUD is an acronym for ‘fear, uncertainty, and doubt’. Usually, it’s used when a person or project spreads rumours or negative news, driving people to sell their NFTs.

Gas fees

These are the transaction fees paid to validate any transaction on the blockchain, including creating (or minting) an NFT for crypto artists. Any interaction with the blockchain incurs gas fees for proof-of-work blockchains, such as Ethereum. The amount of the gas fees fluctuate based on the number of transactions queued and can vary from a few dollars to a few hundred, making it difficult for artists to mint their work and give the money upfront. Some projects like Mintfund have been helping artists with gas fees to help creators get started (see also lazy minting below).

Gas Wars

NFT gas wars occur during a project launch or high-value sales when a large number of people compete to get their hands on a specific NFT. Essentially, the demand causes Ethereum transaction prices to spike due to network congestion.

Generative Art

With some NFTs, the art is completely determined by on chain elements; such as a transaction hash. To explain, each NFT’s traits will differ, just like an ID number or a barcode would differ. Therefore, this results in randomly generated, or generative art NFTs.

GM

Good morning.

GN

Good night.

HEN

Refers to the now-defunct Tezos-based first art marketplace, Hicetnunc.

HODL

Means holding your assets (NFTs or crypto-currencies) even when the prices go down, instead of panicking and selling.

IRL

In real life. Often used in opposition to the metaverse. As the crypto communities spend a lot of time (some most of their time) online, IRL is not the default for them anymore, and therefore they coined the term.

KYAH

Know your art history (a favorite of mine) - meaning that nothing started with crypto art. Digital art is a continuation of computer art that started in the 1950s. Knowing where we come from is essential to understand the current state of the crypto art market.

Lazy Minting

See the definition of minting below. Lazy minting allows you to create a digital work on some NFT marketplaces, like OpenSea, without uploading it to the blockchain. In this case, the work is saved locally on the marketplace servers. The work becomes an actual NFT when it is purchased. This allows creators to list digital artworks on marketplaces without paying the gas fees associated with the minting. Gas fees are paid later when the work is purchased by a collector. It is a way to delay the upfront payment of gas fees.

LFG

In NFT terminology, LFG stands for Let’s F****g Go. Community members use the term to express their excitement about something or hype up a person/project.

Liquidity Mining

See yield farming below.

Liquidity Pools

It is a collection of funds locked. Liquidity pools are used to facilitate decentralized trading, lending, and many more functions we'll explore later. Liquidity pools are the backbone of many decentralized exchanges (DEX), such as Uniswap.

More at https://cointelegraph.com/explained/defi-liquidity-pools-explained

McDonalds

The backup career plan for all NFT artists in case the market crashes.

Meatspace

Another word for in real life.

Mint

When an artist mints an NFT, it means that their digital art is uploaded to the blockchain. It comes from the time when metal coins were minted and added into circulation. The term has been reappropriated by the cryptocurrency industry for tokens, including non fungible tokens (NFTs). For crypto art, "minting an NFT" is a synonym for "creating an NFT".

Mining Farms

It is a large space where people mine one or more cryptocurrencies. The computers consume a lot of energy, and air conditioning is needed to prevent them from overheating. Verb: to mine a bitcoin, Name: miner

More at https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bitcoin-mining.asp

NFA

NFA means "Not Financial Advice". It is related to DYOR. Again, someone shares an idea, but you need to research of this is the right move for you.

NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens)

A non fungible token is defined in opposition to fungible tokens that are all interchangeable, such as currencies or stocks. NFTs are unique identifiers that are recorded on the blockchain with the history of transactions and owners and point to a digital file stored in a decentralized network. It acts as a digital certificate of authenticity.

NFT Art

Another name for blockchain art or crypto art. History will tell which term will win.

NFT Marketplaces

Blockchain-based marketplaces make NFTs available for viewing, trading, buying, and selling. Open platform examples are Opensea, Zora, and Rarible. Invitation-only platforms include SuperRare, Knownorigin, Nifty Gateway.

NGMI

Never (or not) gonna make it.

OG

Stands for Original Gangsta, which means a seasoned professional in the field. In the case of crypto art, it means people who have deep knowledge about the ecosystem, and have been involved since 2018 or before. For example, Jason Bailey is an OG. Sarah Zucker and Josie Bellini are OG artists. Rare Pepe is one of the OG crypto art projects.

Open Editions

Editions of NFTs in which quantity is defined by variables not configured by the collector. E.g, an NFT drop limited to 30 minutes may result in 50 or 300 generated editions (subject to public interest).

Organic

This means that it is a scam and not organic food from Whole Foods. When someone says that an NFT sale was 100% organic means that it was a fabricated sale.

Paper Hands

Investors who sell an NFT or some crypto-currency at the first sign of trouble.

PFP

Profile picture projects, based on the model of the Cryptopunks or The Bored Apes Yacht Club series. They are generative series often of 10,000 editions (based on CryptoPunks and also the reason these projects are also called 10K projects). Each edition is unique and generated with a limited set of attributes, such as glasses types, skin color, accessories, etc. As the number of attributes and the number of editions is limited, each edition can be common, rare, or extremely rare. The price is mostly a measure of this rarity and is calculated via rarity tools, such as the rarity.tools website.

They have blown up in 2021 as speculative assets. The interest is not in the artistic value but in the mechanisms developed for these projects, such as whitelisting, drops, generative elements, communities, etc.

In 2021, these projects represented 76% of all NFT use cases.

POAP

Poap.xyz provides NFT badges attesting about your presence at specific events, conferences, or validating a specific status (like SuperRare collector).

Primary Market

An instance where the creator of a work sells their work for the first time to a collector.

Private Key

An asset of cryptography that allows users to access funds from their wallets at a particular address. This key is private to its owner and cannot be recovered by anyone else.

Probably Nothing

Ironically means that it is probably something very big.

Proof of Work (PoW)

The current way of validating transactions on Ethereum, Bitcoin, and most other cryptocurrencies, where miners are rewarded for validating a transaction. Please note that the validators are chosen based on their computing power and that all transactions need to be validated, making it a very bad solution from an ecological standpoint.

Proof of Stake (PoS)

An alternative to Proof of Work that only validates random transactions instead of all. This is currently being implemented to be released for ETH2 to scale transactions and to be more eco-friendly. In this case, validators would be randomly picked (much less often than miners) and have to stake ETH to validate a transaction. Validators are penalized by losing their stake if they validate an illicit transaction.

Public Key

A 42-character key that identifies your crypto wallet address on the blockchain. This key shows all of your activities and crypto assets for reasons of transparency, however, it does not by any means gives public access to those funds.

Reply Guy

A reply guy is someone who merely replies to tweets on NFT twitter. Often reply guys represent the backbone of the NFT industry. What would we do without reply guys??

Right Click Save As

Refers to the movement of NFT skeptics who say they can just right-click on a jpeg and save it on your computer. They claim there is no need for NFTs.

Roadmap

An NFT project roadmap is a document that details a project’s short-term and long-term goals, milestones, and plans. It is an important parameter that helps users make investment decisions. Needless to say, a solid roadmap can make or break a project. However, whether a project actually delivers its roadmap promises, is well, a discussion for another day.

Rug Pull

A rug pull is a scam where developers abandon a project and take their investors' money with them. It happens often in the cryptocurrency markets and decentralized finance (DeFi) as it is quite easy to list a token on a decentralized exchange (DEX) without any audit. When people start buying the token, the creators can withdraw all the money and disappear.

Secondary Market

The resale market that follows the primary market. This market normally generates more revenue from acquisitions due to the prolonged existence of the asset. For the first time ever with blockchain traceability, artists can now receive royalties on these resales.

Seed Phrase

The seed phrase is a backup of your private key. It is presented as a list of 12 words unique to your wallet, which you will need to restore or open your crypto wallet on new devices.

Ser

The crypto way to ironically be formal and say “Sir” when addressing someone. Ironically used in many scam or shilling messages.

Shill

Advertise your own project. Often used with chill: “Chill or Shill?”

Slow or Soft Rug

A ‘soft rug’ is a slow rug pull. In short, it’s a long-term scam where founders are still partially active in their communities. However, in reality the founders (or sometimes the developers) are siphoning the mint money out of the community gradually without providing any real value.

Smart Contract

The rules that govern an NFT are stored in code on the blockchain in a “smart contract”, which contains all details about ownership and characteristics of the NFT.

See the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hp8fN7tgbA

Undoxxed

A synonym for anon(ymous) people in the crypto space!

WAGMI

We’re all going to make it.

Wearables

Wearables are NFTs or digital assets for AR or the metaverse. For example, some companies, such as the Fabricant, release clothes for metaverses like Decentraland and the Sandbox. These items are transferable and tradeable. Others release clothes compatible with zoom and hangouts, these are also wearables, though not tradeable.

Whale

Someone holding a lot of crypto-currency with the power to influence the market. This is why NFTs using the theme of a whale (the animal) are so popular. The $WHALE project refers to the person who started it (anonymously because he is a Whale in the market).

Whitelist

The NFT whitelist (or allowlist) is an exclusive list of users who get early access to mint one or more NFTs from a project during a specific period of time.

Yield Farming

Yield farming also referred to as liquidity mining, is a way to generate rewards with cryptocurrency holdings. It means locking up cryptocurrencies and getting rewards for the loan of these assets. .The rewards are paid in a variety of tokens.