The Memecoin Dictionary: Degen Slang, Translated

Short for "degenerate," worn as a badge of honor. A trader whose risk management strategy is vibes. Nearly everyone in a memecoin chat is one; the ones who deny it are the biggest ones.

To buy immediately, at any price, with research consisting of one screenshot. "I aped" is both a boast and a confession, often within the same hour.

Where new tokens are born and mostly die — the sub-$100k market cap zone where a hundred launches an hour fight for attention. Veterans say "I'm in the trenches" the way soldiers say it, and mean it about as sincerely.

Information that will supposedly make you money, shared seconds before it stops being either. If someone offers you alpha for free, you are the alpha.

A private group of insiders coordinating buys before a token trends. Everyone claims cabals control every chart; everyone is also trying to get invited into one.

"Key Opinion Leader" — an influencer paid to tweet a ticker. The going joke is that KOL stands for "kost of liquidity," because their followers are usually the exit liquidity.

To promote a token you hold, relentlessly, everywhere, while insisting you are just sharing research. The line between community enthusiasm and shilling is whether it worked.

A launch with zero pre-announcement, meant to dodge snipers and give humans a fair start. In practice the bots find it in four seconds anyway.

A launch with no presale and no team allocation, where everyone theoretically starts equal. "Theoretically" is doing heavy lifting — see sniper and bundling.

Buying a token before it exists from someone you have never met. Sometimes this works. The other times fund the yacht — see rug pull.

A bot that buys a token in the same block it goes live, then sells to everyone who arrives on foot. If the chart was already up 400% when you clicked — that. The mechanics are cousins of MEV, which token teams actively defend against.

Your token holdings, with a weight connotation that gets more literal the further they fall. "Heavy bags" is not a flex.

Refusing to sell through any drawdown. Genuinely a virtue for winners; for everyone else, a slow-motion synonym for bagholder.

Selling at the first dip. Deeply shameful, per people who need you to keep holding so they can sell.

Someone who sells fast and early, especially into the first pump. Used as an insult by holders, worn proudly by people in profit. The chart decides which one you were.

The imaginary substance inhaled while explaining why a -80% token is actually consolidating. Often prescribed alongside hopium.

Copium's forward-looking twin: the belief that the announcement, the listing, or the burn will fix everything. Refills are free in every Telegram.

"Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt" — any negative statement about a token, including accurate ones. Calling a true fact FUD does not make it false, but it does buy time.

"We're All Gonna Make It" and its judgment, "Not Gonna Make It." The first is a toast; the second is a verdict on someone else's decisions, delivered from a position that is usually not much better.

"Good morning," posted at all hours as a loyalty ping. A chat that stops saying gm is a chart that has already told you everything.

The ancient prayer. Asks when profits will convert into a Lamborghini. The honest answer is a different four-letter word — see rekt.

Where the token is going, according to holders. Astronomically, the moon is reachable; that is roughly where the analogy's accuracy ends.

The complete emotional range of a memecoin holder, oscillating on a five-minute cycle. Both can be true within one candle.

The pricing formula early launchpads use: each buy pushes the price up the curve, each sell walks it back down. If you want to feel one instead of reading about it, our launch simulator runs the real math.

The moment a bonding-curve token fills its curve and moves to a real DEX pool. The diploma is liquidity; the dropout rate is brutal.

Launching with a coordinated set of wallets that buy in the same instant, so snipers cannot front-run the whole supply. Controversial, ubiquitous, and widely misunderstood — we wrote a whole comparison of bundling tools if you want the details.

The creator's wallet, watched by everyone with the intensity of a courtroom. One transfer out of it can end a token faster than any market crash.

Wallets that bought suspiciously early with suspiciously good timing. Every chart-analysis tool exists to find them, and once they are found, the chart rarely recovers.

Destroying the liquidity-pool tokens so the creator cannot pull the liquidity later. The memecoin equivalent of throwing away the getaway car keys — reassuring, and checkable on-chain.

Market cap and fully-diluted value: price times circulating or total supply. The number everyone quotes and almost no one could withdraw, because selling into it moves it — see exit liquidity.

How much you can actually trade without wrecking the price. A $10M mcap with $20k liquidity is a mansion with a doggy door for an exit.

Keeping a token tradable: orderly spreads, absorbing shocks, selling without nuking the chart. Real teams treat this as infrastructure, not magic — here is how to choose a market making bot and how counter trading lets teams sell without hurting the chart.

Trading with yourself to fake volume. It photographs well on a screener and falls apart the moment anyone checks who is on both sides of the trade — which, on a public blockchain, anyone can. Fake volume, real consequences.

The number of wallets holding a token, used as proof of community. Wallets are free; conclusions drawn from this number should not be.

The only community member whose opinion matters. Everything else in this dictionary is people arguing with it.

The creator drains the liquidity and vanishes, converting the community into a support group. The founding trauma of memecoin culture and the reason half this dictionary exists.

No dramatic drain — the team just quietly sells everything over weeks while posting "building 🔨". Forensically harder to call, emotionally identical.

A token you can buy but not sell, thanks to malicious contract code. The chart only goes up because nobody is allowed to leave. Check before you ape; the exits are painted on.

The buyers whose money lets earlier holders leave. Nobody thinks they are it. Statistically, most people are. If you cannot spot the exit liquidity in the chat, open your portfolio.

Wrecked, financially. The past tense of ape more often than anyone admits.

Watching a position go up 10x, selling nothing, and riding it back to zero. You were rich for one afternoon and have the screenshot to prove it.

The person still holding after everyone else left. Every token's final community is one hundred percent bagholders, still saying gm.

An event so euphoric it marks the exact peak: a celebrity tweet, a billboard, your barber asking about the token. Only visible in hindsight, which is what makes it a signal and not an alarm.

"Player versus player" — a market where no new money is entering, so every winner is funded by a loser in the same room. The trenches are PvP with extra steps and worse odds.

Not slang. Just the most common number in this ecosystem, included here for completeness and humility.

"Community takeover" — the holders adopt an abandoned token and run it themselves. Occasionally a genuine phoenix; usually a second, more democratic funeral.

The brief rally after a collapse, powered by bottom-fishers and disbelief. Named for the observation that even a dead cat bounces if dropped from high enough. The cat is still dead.

The narrative that this time the chart's recovery is real. Every chart gets one; a few even deserve it.

Appended to any statement to make it sound profound. Correctly used, it means "this is early information." As commonly used, it means "I read a tweet."

"Live-action role play" — claiming positions, insider access, or a dev team that does not exist. The on-chain era's great gift is that larping about your portfolio is now checkable.

The suggestion to close the chart and go outside. Universally given, never taken, and the only genuinely profitable advice in this entire dictionary.