the degen glossary: words you actually need to survive crypto twitter

every subculture has its own dictionary. crypto twitter has one too, and it has been evolving fast enough that the 2023 version is already dated. this is the honest 2025 degen glossary — not the corporate-sanitized one, not the cringeworthy beginner version, but the working vocabulary you need if you want to actually read crypto twitter without missing the joke. we will keep this useful, not exhaustive. fifty terms instead of five hundred.

we ship uponly. this glossary leans toward the perp side of degen culture because that is where we live. the meme coin side gets its share too. if a term is missing, it is probably because it stopped being used.

core identity terms

these are the words that describe the people. they have moved from joke to legitimate identity over the last cycle.

• anon — someone who operates without a real name. the default identity in degen culture, not a deception.
• doxxed — anon who has had their real name attached, willingly or otherwise.
• frog — pepe-coded anon, usually deeply on-chain, often with a green pfp.
• wojak — the gen-x or millennial trader stereotype, usually drawn in despair.
• normie — non-degen. used neutrally, not as an insult.
• noobs — new entrants. respected when they ask questions, mocked when they fake expertise.

states and outcomes

these describe what happened to you or your bag.

• ngmi — "not gonna make it." applied to people, trades, or projects that are visibly heading nowhere.
• wagmi — "we are all gonna make it." the optimistic counter to ngmi.
• gmi — "gonna make it." used for someone showing signs of competence or for a project on a good trajectory.
• rugged — original meaning: a project pulled liquidity and left holders with worthless tokens. modern usage: anything that went badly wrong unexpectedly, including liquidations.
• wicked — got liquidated by a temporary price spike that immediately retraced.
• cooked — same as wicked, broader. used for any catastrophic loss.
• gigarekt — extremely cooked. the suffix "giga" intensifies anything.
• fading — passing on a trade or call. used as a verb. "i faded that one."
• aping — entering a trade aggressively, usually without much analysis.

trade and position language

specific to the perp era. these are 2024 to 2025 terms that did not exist five years ago.

• rip — to open a leveraged position quickly. the uponly verb. "i ripped 100x on eth."
• send it — to enter aggressively, often with more leverage than is wise.
• longing the top / shorting the bottom — entering directionally at the worst possible time. used self-deprecatingly.
• unrealized — paper p&l that has not been closed. always slightly suspicious.
• realized — closed p&l. the only number that actually counts.
• tap — to take profit. "tapped at 5x."
• runner — the small portion of a position kept open after the rest has been closed, hoping for tail upside.
• liq cluster — a price level where many positions will get liquidated. these levels often get tested by the market.
• funding flip — when perp funding rates swap from positive to negative or vice versa, indicating a sentiment shift.

social and alpha vocabulary

how information moves through the culture.

• alpha — actionable information. "got some alpha on the new launch."
• leak — an alpha that escaped a private channel into the public timeline.
• screenshot leak — a screenshot of a telegram message, group chat, or private post, posted elsewhere. the backbone of crypto twitter discourse.
• tg — telegram. the dominant alpha channel.
• cabal — a private group that coordinates trades or information. often used jokingly, occasionally seriously.
• shill — promotional content. negative when paid, neutral when honest.
• whisper — pre-public information you got from a credible source.
• callsign — anon name with a track record. equivalent of a credential.
• cooked thread — a long-form twitter thread, usually multi-tweet, that did meaningful explanation work.

market and structure terms

these have specific technical meanings that get used loosely. learn the precise versions.

• liquidation — the forced closure of a leveraged position when collateral can no longer cover losses. perp-specific.
• funding rate — the periodic payment between long and short holders of a perp contract.
• open interest (oi) — total notional value of open positions in a market.
• depth — the size of resting orders near the current price.
• spread — the gap between best bid and best ask.
• slippage — the difference between expected and actual execution price.
• maker — someone providing liquidity with a resting order.
• taker — someone consuming liquidity by crossing the spread.
• tp / sl — take profit and stop loss orders.

if any of these feel unfamiliar, the deeper explainer is in how to trade perpetual futures on base. it covers the structural pieces in detail.

project and ecosystem terms

the modern ecosystem vocabulary, as of 2025.

• tge — token generation event. when a project launches its token.
• airdrop — free tokens distributed to early users or holders.
• farm — to perform on-chain actions specifically to qualify for an airdrop.
• sybil — operating multiple wallets to game an airdrop or program. often punished.
• wallet — your on-chain identity. you can have many.
• address poisoning — a scam where attackers send tiny transactions from lookalike addresses, hoping you copy-paste the wrong one.
• mev — maximal extractable value. the income earned by sequencing transactions on-chain advantageously.
• l2 — layer 2 scaling chain. base, arbitrum, optimism, etc.
• appchain — a blockchain dedicated to a single application. hyperliquid, dydx v4.

usage rules

a few practical rules for using this vocabulary without sounding off:

1. use one or two terms per post, not five. stacking slang makes you sound like a chatbot.
2. do not use terms from outside the perp era if you are talking about perps. "diamond hands" reads as nft-cycle in a perp context.
3. the older the term, the more sparingly it should be used. "wagmi" is over-used. "gmi" still works.
4. self-deprecation lands better than triumphalism. "got wicked" beats "called the top."
5. specific numbers beat hype words. "tapped 4x on eth long" lands. "send it bros" does not.

where this vocabulary will go next

the trend is toward more perp-specific terms and fewer general meme terms. as arcade finance grows, more vocabulary will emerge around fast-twitch trading verbs. "rip" is one example. you will see more single-syllable action verbs replacing multi-word phrases as the products themselves get faster.

if you want to participate in the vocabulary on the perp side, open uponly and rip. the share card will give you a screenshot worth posting. the rest of the language will follow.