This is part of Trump’s Great American Crypto Scam, a series about the catastrophic collision between the second Trump administration and the wild world of cryptocurrency. Read it all here.

Crypto is hard to talk about. Not in that it’s an emotionally heavy subject—it very much is not—but in that crypto people have, in the span of just a few years, created an entire new cottage industry of jargon that is exhausting to follow. If you are not totally enmeshed in the world of crypto, then first, congratulations. But second, you may find it useful to know a few of the terms that tend to fly around during conversations about crypto and its connoisseurs.

cryptocurrency (noun)—Electronic money, basically. Cryptocurrency is different from regular money in that it lacks the backing of either some precious metal (like gold) or the full faith and credit of a country. It does have a ledger of transactions in a place (the blockchain) where everyone can see how it has changed hands (if not exactly to whom).

What gives cryptocurrency value if not physical or governmental backing, then? For now, not much, other than the belief that other people will ultimately want to buy it. (It can get a little more complicated. See: stablecoin (noun).)

blockchain (noun)—The place where records of crypto transactions are kept, like a bank statement, but for crypto. One thing that makes cryptocurrency so different is that because it is on the blockchain, the transaction list is accessible to anyone who knows how to peruse it. (Actually, though, navigating to a blockchain explorer is a bit like putting a fire hose in your mouth.)

But to back up even further, the creation of the blockchain is what enabled cryptocurrency’s existence. To not get too computers about it, the blockchain is a digital record that cannot be hacked or changed, even though it is accessible. Its creation in 2009 was heralded as a breakthrough for important innovations like unhackable elections and recordkeeping, but it also established a system that could essentially work to undergird the basis of an online monetary system, aka cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin (noun)—The main cryptocurrency and the one that the most people are willing to buy at any given time. Its creator is an anonymous white paper author who goes by the name Satoshi Nakamoto. A Bitcoin is worth about $80,000 these days, give or take, though it crossed $100,000 for the first time in 2024. It goes up and down a lot, but if you were to pick one direction over its history to date, it’s definitely been up.

Coinbase (noun)—The most prominent American crypto exchange, run by Brian Armstrong. Like a bank for crypto. Publicly traded, which makes its operations more transparent than most of its peers’. Not especially decentralized, despite its CEO’s constant reminders that crypto is decentralized.

crypto exchange (noun)—A hub for people to put their crypto, and where the exchange takes over the management of that crypto. A way to own crypto without having to think too much about the mechanics of it or risk losing it (unless the exchange turns out to be fraudulent, as some have, in which case customers without any insurance may lose their deposits). Think of a crypto exchange as the bank and the blockchain as the vault.

NFT (noun)—Some digital thing that is minted as being a novelty—not unlike a special-edition baseball card with only one copy made. The market has cooled a lot since NFTs went mainstream in early 2021. Some are sort of passable as being real, unique things (like specially coded NBA highlight videos on digital cards, licensed by the NBA), while other NFTs bear no connection to the object being represented and amount to pure theft. Related to crypto in that people tend to buy NFTs with crypto, and NFTs draw on crypto tech like blockchains.

tokenize (verb)—To take a real thing and embody it in a token. As in: My name is Alex, and I could tokenize myself by launching AlexCoin. Would you buy me?

Bitcoin mine (verb)—To drain the world’s power grids so that some guys can get more Bitcoins after they are launched into circulation. The actual act of mining involves computer whizzes trying to solve a numerical puzzle; the first miner to solve it gets the newly created Bitcoin.

Ethereum (noun)—Another cryptocurrency. It’s the Scottie Pippen to Bitcoin’s Michael Jordan. As a piece of crypto technology, its people like the term digital vending machine, because it automates the process of paying for something, eliminating the need for a middleman. Most crypto is a payment object, but Ethereum is also a payment process.

stablecoin (noun)—A crypto token whose value is pegged to something else, like a currency.

Tether (noun)—The biggest stablecoin, pegged to the U.S. dollar. In case the U.S. dollar wasn’t working for you.

pump and dump (noun, verb)—The practice of owning an asset, talking it up, and selling it at an inflated price to the losers who believe you. Historically popular with stocks (see: GameStop) but now a real boom sector in crypto. Because in crypto, the literal creators of coins can be the ones doing it. See: “Hawk Tuah” Girl, the twentysomething who tried to capitalize on her viral fame by launching a crypto project that quicky fell apart. (She claims she didn’t personally sell any holdings, but some major holders made a few million dollars off the whole thing.)

rug pull (noun, verb)—In crypto, often the dump part of pump and dump, when a coin’s developers exit the project and leave poor saps holding worthless junk.

shit coin/meme coin (noun)—A crypto token that has no animating ideology behind it other than to have a little fun. Can morph into a regular-ish coin with enough momentum (see: the next item on this list).

Doge (cryptocurrency) (noun)—Dogecoin is a crypto token (not exactly a cryptocurrency, in that I’m not aware of many people dreaming about using it as currency) based on a picture of a dog that got really hot during the GameStop/AMC meme stock mania of early 2021. The dog looks like this:

The coin has hung around, thanks in part to publicity from celebrities like Elon Musk. It is currently valued at about 20 cents, which is not that much.

DOGE (pseudo–governmental entity) (noun)—Elon Musk’s crew of often unqualified and sometimes wildly racist underlings who began torching the federal government as the Department of Government Efficiency in winter 2025. Not related to the coin, but the acronym isn’t a coincidence.

Poloniex (noun)—A crypto exchange that lost $120 million in a hack in 2023. Put your money wherever you want. It’s not my money! But yes, this kind of thing can happen.

World Liberty Financial (noun)—A crypto venture designed to migrate money from enthusiastic supporters of Donald Trump to the president and his business associates. It created both the Trump coin and the Melania coin, both of which launched soon after the inauguration and are largely viewed as a money grab.

Tron (noun)—A blockchain that works kind of like Ethereum, with its “smart contract” functionality. But also: founded by a guy whom the Securities and Exchange Commission has accused of a variety of financial misdeeds, including fraud.

broligarchy (noun)—Slang for Silicon Valley guys who think they should be the world’s molders. As of early 2025, their project had momentum. (See: Musk, Elon, and the All-In podcast, which features a co-host who is a South African investor—and now the White House’s A.I. and crypto “czar.”)

Fairshake (noun)—Just some crypto professionals who believe that their industry deserves a fair shake! In reality, this is an industry super PAC that wants favorable crypto laws and regulations. It spent about half the corporate money of the entire 2024 election cycle to make sure the industry would get them.

Securities and Exchange Commission (noun)—A governmental agency that at one point was hostile to crypto but now lets crypto companies do whatever they want.

Federal Trade Commission (noun)—An agency that was very hawkish on antitrust and consumer protections during the Biden administration. Has a webpage on how to spot crypto scams, which hasn’t yet been taken down, but stay tuned.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (noun)—Federal agency signed into creation by Barack Obama, with the idea being that it would protect consumers from scams. For some reason, the crypto industry doesn’t like it. It’s been one of DOGE’s first targets, and its survival is the subject of ongoing litigation.

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