English (pdf)
Article in xml format
Article references
Automatic translation
Send this article by e-mail
Cited by SciELO 
Cited by Google 
Similars in
SciELO 
Similars in Google 
Permalink
Introduction
Andrew Jackson, president of the USA from 1829 to 1837, once said “money is power” (cited in Somit, 1948). The same quote was later used by other politicians, philosophers, or academics to show the connection between wealth and hegemony (Furnham, 1984; Klebanow, 1991; Worster, 1993). In this sense, money is used as a medium of exchange for assets, properties, and resources (Dyer, 1989; Lipton, 2019; Wallace, 2010). As a result, owning “something” implies having certain strengths or advantages for the owner’s benefit.
Historically, there is no solid evidence about when exactly humanity began to use money. For a long time, bartering was how trade was made. People exchanged goods and services for other goods or services; however, stipulating an equal value for each part of the exchange was difficult. For example, acquiring a house was probably unfeasible if the buyer wanted to pay with eggs or milk. Similarly, if two products could not be exchanged simultaneously because they were seasonal or perishable, this situation required trust among the two parties. However, history has shown several episodes in which some individuals were not good enough at being trustworthy. As a result, in an attempt at avoiding fraud, a new system based on giving value to precious metals such as gold or silver to be exchanged with other goods or services was invented. The buyer would pay with precious metals for merchandise to a seller, and then they could later recover the precious metals by selling other goods or services.
This system gave rise approximately in 600 B. C. to present-day coins. Based on the definition provided by the Merrian-Webster dictionary, a coin is a piece of metal issued by a governmental authority as money. Later, these coins were transformed into paper notes. The problem of this financial system was the storage of wealth and the risk of robbery. As a measure to avoid this problem, the first banks appeared to store coins and notes. These coins and notes represented gold, and central banks were responsible for storing the amount of gold corresponding to the coins and notes in transit. In addition, other payment methods, such as cheques and credit cards, were also invented.
However, this financial system has evolved over time, and the transit money is no longer supported by any storage of the equivalent gold or silver. This new functioning is based on pure accountability instead; numbers enter or leave from people’s bank accounts, but no real value supports them except for the promise of central banks that their money has value.
The banking industry has been severely criticized for different reasons over the course of history, and the fact that money is the value given by the authorities does not seem to be a reliable system for a part of the population. As it happened with the barter system, individuals must trust the promise of their authorities again. Due to this criticism, alternatives to banking have been created to substitute the traditional banking industry and decentralize the financial system. However, none of them seem to have been able to succeed yet.
One of the latest alternatives created to change the financial system is the introduction of cryptocurrencies. A cryptocurrency can be defined as a digital asset the aim of which is to be used as a medium of exchange. An important feature of cryptocurrencies is that their control is decentralized instead of being distributed among traditional banking systems. Decentralized control uses ledger technology, usually blockchains. This system works as a database with the information from any financial transactions made with a cryptocurrency. The technology avoids the participation of third parties in the transactions and eludes unnecessary fees since it is based on a peer-to-peer system with one-to-one transactions on a secure network between the sender and receiver. Cryptocurrencies also claim to be secure as there is a transaction record available for everyone, and it uses a reliable encryption technique to protect them from hackers.
In addition to these characteristics of the cryptocurrencies, their recent popularity is also related to their use as an investment or speculation fund with high volatility in their price. Investors in cryptocurrency who bought them in the first half of 2020 could have obtained a benefit higher than 1000% in a single year. It has also been popularly compared with gold. Consequently, some investors have recently become rich with their speculations, be the expert or inexpert; and they still expect to increase their benefits in the following years. The truth is that the number of investors has also increased, and some of them communicate with other investors via social networks or other online services.
As a result of the rise of cryptocurrencies, together with the widespread of its popularity, a new language community has been created. Like any community, they have specific language forms and rules (Bhatia, 1997, 2004; VanPatten, 2011). Therefore, the objective of this study is to analyze some of the characteristics of the language related to cryptocurrencies. In this sense, this paper focuses on the analysis of some of the most usual words, the relevance of acronyms over their meaning, metaphors, and other typical picturesque expressions within this field. Our hypothesis in this paper is that new forms of language have been created which also combine these new forms with the usual financial language related to investment and trade.
Theoretical Framework
This section introduces some relevant bibliography to help the reader understand how the language of cryptocurrencies has previously been described. It starts with some principles of word formation, and it moves towards the language of finances, which is the origin of the new form of language described in this paper.
Word Formation and Metaphors in the Language of Cryptocurrencies
The creation of new words per se is a social communication need. People constantly generate and coin new words as society evolves and the world changes. Every new situation requires that new forms of language be created to represent the new reality. Janssen (2005) stated that languages are dynamic rather than static; they continuously evolve. New words are also known as neologisms, and they are coined to explain or describe things or ideas which cannot be represented accurately with the current existing words.
According to Crystal (2001), neologisms are defined as the foundation of new lexical items acceptable within a community at a specific time. This idea is also supported by Trask (1999), who added that new words are created from new materials, and by Ten Hacken and Thomas (2013), who suggested that new words are based on some existing rules. In this sense, some forms of neologism can be loan words, acronyms, or abbreviations (Khan, 2013); or they can be created from or after other existing words (Plag, 2003). However, it shall be acknowledged that some of these new words do not need to be accepted by linguistics authorities or be considered formal language (Peprnik & Univerzita Palackého, 2006).
There are different strategies to create new words. Aronoff (1976) based his model of creating new words on three main blocks: suffixation, prefixation, and compounding. Harley (2006) explained the word-formation processes, including derivation compounding, blending, acronym, borrowing, and neologisms. Algeo (1977) divided word-formation into lexical blends, which included three groups: phonemic overlap, clipping, and the combination of both. More recently, Ratih and Gusdian (2018) suggested a taxonomy that included nine categories: affixation, folk etymology, compounding, abbreviation, acronyms, borrowing, blending, clipping, and back-formation. They also suggested that the double word-formation process was possible, as in the following cases: folk etymology and compounding, compounding, and affixation, blending and affixation, or clipping and blending.
In addition to these strategies, communicating with metaphors is also possible. In semantics, metaphors are defined as an expression to understand one concept by referring to another concept, in which there is a similarity or specific correlation between the two (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Similarly, Gibbs (1994) explained that a metaphor compares two terms that are different but share some characteristics. Related to our research, the study of Silaški (2011) shows some animal metaphors in Business English. Some examples are sharks referring to greedy people, bull and bears alluding to markets when they are moving upwards and downwards, respectively, or cow and goose to describe some products which produce a lot of sales revenue.
Some Characteristics of the Language of Finances
The language of finances is also involved in this process of change and evolution. New ideas, products, or technology continuously alter it, and the way it evolves follows the same linguistic parameters as other fields. Therefore, financial language should have some characteristics which could have been altered with the introduction and rising popularity of cryptocurrencies. On the one hand, few academic texts talk about or describe the language of cryptocurrencies. Some examples are the master’s dissertation of Ciganović (2019), which focuses on translating some relevant terms from English into Croatian, or the work of Nădrag (2020), who explains how to teach Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin English vocabulary in the field of Economics. In parallel to these academic works, some glossaries have already been created in non-academic contexts; and some examples are the ones provided by some crypto exchange companies such as Bit2Me, Coinmarketcap, or Binance, among others.
However, it must be acknowledged that the language of cryptocurrencies is part of the language of finances; and a wide range of similarities should be considered. Some of these characteristics have been enlisted by previous authors. The work of Mateo-Martinez (2010) describes some of the general characteristics of the language of finances. This author explains that “Financial language should be understood in an ample sense as the variety of Business language that describes the use of money in all its possible forms” such as currency, securities, loans, insurance, or credits, among others (Mateo-Martinez, 2010, p. 31). Therefore, financial language and the language of economics are different. He suggests that financial language uses acronyms and abbreviations often, metaphors and expressions referring to animals, Anglo-Saxon words to avoid confusion with false friends, and plays on words. Besides, it includes popular and colloquial language, and the communication and expressivity tend to be clear and accessible to a broad public. In contrast, the language of economics is highly academic, includes Latinisms, and relies on the use of acronyms and abbreviations, and metaphors. Other authors have also suggested that the language of finances contains metaphors (Cheng & Ho, 2017; Sánchez-Pérez & Cortés-de-los-Ríos, 2015), acronyms and abbreviations (Laursen & Mousten, 2015; Rao, 2008), anglicisms (Laursen & Mousten, 2015; Gaudio, 2012), and the language is generally clear (Krimpas, 2017).
Method
The popularity of cryptocurrencies has quickly increased since the creation of Bitcoin in 2009 until the present. However, coinciding with the COVID-19 crisis, the fever of cryptocurrencies exploded in 2020, and several new investors joined the market. In an attempt at showing their popularity, some popular cryptocurrencies were searched in the Google toolbar, and these results were compared with other popular multinational non-financial brands.
This research aimed to describe some characteristics of the language of cryptocurrencies, or crypto language. Based on previous research, an experiment with the search tool of Google was completed. To this purpose, this experiment analyzes the most usual words related to cryptocurrencies, the relevance of acronyms over their meaning, metaphors, and other picturesque expressions within this field. To determine our corpus, a glossary published by the company Bit2Me was used. This glossary included what this company seems to consider the most relevant financial and trading words related to the world of cryptocurrencies. In total, our corpus was formed by 255 words. Initially, the glossary included 385 words, we decided to exclude the words that referred to the name of cryptocurrencies, companies, and relevant people related to this field.
These words were searched in Google with the word crypto to distinguish it from other uses. The formula introduced in the search bar was “crypto*” + “word*”. The asterisk character was placed next to the word to include words derived from the original root, for example, singular and plural. The quotation marks are used to determine that both words must appear in the search in the same text. All the words were searched in Google between the 14 and 15 of May 2021.
Our analysis focused on different features of cryptocurrencies. We first analyzed the most frequent words from the dossier published by the company Bit2Me. In addition, special attention was paid to the use of acronyms, the dossier frequently included both acronyms and the words represented, but in some cases, it was necessary to find the words represented with external resources. In the same way, this glossary included three animals as metaphors; therefore, the names of another twenty-three animals were also included in the list to determine their relevance within this type of language (Silaški, 2011).
Results
The results have been divided into three sections. The first section analyzes the frequency of the words introduced in the Bit2Me glossary. The second section focuses on the use of acronyms. And the third section studies the use of animal metaphors in the industry of cryptocurrencies.
Popular Crypto-Words
As shown in Table 1, the number of occurrences of Bitcoin appeared in Google was superior to the brands Adidas or Nintendo, a little inferior to Microsoft, but still far from the giants Google and Amazon. The other cryptocurrencies were not as popular as Bitcoin in our Google search, being Ethereum its main competitor. These results could represent the rise of their popularity since their creation during the first quarter of the 21st century; the first one was Bitcoin in 2009.
Table 1 Comparison Between Some Popular CryptoCurrencies and Other Non-Financial Brands
| Currency | Tokens | Other Brands | Tokens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin | 1,070,000,000 | 10,080,000,000 | |
| Ethereum | 346,000,000 | Amazon | 5,000,000,000 |
| Dogecoin | 170,000,000 | Microsoft | 1,440,000,000 |
| Binance | 118,000,000 | Adidas | 868,000,000 |
| Cardano | 56,500,000 | Nintendo | 599,000,000 |
Note: Search term was NAME
On the most frequent words, our research found which words from the glossary were the ones that appeared more often in Google. These results are shown in Table 2, and as it can be observed, general financial words can be found and other neologisms. For example, the most usual word that accompanies the word crypto is the exchange. Other usual general financial words on the top of the list are trading, asset, fee, input, spread, or inflation. Other words are more technical, like halving and some of them are metaphors of animals like bull or bear. These words have previously been used in the fields of finances and economics, and they do not represent a novelty within this field; however, the fact that some of them appear on the top of the list suggests how the market of cryptocurrencies operates.
Table 2 100 Most Frequent Words in Bit2Me’s Dossier
| # | Word | Tokens | # | Word | Tokens |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Exchange | 281,000,000 | 51 | CheckSequenceVerify (CSV) | 9,040,000 |
| 2 | Crypto | 242,000,000 | 52 | Timestamp | 8,930,000 |
| 3 | Trading | 150,000,000 | 53 | Private key | 8,810,000 |
| 4 | Blockchain | 148,000,000 | 54 | Stablecoin | 7,920,000 |
| 5 | Asset | 135,000,000 | 55 | Hybrid crypto exchange (HEX) | 7,910,000 |
| 6 | Cryptocurrency | 132,000,000 | 56 | Bull market | 7,820,000 |
| 7 | Token | 87,900,000 | 57 | Flipping | 7,560,000 |
| 8 | Portfolio | 85,200,000 | 58 | Curve (CRV) | 7,520,000 |
| 9 | Block | 65,900,000 | 59 | DD (due diligence) | 7,510,000 |
| 10 | Wallet | 62,800,000 | 60 | MetaMask | 7,330,000 |
| 11 | Mining | 59,600,000 | 61 | Smart contract | 7,210,000 |
| 12 | Fee | 58,900,000 | 62 | Mainnet | 6,870,000 |
| 13 | Input | 47,500,000 | 63 | Testnet | 6,010,000 |
| 14 | Spread | 44,300,000 | 64 | Proof of stake (PoS) | 5,940,000 |
| 15 | Inflation | 44,100,000 | 65 | Proof of work (PoW) | 5,560,000 |
| 16 | Succinct atomic swap (swap) | 41,800,000 | 66 | PoW (proof of work) | 5,520,000 |
| 17 | der (Signature) | 38,000,000 | 67 | HashGraph | 5,500,000 |
| 18 | Bull | 38,200,000 | 68 | Fork | 5,490,000 |
| 19 | Bear | 24,200,000 | 69 | Mempool | 5,360,000 |
| 20 | P2P (peer to peer) | 22,300,000 | 70 | Liquidity | 5,190,000 |
| 21 | Output | 21,000,000 | 71 | Discrete log contracts (DLC) | 4,680,000 |
| 22 | Dump | 20,800,000 | 72 | RenBTC | 4,430,000 |
| 23 | Node | 19,300,000 | 73 | Arbitrage | 4,390,000 |
| 24 | Satoshi | 19,300,000 | 74 | Mixer | 4,290,000 |
| 25 | Cryptography | 17,200,000 | 75 | Deflation | 4,140,000 |
| 26 | Fiat (fiduciary money) | 16,900,000 | 76 | Proof of authority (PoA) | 4,040,000 |
| 27 | Decentralized exchange (dex) | 16,600,000 | 77 | Airdrop | 3,940,000 |
| 28 | cpu | 16,400,000 | 78 | Halving | 3,660,000 |
| 29 | Skynet (Sia) | 15,700,000 | 79 | Maker (MKR) | 3,640,000 |
| 30 | Hash | 15,400,000 | 80 | Evangelist | 3,620,000 |
| 31 | Compound (comp) | 15,200,000 | 81 | Centralized exchange (CEX) | 3,450,000 |
| 32 | To the moon | 14,500,000 | 82 | Proof of elapsed time (PoET) | 3,450,000 |
| 33 | ChainLink | 14,100,000 | 83 | Bear market | 3,430,000 |
| 34 | Emission | 14,100,000 | 84 | Public key | 3,400,000 |
| 35 | Whitepaper | 14,000,000 | 85 | Tokenization | 3,350,000 |
| 36 | Altcoin | 13,900,000 | 86 | PoS (proof of stake) | 3,310,000 |
| 37 | otc (over-the-counter) | 12,600,000 | 87 | Cloud mining | 3,270,000 |
| 38 | Nonce | 12,500,000 | 88 | Margin Trading | 3,180,000 |
| 39 | Staking | 12,500,000 | 89 | Unit of account | 2,830,000 |
| 40 | Algorithm | 12,400,000 | 90 | Utility token | 2,730,000 |
| # | Word | Tokens | # | Word | Tokens |
| 41 | Pump | 12,400,000 | 91 | aml (anti-money laundering) | 2,620,000 |
| 42 | Escrow | 12,300,000 | 92 | Solidity | 2,570,000 |
| 43 | Script | 11,900,000 | 93 | P2PKH (pay to public key hash) | 2,540,000 |
| 44 | Balancer (bal) | 11,100,000 | 94 | Yield farming | 2,420,000 |
| 45 | Graphic processor unit (gpu) | 10,900,000 | 95 | Blockchain explorer | 2,310,000 |
| 46 | Whale | 10,600,000 | 96 | Taker | 2,280,000 |
| 47 | Oracle | 10,300,000 | 97 | Block height | 2,260,000 |
| 48 | ath (all-time high) | 10,100,000 | 98 | Faucet | 2,130,000 |
| 49 | Miner | 9,510,000 | 99 | DeFi (decentralized finance) | 2,110,000 |
| 50 | Rig | 9,500,000 | 100 | CheckSum | 2,100,000 |
Search: “crypto*” + “word*”
For example, the most common action seems to be to exchange from fiduciary money to crypto, or vice versa. The words trading and asset, ranked 3 and 5, respectively, also suggest that cryptocurrencies should be understood as a speculative business in which several users participate. The words inflation and deflation are ranked in positions 20 and 111, which is also a sign to describe the market’s volatility. The word fee is also very frequent, and it reveals that exchanging money to cryptocurrencies is part of the business that the users must pay, usually around 2 % (see Binance and Coinmarket). The word halving is another word that explains how the market works, in this case, Bitcoin. In this case, Bitcoin counts with 21 million tokens; these are gradually released to the market, and this amount is always half of the previous year until the total amount is released.
Other common words in the field of cryptocurrencies are token, portfolio, or wallet. These words already exist in other daily operations, but they need to be understood within this field. In this sense, a token is a digital representation of the value of an asset; and a portfolio is a set of financial tools that an investor has and uses to increase their financial assets, whereas a wallet is a software program that allows the users to store and transact cryptocurrencies without the permission or mediation of anyone else.
In addition to these words, other ones are exclusively related to the world of cryptos, such as crypto, blockchain, cryptocurrency, mining, node, or altcoin. To start with, crypto refers to cryptocurrency, but it is also a prefix that has been commonly used to create new words such as cryptography, cryptojacking, cryptonight, cryptowars, or cryptolanguage, among others. The meaning of crypto is hidden, and as it can be observed, it seems to be one of the most popular prefixes within this field. Another important term on cryptocurrencies is blockchain; it is a chain of blocks, and it refers to a type of distributed network that allows the development of the technology for cryptocurrencies. Blockchain is carried out by miners, who create and allow the transactions carried out in a network to be linked. Blocks are created in time intervals and link new transactions with existing ones on the blockchain.
The word mine is fundamental within this model of finances. It can be used as a noun, verb, or adjective as in miner, to mine, or mining (pool or farm). Mining is the process by which blocks are added to a blockchain, and miners verify the transactions. These transactions are recorded on the global ledger or blockchain, and the miners are economically incentivized. Another word related to this process is the nodes, which are computers that connect to the network, support the validation of transactions, and have an updated copy of the blockchain. It is also interesting to see the creation of the word altcoin or alternative coin; it refers to the cryptocurrencies that are not Bitcoin, such as Ethereum, Cardano, or Ripple, among others. Parallel to this word, shitcoin is a pejorative term that refers to those cryptocurrencies which seem to lack value, or the community predicts that their existence will be short due to the inconsistency of its code, team, or project; and most of them are completely speculative. Finally, in Table 2, the word Satoshi, ranked 24, should also be commented on. Satoshi Nakamoto was the inventor of Bitcoin, and after his name, a Satoshi refers to the minimum unit that a bitcoin can be divided into (0.00000001 BTC).
Other words that were not ranked in the top 100 should also be commented on. One of the most popular was the expression To the Moon. This sentence means that Bitcoin and Altcoin users expect the value of their cryptocurrencies to rise considerably, and they will multiply the value of their assets. The term Lambo refers to making big profits with a cryptocurrency. Lambo comes from Lamborghini, and it refers to having the possibility to buy something expensive with the benefits obtained. Also related to the acquisition of goods, the first purchase made with a cryptocurrency (Bitcoin) was two pizzas on 22 May 2010. To commemorate that date, it is remembered as Pizza Day. Some companies and traders in the field of cryptocurrencies celebrate it every Friday with their employees with pizza for lunch.
Use of Crypto-Acronyms
Another aspect that needs to be considered is the use of acronyms for the words represented. Among the words included in the glossary, 65 acronyms were identified. Table 3 shows the times and percentages that these words appeared as an acronym as well as a word. The mean percentage on the use of acronyms was 87.57 %, which was superior to the use of the words represented (12.43 %). In addition, the use of the acronym was superior in 60 out of the 65 cases, and the use of the acronym occurred over 90 % of the time in 45 of them. The use of the words represented by the acronym was only more frequent on 5 occasions.
Table 3 List of Acronyms for the Words Represented
| Word | Total | Acronym | Word | % Acr. | % W. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ICO (initial currency offering) | 52,934,400 | 52,900,000 | 34,400 | 99.94 | 0.06 |
| DeFi (decentralized finance) | 50,910,000 | 48,800,000 | 2,110,000 | 95.86 | 4.14 |
| NFT (non-fungible token) | 49,970,000 | 48,900,000 | 1,070,000 | 97.86 | 2.14 |
| API (application programming interface) | 48,163,000 | 47,800,000 | 363,000 | 99.25 | 0.75 |
| P2P (peer to peer) | 43,200,000 | 20,900,000 | 22,300,000 | 48.38 | 51.62 |
| CRV (curve) | 42,420,000 | 34,900,000 | 7,520,000 | 82.27 | 17.73 |
| SWAP (succinct atomic swap) | 41800979 | 41,800,000 | 979 | 100.00 | 0.00 |
| DAG (directed acyclic graph) | 33,136,000 | 32,700,000 | 436,000 | 98.68 | 1.32 |
| COMP (compound) | 31,700,000 | 15,200,000 | 16,500,000 | 47.95 | 52.05 |
| MKR (maker) | 28,540,000 | 24,900,000 | 3,640,000 | 87.25 | 12.75 |
| OTC (over-the-counter) | 25,000,000 | 12,400,000 | 12,600,000 | 49.60 | 50.40 |
| CFD (contracts for difference) | 22,952,000 | 22,500,000 | 452,000 | 98.03 | 1.97 |
| ROI (return of investment) | 19,525,000 | 18,800,000 | 725,000 | 96.29 | 3.71 |
| BAL (balancer) | 18,220,000 | 11,100,000 | 7,120,000 | 60.92 | 39.08 |
| DEX (decentralized exchange) | 18,010,000 | 16,600,000 | 1,410,000 | 92.17 | 7.83 |
| FIAT (fiduciary money) | 16,920,000 | 16,900,000 | 20,000 | 99.88 | 0.12 |
| DD (due diligence) | 16,720,000 | 9,210,000 | 7,510,000 | 55.08 | 44.92 |
| SIA (Skynet) | 16,369,000 | 15,700,000 | 669,000 | 95.91 | 4.09 |
| ATH (all-time high) | 15,710,000 | 5,610,000 | 10,100,000 | 35.71 | 64.29 |
| DNS (domain name system) | 15,709,000 | 15,100,000 | 609,000 | 96.12 | 3.88 |
| DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) | 14,826,000 | 14,700,000 | 126,000 | 99.15 | 0.85 |
| PoW (proof of work) | 12,240,000 | 5,560,000 | 6,680,000 | 45.42 | 54.58 |
| GPU (graphic processor unit) | 10,901,130 | 10,900,000 | 1,130 | 99.99 | 0.01 |
| IPFS (inter planetary file system) | 10,300,000 | 8,540,000 | 1,760,000 | 82.91 | 17.09 |
| AML (anti-money laundering) | 10,030,000 | 7,410,000 | 2,620,000 | 73.88 | 26.12 |
| PoS (proof of stake) | 9,390,000 | 5,940,000 | 3,450,000 | 63.26 | 36.74 |
| CSV (check sequence verify) | 9,089,400 | 9,040,000 | 49,400 | 99.46 | 0.54 |
| KYC (know your customer) | 9,057,000 | 8,540,000 | 517,000 | 94.29 | 5.71 |
| ASIC (application specific integrated circuits) | 8,968,000 | 8,520,000 | 448,000 | 95.00 | 5.00 |
| Word | Total | Acronym | Word | % Acr. | % W. |
| BIP (bitcoin improvement proposal) | 8,145,600 | 8,090,000 | 55,600 | 99.32 | 0.68 |
| HEX (hybrid crypto exchange) | 7,921,200 | 7,910,000 | 11,200 | 99.86 | 0.14 |
| DAPP (cecentralized application) | 6,550,000 | 6,300,000 | 250,000 | 96.18 | 3.82 |
| DLT (distributed ledger technology) | 5,770,000 | 4,630,000 | 1,140,000 | 80.24 | 19.76 |
| ZRX (ooken 0x) | 5,325,290 | 5,320,000 | 5,290 | 99.90 | 0.10 |
| HODL (hold on for dear life) | 5,274,000 | 4,920,000 | 354,000 | 93.29 | 6.71 |
| ATL (all-time low) | 5,120,000 | 3,260,000 | 1,860,000 | 63.67 | 36.33 |
| DLC (discrete log contracts) | 4,687,360 | 4,680,000 | 7,360 | 99.84 | 0.16 |
| PoA (proof of authority) | 4,253,000 | 4,040,000 | 213,000 | 94.99 | 5.01 |
| CEX (centralized exchange) | 3,727,000 | 3,450,000 | 277,000 | 92.57 | 7.43 |
| PoET (proof of elapsed time) | 3,556,000 | 3,450,000 | 106,000 | 97.02 | 2.98 |
| CBDC (central bank digital currency) | 3,542,000 | 2,810,000 | 732,000 | 79.33 | 20.67 |
| FOMO (fear of missing out) | 3,525,000 | 3,080,000 | 445,000 | 87.38 | 12.62 |
| IEO (nitial exchange offering) | 2,713,000 | 2,600,000 | 113,000 | 95.83 | 4.17 |
| P2PKH (pay to public key hash) | 2,559,500 | 2,540,000 | 19,500 | 99.24 | 0.76 |
| FPGA (field programmable gate array) | 2,456,000 | 2,040,000 | 416,000 | 83.06 | 16.94 |
| P2SH (pay-to-script hash) | 2,365,000 | 2,150,000 | 215,000 | 90.91 | 9.09 |
| FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) | 2,264,600 | 2,200,000 | 64,600 | 97.15 | 2.85 |
| MAST (Merkelized Abstract Syntax Trees) | 2,077,400 | 2,060,000 | 17,400 | 99.16 | 0.84 |
| NBP (Nonce Blinding Protocol) | 1,840,010 | 1,840,000 | 10 | 100.00 | 0.00 |
| RBF (Replace by Fee) | 1,099,100 | 1,030,000 | 69,100 | 93.71 | 6.29 |
| SAFU (Secure Asset Fund for Users) | 826,000 | 799,000 | 27,000 | 96.73 | 3.27 |
| ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Secure Algorithm) | 561,053 | 561,000 | 53 | 99.99 | 0.01 |
| PoB (Proof of Burn) | 520,400 | 473,000 | 47,400 | 90.89 | 9.11 |
| UTXO (Unspent transaction output) | 491,000 | 450,000 | 41,000 | 91.65 | 8.35 |
| DPoS (Delegated Proof of Stake) | 416,000 | 279,000 | 137,000 | 67.07 | 32.93 |
| kWU (thousands wight units) | 415,004 | 415,000 | 4 | 100.00 | 0.00 |
| CLTV (checklocktimeverify) | 398,000 | 266,000 | 132,000 | 66.83 | 33.17 |
| UASF (user activated soft fork) | 374,000 | 351,000 | 23,000 | 93.85 | 6.15 |
| ZKP (zero-knowledge protocol) | 358,300 | 340,000 | 18,300 | 94.89 | 5.11 |
| CPFP (child pays for parents) | 301,610 | 300,000 | 1,610 | 99.47 | 0.53 |
| UAHF (user activated hard fork) | 163,210 | 156,000 | 7,210 | 95.58 | 4.42 |
| DAICO (decentralized autonomous initial coin offer) | 141,004 | 141,000 | 4 | 100.00 | 0.00 |
| P2PK (pay to public key) | 99,700 | 66,100 | 33,600 | 66.30 | 33.70 |
| EDDSA (Edwards-curve digital signature algorithm) | 45,980 | 39,000 | 6,980 | 84.82 | 15.18 |
| MASF (miner active soft fork) | 44,105 | 44,100 | 5 | 99.99 | 0.01 |
| Mean Percentage | 87,57 | 12,43 | |||
Note: Search: “crypto*” + “word*”
Some of the most popular acronyms within Table 3 are general words, words related to finances, and words that originated with the rise of cryptocurrencies. Some words from this list can help us better understand the meaning of the cryptocurrency market. To start with, the most usual acronym from this glossary is ICO, which stands for initial currency offering. An ICO is a type of funding using cryptocurrencies, usually by crowdfunding. In this case, a quantity of cryptocurrency is sold in tokens to potential investors in exchange for legal tender and financing a project based on a blockchain network in its development phase.
The second one is DeFi, which means decentralized finance, one of the main features of cryptocurrencies. This implies that there is no governmental bank behind the operations made with cryptocurrencies. This is a system of smart contracts aimed at building a series of financial services supported by blockchain technology. The third on the list is NFT (non-fungible token). They are units of data stored in a blockchain that certifies the ownership of a digital asset such as photos, videos, audio, and other types of digital files. Fourth is P2P, or peer-to-peer, the system of how cryptocurrencies operate. It refers to decentralized networks in which transaction information is shared between two users through connection to the network with no intermediaries. Finally, the acronym Fiat refers to fiduciary money in current use.
In other words, coins and paper money are issued by different governments such as euro, dollar, yuan, ruble, or pound, among others. As a result, these usual words tell how cryptocurrencies work: created by individuals (not necessarily institutions or governments), a decentralized system of finance (no governmental banks involved), transactions are peer-to-peer (no intermediaries), and there is a register of contracts made to prove the originality of them as non-fungible tokens.
In addition, the role of miners is considered fundamental in the process of blockchain. Miners are individuals who work for a reward paid with cryptocurrencies. In order to show that miners have completed their tasks, some vocabulary has been created. Some examples are PoA (proof of authority), PoB (proof of burn), PoET (proof of elapsed time), PoS (proof of stake), PoW (proof of work), and DPoS (delegated proof of stake). This work of miners characterizes the blockchain or the decentralized system; to this purpose, some words from the glossary refer to it. Some examples are CEX(centralized exchange) and DEX (decentralized exchange), DAICO (decentralized autonomous initial coin offer), DAO (decentralized autonomous organization), and DAPP (decentralized application). The methods of payment have also been coined after P2P; some derivate methods of payment are P2PKH (pay to public key hash), P2SH (pay-to-script hash), and P2PK (pay to public key). Another key of this decentralized money is security and legality, and there are some words to refer to it. Within the acronyms in Table 3, some of them represent these values: AML (anti-money laundering), CFD (contracts for difference), CPFP (child pays for parents), CSV (check sequence verify), D.D. (due diligence), DLC (discrete log contracts), and KYC (know your customer).
The community popularly uses other common acronyms that should be commented on. Some of them could be FOMO, HODL, or FUD. They are related TO how to operate in the investment market. FOMO means fear of missing out, whereas FUD stands for fear, uncertainty, and doubt. In the same way, the word HODL means hold on to dear life, and it was originated by a user of the Bitcointalk Forum in 2013 who committed a typographical error. The speaker intended to say “Hold”; however, this mistake was popularized, and the crypto community began to use it regularly.
Animals as Crypto-Metaphors
The following part of our research includes the use of animals as metaphors in the field of crypto finances. In addition to the three animals in the glossary, other animals were also used in metaphors. These results can give us a clue on the popularity of using certain animals to describe or represent specific characteristics or peculiarities of cryptocurrencies. In this sense, the interpretation of these results can be twofold. On one hand, these animals represent some characteristics of the cryptocurrencies, as explained in our theoretical framework. On the other hand, some cryptocurrencies are named after animals. Therefore, the popularity of these animals can be derived from the cryptocurrencies that they represent. An example of this is Dogecoin, a very popular cryptocurrency supported by Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, and represented by a dog.
Table 4 shows the animals that were used in this research. The grey ones are included in the glossary provided by Bit2Me, whereas the others were complemented with other studies, mainly from Silaški (2011). The originals from the glossary were bull, bear, and whale. Bull and bear are counterparts; they refer to the market moving upwards or downwards, respectively. Regarding the whale, its use refers to people or groups of people with large amounts of a cryptocurrency whose movements can raise or lower prices. It should be noticed that the price of some cryptocurrencies whose price is over thousands of dollars were once only cents. People who bought at the early stages would have an important role in the future when the price of cryptocurrencies multiplied exponentially.
Other popular animals that should be commented on, as shown in Table 4, were shark, fish, unicorn, chicken, wolf, and cow. Sharks might refer to greedy and aggressive investors who aim at their goals over the means. A similar meaning has the wolf, an animal that usually attacks with a pack in an organized way. The fish concern those investors who are diversifying their investments into different cryptocurrencies. The unicorn is a mystical and legendary animal that everyone aims to catch; thus it refers to new cryptocurrencies that, for some reason, sound attractive to investors, who believe they have found gold and could multiply their initial investment. Then, the chicken concerns the lack of courage and bravery to take risky decisions -for example, over-conservative individuals with their assets. Finally, a cow is an animal that connotes nourishment; it also refers to a product that requires little or no expense but continues to generate benefits.
Discussion
As hypothesized, any new product, idea, or concept would bring new forms of languages. In this case, cryptocurrencies have made language evolve, and more concretely so within the language of finances. Our objective was to analyze some characteristics of the language of cryptocurrencies. Following the work of Mateo-Martinez (2010), who had previously focused on the language of finances, our research analyzed some of the features described in his work: Metaphors, acronyms, and usual words from this field. Some previous literature has also been exposed within this paper to support our findings for each of these elements.
In the case of the most frequent words, a glossary published by the company Bit2Me was used. From this list of words, we selected 255 and rejected those related to the proper names of people, companies, or cryptocurrencies. Table 2 shows the 100 most usual words from this glossary according to the search toolbar of Google. In addition to these 100 words, other picturesque expressions within the glossary that we considered interesting were also commented (see to the Moon, Pizza Day, Shitcoin, Satoshi). As expected, the language of cryptocurrencies is an extension or subcategory of the language of finances. Mateo-Martinez (2010) had previously distinguished between the language of finances and the language of economics. Whereas our target, a subcategory of the language of finances, was characterized for the use of Anglo-Saxon words, plays on words (see pump and dump or Mimble Wimble), or clear and accessible language for the non-expert public, in addition to the use of acronyms and metaphors. In contrast, the language of economics is more academic, and it relies more on Latinisms. In this sense, the glossary did not include Latin words, and the language did not seem to be highly academic, but rather user-friendly and accessible to a broad audience, even though it contained several technical words, as shown in this paper.
Regarding the creation of new words or neologisms, the prefix “crypto-” was commonly used to form new words such as cryptocurrency, cryptography, or cryptojacking, among others. We could say that this prefix will preferably remain in use to create new terms that combine cryptocurrencies with other concepts or things. Other words that have been introduced to describe the functioning of and actions related to cryptocurrencies are blockchain, blocks, miners or mining, wallet, and portfolio. These words are essential for anyone who wants to understand or use cryptocurrencies.
On the use of acronyms, some authors such as Laursen and Mousten (2015), Mateo-Martinez (2010), and Rao (2008), among others, had advanced that financial language relied on the use of acronyms over the words represented. In this regard, the acronyms from the glossary were more popular than the words represented (87.57 % vs. 12.43 %). As we can observe, understanding the meaning of some acronyms is essential to understanding cryptolanguage. This seems to be especially important to people who work in this sector, either investing or mining.
Regarding the use of metaphors, the work of Silaški (2011) suggested that animals were commonly used within the field of finances. Within the glossary provided by Bit2Me, three animals were suggested (bull, bear, and whale); however, following this author’s work, we decided to extend this list to 26 animals. We found that determining their frequency as a metaphor was not possible since many cryptocurrencies are called after the name of an animal. Therefore, several references to these animals represent a type of cryptocurrency. All in all, consistent the meaning of these animal-based metaphors, our finding showed that the users of cryptocurrencies tend to use these terms in their written language regularly.
On a final note, this paper has shown that financial language is the origin of cryptolanguage. This fact coincides with the works of Laursen and Mousten (2015), among others, on the use of acronyms or that of Silaški (2011) on metaphors. On neologisms, this paper has found that the language of cryptocurrencies follows the pattern of the language of finances, being less academic and more accessible, using Anglo-Saxon words and plays on words, acronyms, and metaphors. In addition, as suggested by Aronoff (1976) and other authors, the creation of new words is usually carried out by suffixation, prefixation, and compounding. In sum, the aim of this study is to help the readers understand some features of the crypto language, or the language of cryptocurrencies, a relatively novel field in which few studies have been carried out from a linguistic view. As this field is relatively new, the evolution of cryptocurrencies and their language is still ongoing, and the decisions of some governments on accepting or refusing their use will determine their path and impact in our lives.
Conclusion
It seems that cryptocurrencies have an immeasurable potential that has attracted the attention of many investors worldwide, both professional and novice. Although it should be acknowledged that this revolution does not seem to be completed yet as very few goods or services accept cryptocurrencies as a valid payment method, their value during the years 2020 and 2021 has increased exponentially. However, their value is characterized by its volatility; therefore, even though it can quickly increase to a great extent, it could also fall again in a few days or weeks. At any rate, the name Bitcoin appears more frequently in Google than other popular multinational companies with more years of service and experience, which can be interpreted as a sign that cryptocurrencies are indeed being used in the real world.
As it happens with any new product, new forms of language are created by the community that uses them. This research has described some characteristics of its language considering the most usual words, neologisms, acronyms, and metaphors, all of them extracted from a glossary published by the company Bit2Me. Few studies have explored the phenomenon of cryptocurrencies from a linguistic perspective; therefore, in further research, the study of the language of cryptocurrencies could focus on a different context like communication in social networks such as Twitter, which seems to be one of the main channels by which crypto-people communicate with other members. Another topic that may be worth exploring in further research is the study of the language used for the technical analysis of the cryptocurrency market, which focuses on predicting the value of assets in the future. In addition, the industry of cryptocurrencies will probably change in the following months or years; therefore, new horizons in linguistic research will likely appear soon.
