Memecoin glossary

Plain definitions of memecoin and crypto trading terms: bonding curve, MEV, sniping, slippage, rug pull and more.

AMM: An AMM (automated market maker) is a smart contract that prices trades with a formula over a liquidity pool, so you trade against the pool instead of against another buyer or seller.
Ape: To ape (or ape in) means to buy a crypto token fast, with little or no research, usually because of hype or fear of missing out.
Bonding curve: A bonding curve is a formula that sets a token's price from its supply: each buy raises the price and each sell lowers it, with no order book and no outside liquidity pool.
Bundling: Bundling is when a memecoin creator buys a large share of supply from several wallets in the same block as the launch, often with a Jito bundle, to hide how much they control.
Contract address: A contract address (CA) is the unique on-chain address of a token or smart contract; it is the only reliable way to identify a coin, because names and tickers can be copied.
Copy trading: Copy trading is when a bot watches another wallet and repeats its buys and sells in your own wallet, usually with an amount and limits that you set.
DCA (dollar-cost averaging): DCA (dollar-cost averaging) is buying or selling a token in fixed amounts at set intervals instead of all at once, so your average price spreads over time.
Degen: A degen, short for degenerate, is a crypto trader who takes very high-risk bets, often on brand-new memecoins, with little research and full knowledge that most of them fail.
Dev wallet: A dev wallet is the wallet that created or launched a memecoin, often with the first buy; traders watch how much of the supply it holds and when it sells.
DEX: A DEX (decentralized exchange) is an app built on smart contracts that lets you swap tokens directly from your own wallet, without an account and without giving your funds to a company.
Freeze authority: Freeze authority is the permission on a Solana token that lets its holder freeze any holder's token account, which blocks transfers and sells from that account until it is thawed.
Graduation: Graduation is the moment a launchpad memecoin completes its bonding curve and its liquidity moves to a normal DEX pool, such as a PumpSwap pool for pump.fun coins.
Honeypot: A honeypot is a scam token that lets you buy but stops you from selling, through a freeze permission or hidden contract rules, so your money stays trapped while the scammer cashes out.
Jito tip: A Jito tip is a small SOL payment to one of Jito's tip accounts so that validators running Jito include your transaction or bundle, often for speed or MEV protection.
Launchpad: A launchpad is a platform that lets anyone create a new token and start trading it at once, usually on a bonding curve that later moves the token to a DEX pool.
Limit order: A limit order is an order to buy or sell a token only at a price you set or a better one; if the market never reaches that price, the order does not fill.
Liquidity pool: A liquidity pool is a smart contract that holds two tokens, for example a memecoin and SOL, so traders can swap one for the other at a price set by the ratio of the two.
Market cap: Market cap (market capitalization) is a token's current price multiplied by its circulating supply: the market value of all tokens that can trade today.
Memecoin: A memecoin is a crypto token built around a joke, meme, mascot or trend, whose price depends almost only on attention and community hype rather than on a product or cash flow.
MEV: MEV (maximal extractable value) is the extra profit that block producers and bots can take by including, excluding or reordering transactions in a block.
Mint authority: Mint authority is the permission on a Solana token that lets its holder create new tokens at any time; when it is revoked (set to none), the supply is fixed forever.
Priority fee: A priority fee is an optional extra fee added to a transaction so validators process it sooner; on Solana it goes fully to the validator.
Private key: A private key is the secret code that signs transactions for one wallet address; whoever holds it can move every token in that address.
Rug pull: A rug pull is a crypto scam where the team behind a token takes the buyers' money and abandons the project, so the price falls close to zero.
Sandwich attack: A sandwich attack is an MEV trade where a bot buys just before your swap and sells just after it, so you get a worse price and the bot keeps the difference.
Seed phrase: A seed phrase (recovery phrase) is a list of 12 to 24 words that creates and restores all the private keys of a crypto wallet; anyone who has it controls the funds.
Self-custody: Self-custody means you hold the private key or seed phrase of your crypto wallet yourself, so only you can move the funds and no company can freeze or lose them for you.
Slippage: Slippage is the difference between the price you are quoted for a trade and the price at which the trade actually executes, caused by thin liquidity, trade size or fast price moves.
Sniping: Sniping is buying a new token in the first seconds or blocks after it launches or gets liquidity, usually with a bot that sends the buy automatically.
Telegram trading bot: A Telegram trading bot is a bot inside the Telegram app that buys and sells crypto tokens for you from a wallet it creates or imports, usually for a fee of about 1% per trade.
Trading terminal: A trading terminal is a web app for on-chain trading that puts live charts, feeds of new tokens, wallet tracking and one-click buy and sell buttons on one screen.
Whale: A whale is a person or wallet that holds or trades enough of a coin to move its price on its own; on small memecoins, one wallet with a few percent of supply can be a whale.