Market capitalization, commonly called market cap, is the market value of a publicly traded company's outstanding shares.
"Pump and dump" (P&D) is a form of securities fraud that involves artificially inflating the price of an owned stock through false and misleading positive statements, in order to sell the cheaply purchased stock at a higher price. Once the operators of the scheme "dump" (sell) their overvalued shares, the price falls and investors lose their money. This is most common with small cap cryptocurrencies and very small corporations/companies, i.e. "microcaps".
The Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index, or more simply the Wilshire 5000, is a market-capitalization-weighted index of the market value of all American-stocks actively traded in the United States. As of December 31, 2019, the index contained 3,473 components. The index is intended to measure the performance of most publicly traded companies headquartered in the United States, with readily available price data,. Hence, the index includes a majority of the common stocks and REITs traded primarily through New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, or the American Stock Exchange. Limited partnerships and ADRs are not included. It can be tracked by following the ticker ^W5000.
A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a collection of binary data which is designed to work as a medium of exchange. Individual coin ownership records are stored in a ledger, which is a computerized database using strong cryptography to secure transaction records, to control the creation of additional coins, and to verify the transfer of coin ownership. Cryptocurrencies are generally fiat currencies, as they are not backed by or convertible into a commodity. Some crypto schemes use validators to maintain the cryptocurrency. In a proof-of-stake model, owners put up their tokens as collateral. In return, they get authority over the token in proportion to the amount they stake. Generally, these token stakers get additional ownership in the token over time via network fees, newly minted tokens or other such reward mechanisms.
Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency created by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, who decided to create a payment system as a "joke", making fun of the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies at the time. Despite its satirical nature, some consider it a legitimate investment prospect. Dogecoin features the face of the Shiba Inu dog from the "Doge" meme as its logo and namesake. It was introduced on December 6, 2013, and quickly developed its own online community, reaching a market capitalization of over $85 billion on May 5, 2021. It is the current shirt sponsor of Premier League club Watford. Dogecoin.com promotes the currency as the "fun and friendly Internet currency", referencing its origins as a "joke." Software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer launched the satirical cryptocurrency as a way to make fun of bitcoin and the many other cryptocurrencies boasting grand plans to take over the world. With the help of Reddit, the site became an instant hit. However, within two weeks, Dogecoin has established a dedicated blog and forum, and its market value has reached $8 million, once jumping to become the seventh largest electronic currency in the world.
Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Amongst cryptocurrencies, Ether is second only to Bitcoin in market capitalization.
Robinhood Markets, Inc. is an American financial services company headquartered in Menlo Park, California, known for pioneering commission-free trades of stocks, exchange-traded funds and cryptocurrencies via a mobile app introduced in March 2015. Robinhood is a FINRA-regulated broker-dealer, registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and is a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. The company's revenue comes from three main sources: interest earned on customers' cash balances, selling order information to high-frequency traders and margin lending. As of 2021, Robinhood has 31 million users and 1.6 million people on a waitlist for its cryptocurrency wallet.
Cryptocurrency tumbler or cryptocurrency mixing service is a service offered to mix potentially identifiable or 'tainted' cryptocurrency funds with others, so as to obscure the trail back to the fund's original source. This is usually done by pooling together source funds from multiple inputs for a large and random period of time, and then spitting them back out to destination addresses. As all the funds are lumped together and then distributed at random times, it is very difficult to trace exact coins. Tumblers have arisen to improve the anonymity of cryptocurrencies, usually bitcoin, since the currencies provide a public ledger of all transactions.
Many people consider the rising price of cryptocurrencies to be a speculative bubble. This includes Black Swan author Nassim Taleb, Michael Burry who shorted subprime mortgage bonds, as covered in The Big Short, and many others.
Binance is a cryptocurrency exchange which is currently the largest exchange in the world in terms of daily trading volume of cryptocurrencies. It was founded in 2017 and is registered in the Cayman Islands.
OKEx is a Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange that provides a platform for trading various cryptocurrencies. Some of exchange's core features include spot and derivative trading. It was founded in 2017. OKEx is owned by Ok Group which also owns crypto exchange Okcoin.
Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies where the price is designed to be pegged to a cryptocurrency, fiat money, or to exchange-traded commodities.
The DFINITY Foundation is a nonprofit organization that develops the Internet Computer, a decentralized, open-source, general-purpose blockchain designed to host smart contracts.
Decentralized exchanges (DEX) are a type of cryptocurrency exchange which allows for direct peer-to-peer cryptocurrency transactions to take place online securely and without the need for an intermediary.
A security token offering (STO) / tokenized IPO is a type of public offering in which tokenized digital securities, known as security tokens, are sold in security token exchanges. Tokens can be used to trade real financial assets such as equities and fixed income, and use a blockchain virtual ledger system to store and validate token transactions.
Decentralized Finance is a blockchain-based form of finance that does not rely on central financial intermediaries such as brokerages, exchanges, or banks to offer traditional financial instruments, and instead utilizes smart contracts on blockchains, the most common being Ethereum. DeFi platforms allow people to lend or borrow funds from others, speculate on price movements on a range of assets using derivatives, trade cryptocurrencies, insure against risks, and earn interest in savings-like accounts. DeFi uses a layered architecture and highly composable building blocks. Some DeFi applications promote high interest rates but are subject to high risk. By October 2020, over $11 billion was deposited in various decentralized finance protocols, which represented more than a tenfold growth during the course of 2020. As of January 2021, approximately $20.5 billion was invested in DeFi.
Uniswap is a decentralized finance protocol that is used to exchange cryptocurrencies. Uniswap is also the name of the company that initially built the Uniswap protocol. The protocol facilitates automated transactions between cryptocurrency tokens on the Ethereum blockchain through the use of smart contracts. As of October 2020, Uniswap was estimated to be the largest decentralized exchange and the fourth-largest cryptocurrency exchange overall by daily trading volume. In March 2021, Uniswap was generating fees of approximately US$2–3 million daily for the liquidity providers who facilitate liquid markets for the cryptocurrencies being exchanged.
Shiba Inu token is a decentralized cryptocurrency created in August 2020 by an anonymous person or group known as "Ryoshi". It is named after the Shiba Inu (柴犬), a Japanese breed of dog originating in the Chūbu region, the same breed that is depicted in Dogecoin's symbol, itself originally a satirical cryptocurrency based on the Doge meme. Shiba Inu has been characterized as a "meme coin" and a pump and dump scheme. There have also been concerns about the concentration of the coin with a single "whale" wallet controlling billions of dollars' worth of the token, and frenzied buying by retail investors motivated by fear of missing out (FOMO).
SafeMoon is a cryptocurrency token created in March 2021 on the Binance Smart Chain blockchain.
