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Key takeaways (TL;DR):
- Crypto slang is not for memorising; it is for reading risk. The same sentence means the opposite thing in a tutorial and in a pump group.
- Counterintuitive point one: your chart can miss your liquidation level and you still get liquidated. Liquidation follows mark price, not the last trade you see on the candle.
- Counterintuitive point two: the funding rate is not an exchange fee. It moves between longs and shorts, and since May 2025 some contracts can settle hourly instead of every eight hours.
- Counterintuitive point three: "guaranteed returns", "my teacher calls the trades" and "internal news" are not slang, they are scam scripts. The only five words worth memorising are mark price, liquidation price, funding rate, slippage and withdrawal network.
- Learn those five first. Getting them wrong costs money directly; getting the rest wrong only costs you the conversation.
The crypto terms a beginner must learn first are mark price, liquidation price, funding rate, slippage and withdrawal network. Everything else mostly affects whether you can follow a group chat. These five decide whether you get liquidated while your chart looks safe, whether money is quietly deducted every day, and whether your coins end up on the wrong chain.
This guide uses Binance's official rules as checked on 11 November 2026 and groups the 24 terms beginners hit most often into interface, market, community and scam language. For each term you get where it appears on screen, what it really means, the most common misreading, and the action to take.
Table of contents
- Why slang comes before chart reading
- Eight interface terms that touch your money
- Why you get liquidated without price touching your level
- Funding: every eight hours, sometimes every hour
- Market slang: wicks, shakeouts, pumps and micro-caps
- Community slang: HODL, FOMO, DYOR
- Scam scripts: these are not terms, they are red lights
- Translating a group chat into actions
- The five words to memorise today
- 💰 Binance referral: invite code BINANBT
- FAQ
- Further reading
Why slang comes before chart reading
Because slang decides risk and charts decide timing, and beginners lose money at the risk layer. You can skip candlestick patterns entirely and still not lose money; misread mark price once and a normal move closes your position.
The same word runs on two different languages depending on the room. "Buy the dip" is a strategy in a tutorial and an instruction to take someone's bags in a pump group. "All in" is a joke in a meme and a different spelling of zero in a real account. So this is not a dictionary; every term is tied to an action.
One rule is worth more than 24 words: any phrase that demands you act immediately and discourages questions is a risk signal first. Apply that and most scams lose their opening move.
Eight interface terms that touch your money
All eight appear on the order and position screens of a futures exchange, and misreading any one makes your account disagree with your expectations.
| Term | Where it appears | What it really means | Common misreading | What to do |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spot | Trade → Spot | You buy the coin outright | Thinking spot can be liquidated | Spot is not liquidated by price |
| Perpetual futures | Trade → USDⓈ-M | Margin bets on direction with no expiry | Treating it like holding spot | Check the liquidation price first |
| Leverage | Order panel | Multiplies position and loss | Thinking 10x only means 10x faster gains | Losses multiply too |
| Long / short | Buy / sell buttons | Betting up / down | Thinking a short sells your own coins | A short borrows and must be repaid |
| Margin | Position screen | The collateral you posted | Thinking margin equals maximum loss | Liquidation can cost more |
| Isolated / cross | Margin mode | Per-position vs whole-account collateral | Thinking isolated cannot be liquidated | Isolated still closes that position |
| Mark price | Futures header and position | Fair value used for P&L and liquidation | Thinking it equals the chart price | Watch only this for liquidation risk |
| Funding rate | Futures header | Payment between longs and shorts | Thinking it is an exchange fee | Check it every settlement |
"Isolated cannot be liquidated" is the most common misreading. Isolated simply caps the damage at that position's margin; walk into the liquidation level and the position still closes, it just does not drag the rest of your balance with it. Cross margin does the opposite: your available balance absorbs the loss.
"Margin equals maximum loss" is also false. Liquidation normally fires before the position is fully underwater, but in fast markets or thin liquidity the fill can be worse than the liquidation price. Check the exchange's current rules for how that shortfall is handled rather than assuming it cannot happen.
Why you get liquidated without price touching your level
Because liquidation follows mark price, while your chart shows the last traded price; they are different numbers by design. This is the most expensive misunderstanding a beginner can carry.
Last price is the most recent trade, and it drives your chart and your fills. Mark price is a fair value calculated from spot prices across multiple venues, used to measure unrealised P&L, check margin sufficiency and trigger liquidation.1
| What you look at | What it actually is | What it is used for |
|---|---|---|
| Price on the candle | Last traded price | Reading the market, filling orders |
| Mark price in the header | Fair value from spot venues | P&L and liquidation maths |
| Liquidation price | The level triggered by mark price | Deciding when you are out |
The reason for two prices is to stop anyone from pushing a single trade to hunt liquidation levels. The cost is that in a fast spot move the mark price can reach your liquidation level before your chart does, producing "the chart never got there and I still got closed". That is not the platform cheating; it is the wrong number being watched.
One action fixes it: after you open a position, write down the liquidation price before you do anything else. Watching only the stop-loss you set means watching half your risk.
Funding: every eight hours, sometimes every hour
The funding rate is a payment between longs and shorts in perpetual futures, settling every eight hours by default at 00:00, 08:00 and 16:00 UTC. The exchange does not keep it; it moves between traders.2
| Item | Official rule |
|---|---|
| Settlement times | 00:00 / 08:00 / 16:00 UTC, every eight hours by default |
| Who pays whom | Positive rate: longs pay shorts. Negative: shorts pay longs |
| Calculation | Funding fee = notional position value × funding rate |
| Notional value | Mark price × contract quantity |
| Default interest | 0.03% per day, i.e. 0.01% per eight hours (some contracts such as ETHBTC use 0%) |
| When you pay nothing | Close before the settlement moment and no payment occurs |
Since 2 May 2025 the interval is not always eight hours. Binance's rule: if a USDⓈ-margined perpetual hits the funding cap or floor at a settlement, its interval switches to hourly, usually within about 15 minutes and without a separate announcement.2 From 2 January 2026, an hourly contract whose absolute funding rate stays at or below 0.025% for 16 consecutive periods returns to a four-hour interval from the 17th period.2
What does this cost over a year? On 10,000 USDT of notional:
| Funding rate | Per settlement | Per day (3x) | Per year | Share of notional |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.01% (default interest) | 1 USDT | 3 USDT | ~1,095 USDT | 10.95% |
| 0.03% | 3 USDT | 9 USDT | ~3,285 USDT | 32.85% |
| 0.10% | 10 USDT | 30 USDT | ~10,950 USDT | 109.5% |
"It is only 0.01%, I can ignore it" misses that the rate applies to notional, not to the margin you posted. At 10x leverage, 1,000 USDT of margin controls 10,000 USDT of notional, and 0.01% costs 3 USDT a day, or 0.3% of your margin per day. Funding is deducted from your futures wallet balance, and when that is short it comes out of position margin, which moves your liquidation price.2
Market slang: wicks, shakeouts, pumps and micro-caps
This group describes price behaviour; knowing it helps you follow a group chat and spot explanations invented after the fact. The words are metaphors, not measurements.
| Slang | Literal image | What it describes |
|---|---|---|
| Wick / pin bar | A long thin line on the candle | A price spike that reverses immediately, leaving a long upper or lower wick |
| Shakeout ("washing") | Shaking out weak hands | Violent swings that trigger stops and liquidations before price returns to range |
| Pump / dump | Pushing up / pushing down | Concentrated buying or selling by large holders |
| Range / sideways | Price moving sideways | Long periods inside a narrow band with no clear direction |
| Drawdown | Backing off a high | The percentage decline from a peak |
| ATH | All-time high | The highest price ever recorded |
| Micro-cap / meme coin | A tiny unknown coin | Very low market cap and liquidity, extremely high risk |
| Front-running / insider wallet | Buying before the news | Someone with information buys first and sells to later buyers |
A wick reaches your stop because orders get consumed in those seconds. Thin books — late night, weekends, small caps — make it far easier, and stop orders plus liquidations fire in a burst. You cannot predict the spike; you can keep leverage small and avoid placing stops exactly where everyone else does, since leveraged positions are the ones that die in a wick.
Treat "shakeout" as a narrative, not evidence. In group chats it is used after the fact: down is a shakeout, up is a launch. The checkable data is volume, open interest and funding — the story itself proves nothing.
Community slang: HODL, FOMO, DYOR
These words are emotional labels: they describe the speaker's position, not the market. Reading them tells you what the speaker wants you to do.
| Slang | Origin | What it means | Risk note |
|---|---|---|---|
| HODL | A 2013 forum typo of "hold" | Hold long term and do not sell | Only works if the asset deserves holding |
| Diamond hands / paper hands | Trading-card imagery | Never selling / selling at the first dip | Used to shame people into holding through losses |
| FOMO | Fear Of Missing Out | Chasing because others are up | The classic top-buying emotion |
| FUD | Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt | Negative news spread to push price down | Sometimes the news is true; do not dismiss it automatically |
| DYOR | Do Your Own Research | Do the checks yourself | Often reduced to a disclaimer |
| All in | Poker term | Everything on one position | A common route to a zeroed account |
| Bagholder | Left holding the bags | Bought high and nobody will buy higher | Being early and being wrong look identical on the way down |
| Rekt | Wrecked | Liquidated or badly hurt | Often said about someone else, rarely by them |
DYOR is the most abused word in the list. It means doing research, but in practice it becomes a promoter's disclaimer: call the trade, skip the risk, say DYOR when it collapses. Real DYOR is three checkable actions — does the project exist outside its own marketing, is a large unlock coming, and is the person recommending it paid by the project.
"Diamond hands" deserves its own warning. It turns not selling into a virtue, but holding a coin with no fundamentals is not conviction, it is the absence of a stop-loss. Any phrase using moral language to talk you out of risk control should be questioned immediately.
Scam scripts: these are not terms, they are red lights
The phrases below are not slang; they are the standard opening lines of a scam. The correct response is to end the conversation, not to research further.
| What you hear | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| "Guaranteed returns", "principal protected" | No compliant platform can promise returns | End the conversation |
| "My teacher calls the trades, join the group" | You are the exit liquidity, or the platform is fake | Do not transfer money or install their app |
| "Internal news, it pumps soon" | Buy high so they can sell | By the time it reaches you it is usually the most expensive moment |
| "Arbitrage, 3% a day" | A Ponzi script | Anything "risk-free" above 100% a year is false |
| "Lock your coins for 300% APY" | Old money paying new money | Ask where the yield comes from; if nobody can say, it does not exist |
| "Honeypot token" | The contract allows buying but blocks selling | Test a small sell before buying any size |
| Rug pull | The team removes liquidity and disappears | Check whether liquidity is locked |
| "Approve first, then I will unfreeze it" | A wallet-drainer or key theft | Anyone asking for a seed phrase is a thief |
One test covers all of them: high return plus no risk equals fraud. Where does the yield come from, who pays it, and why is it sustainable — a project that cannot answer those three questions does not need a whitepaper review.
Airdrops attract this pattern most. A fake claim page mirrors the real site, asks you to connect and sign, and drains the wallet. Claiming an airdrop never needs your seed phrase or your password. For the mechanics and the recovery path, see how to find and claim airdrops safely and revoking token approvals after a theft.
Translating a group chat into actions
The point of slang is to judge in thirty seconds what someone wants you to do. Here is the translation.
| What the group says | Translation | Your action |
|---|---|---|
| "It just broke out, get in" | Chase the move | Check market cap, unlocks and volume; do not market-buy a spike |
| "The dip is a gift" | It might just be the start of a decline | Follow your plan, not the chat |
| "They are shaking you out, hold" | Do not sell | Check your liquidation price and margin, not the narrative |
| "Internal news, last chance" | Manufactured urgency | Urgency is the strongest scam tool there is |
| "Send your USDT here, I will handle it" | Straight theft | Do not send, approve or click |
| "200% APY, running for six months" | Ponzi | Judge the source of yield, not the age |
The five words to memorise today
If you learn only five terms, learn mark price, liquidation price, funding rate, slippage and withdrawal network. They decide money, not conversation.
| Word | Remember this | Cost of getting it wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Mark price | Liquidation follows it, not the chart | Feeling safe while already liquidated |
| Liquidation price | Note it the moment you open | Not knowing your risk boundary |
| Funding rate | Charged on notional, hourly or every eight hours | Slow bleed on any long-held position |
| Slippage | Your fill differs from the quote | Large orders in small caps fill far worse |
| Withdrawal network | Pick the chain, not just the coin | The wrong network can lose the funds |
"Withdrawal network" causes the most painful beginner losses. One coin can exist on several chains with similar-looking addresses that are not compatible, and recovery is hard or impossible. Testing with a small amount first is always the cheapest habit.
Connect these words to what you already know. Spot versus futures, the first purchase flow and minimum starting amounts all have dedicated guides: spot vs futures, how to buy crypto, minimum amount to start.
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A worked example on spot fees, with BNB fee payment and the 20% rebate applied:
| Monthly spot volume | Standard fee 0.1% | After BNB discount 0.075% | 20% rebate on paid fee | Saved per month | Saved per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 USDT | 10 USDT | 7.5 USDT | 1.5 USDT | 4 USDT | 48 USDT |
| 50,000 USDT | 50 USDT | 37.5 USDT | 7.5 USDT | 20 USDT | 240 USDT |
| 200,000 USDT | 200 USDT | 150 USDT | 30 USDT | 80 USDT | 960 USDT |
"Saved" equals the standard fee minus the discounted fee plus the rebate. Actual rebates appear in your rebate records; VIP level, pair and campaigns can change rates, and futures or margin products are priced separately.
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FAQ
Which crypto terms should a beginner learn first?
Mark price, liquidation price, funding rate, slippage and withdrawal network. The first three decide whether you get liquidated and what you quietly pay daily; the last two decide your fill price and whether your coins reach the right chain.
What is the difference between mark price and last price?
Last price is the most recent trade; mark price is a fair value calculated from spot prices across several venues. Unrealised P&L and liquidations use mark price, so your chart can miss your liquidation level and your position still closes.
Is the funding rate a fee Binance charges?
No. The funding payment moves between longs and shorts and the exchange does not keep it. Positive funding means longs pay shorts, negative means shorts pay longs, settling every eight hours by default, and only positions open at the settlement moment pay or receive.
How much does funding cost over a year?
On 10,000 USDT of notional at 0.01%, each settlement costs 1 USDT, three a day costs 3 USDT, and a year costs about 1,095 USDT, or 10.95% of notional. At 0.1% the same position costs roughly 10,950 USDT a year.
What is a wick and why did it hit my stop?
A wick is a spike that reverses immediately, leaving a long thin line on the candle. In thin liquidity, stop orders and liquidations fire in those seconds faster than anyone can react. Lower leverage and stops away from the crowd are the only real defences.
What does "getting harvested" mean?
Retail traders are called leeks or sheep because they can be harvested repeatedly: insiders push a price with a story, newcomers chase, early buyers sell into that demand. "My teacher calls the trades" and "internal news" are usually the opening line.
What does DYOR actually require?
Three checks: does the project exist outside its own marketing, is a large unlock coming, and is the person recommending it paid to do so. Typing DYOR in a comment is not research.
Are meme coins, "air coins" and honeypots the same?
No. Meme or micro-cap coins are tiny tokens with extreme risk; "air coins" have no working product; a honeypot lets you buy but blocks selling, which is fraud. What they share is that none deserve money you cannot lose.
Further reading
- Spot vs futures: liquidation price and real costs
- Binance futures: leverage, margin and liquidation rules
- How to buy crypto: registration to first order
- Minimum amount to start with
- How to find and claim airdrops safely
- Revoking token approvals and stopping a theft
- Market cap, volume and price change explained
- More beginner guides
Disclaimer: this article is for educational purposes only and is not investment advice. Crypto prices are volatile and futures trading can lose more than your margin; regulatory requirements differ by jurisdiction, so confirm what applies to you. Funding rates, settlement intervals and mark price rules were checked against Binance's official help centre on 11 November 2026 and can change, so rely on the page shown at order time. Never share your password, verification codes or recovery phrase, and do not trust anyone promising returns or managing funds for you.
Footnotes
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Source: Binance Academy glossary, Mark Price, and related futures documentation, checked on 11 November 2026: mark price is used for unrealised P&L, margin checks and liquidation triggers, while last price refers to the most recent traded price, and the two can differ. ↩
-
Source: Binance Support, "Introduction to Binance Futures Funding Rates", checked on 11 November 2026: default settlement at 00:00, 08:00 and 16:00 UTC; funding fee = notional position value × funding rate, with notional value = mark price × contract quantity; default interest 0.03% per day (0.01% per eight hours); from 2 May 2025 08:00 UTC, USDⓈ-margined perpetuals that hit the cap or floor switch to hourly settlement; from 2 January 2026, hourly contracts whose absolute rate stays at or below 0.025% for 16 consecutive periods return to four-hour settlement from the 17th period. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4