It’s hard enough to keep up with advances in the modern world already, without the entire concept of ‘currency’ being changed. But that’s just what we’re going through right now – or so Bitcoin investors would have you think – with the cryptocurrency revolution.

A cryptocurrency is a form of digital money that is regulated using encryption techniques. Yes, it’s black magic to most of us – but the soaring value of Bitcoin (the first decentralized cryptocurrency) in recent months has brought the topic into the mainstream.

It would be a wild investor indeed who staked his house on the future of Bitcoin or any of its rivals, such as Litecoin, Ethereum, Zcash, or Dash. But neither should the average consumer dismiss the concept out of hand. The internet has facilitated all kinds of alternative economies, and you don’t want to get left behind.

With this idea in mind, the experts over at Bitcoin99 have put together an illustrated guide to crypto slang. It may not fully prepare you for a life of playing the markets, but a quick read of this colourful dictionary will at least allow you to make it through a newspaper article or dinner party discussion on the subject without having to keep Googling the strange words that crypto enthusiasts use.

It starts with the relatively simple: Whale, meaning a serious cryptocurrency player who owns a significant wodge of a particular currency.

But it quickly descends into the esoteric, with acronyms such as FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) referring to the vulnerability of the market to price drops that come about due to negative rumours in the media, and neologisms such as ‘vaporware’ – referring to a cryptocurrency that seems valuable but whose worth has been artificially inflated by hype.

But don’t take our ‘word’ for it – check out the illustrations for a memorable introduction to the peculiar vernacular of the cryptocurrency world.