Crypto Degen

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Who is a Crypto Degen?

A crypto degen is a cryptocurrency trader who frequently engages in highly speculative and risky trades.

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The word ‘degen’ is derived from the word ‘degenerate,’ which is often used as a derogatory term in gambling circles to describe a gambling addict who bets money or assets that they cannot afford to lose.

Techopedia Explains

The term ‘crypto degen’ is not considered a disrespectful term within the crypto community. In fact, crypto enthusiasts often boastfully refer to themselves and others as crypto degens.

The term has endeared itself within the meme culture and has even evoked a strong sense of camaraderie within the community.

Crypto degens have always carried themselves to be different from investors in traditional asset markets. They tend to speak openly about their investing mistakes on social media platforms and love to poke fun at themselves.

They are seen as passionate and committed members of the crypto community who are very vocal about their love for their favorite token and project.

Passionate crypto degens actively participate in community building activities and beta testing and offer valuable feedback and ideas to their projects.

They tend to be over-confident at times. It is not unusual for them to declare on X (formerly Twitter) that they plan to “ape in” on their favorite token. They love to use terms such as “LFG” when their crypto rises and “HODL” when it drops.

What Defines a Crypto Degen?

Here are some characteristics of a crypto degen:

  • High-risk appetite: They love to win more than they hate to lose. They are not afraid to deploy a large sum of money in the market for coins with the potential to 1000x. They often invest in presale tokens and popular meme coins in pursuit of outsized gains.
  • Lack of due diligence:?A crypto degen does not conduct thorough research before investing. Their investing technique may be considered impulsive or spur-of-the-moment. They pay little attention to tokenomics, fundamental analysis, and technical analysis.
  • Meme culture: Crypto degens love sharing memes on social media. Memes about the crypto market, current events, and life are powerful instruments that evoke laughter, familiarity, and camaraderie.
  • Vulnerability:?Because of a crypto degen’s careless and impulsive investing style, they are vulnerable to rug pulls and scams. They are also vulnerable to being victims of herd mentality and are easily influenced by the fear of missing out (FOMO).
  • Interest in Experiments:?Crypto degens love to explore the latest blockchain and crypto applications and services. They actively participate in decentralized finance (DeFi) activities like providing liquidity to pools, yield farming, staking, peer-to-peer lending, and non-fungible token (NFT) trading.
  • Passion for NFT and Memecoins: Crypto degens love trading meme coins and collecting digital art. History has shown that getting the timing right on a meme coin frenzy can often lead to millions in trading profits. Most crypto degens hope to replicate such lucrative feats.
  • Privacy and Decentralization: Crypto degens are drawn to cryptocurrencies for their privacy-preserving and decentralized properties. They typically use a pseudonym on social media and often use NFTs as their profile picture.

Comparison table: Meme coins vs. Traditional crypto

The Bottom Line

Crypto degen can be defined as a subculture within the crypto industry. To truly understand their behavior, you will need to be an active crypto community member on social platforms such as X and Discord.

For the outside world, a crypto degen is a speculative crypto trader. But there is more to this complicated character.

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Mensholong Lepcha
Crypto Specialist
Mensholong Lepcha
Crypto Specialist

Mensholong is a experienced crypto and blockchain journalist, now a full-time writer at Techopedia. He has contributed with news coverage and in-depth market analysis to Capital.com, StockTwits, XBO, and other publications. He began his writing career at Reuters in 2017, covering global equity markets. In his spare time, Mensholong enjoys watching soccer, finding new music, and buying BTC and ETH for his crypto portfolio.

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