Crypto and CT slang explained: what 'based dev', 'ape' and 'jeet' mean

A based dev is crypto-Twitter's way of saying a coin's creator looks honest: they show up, they keep posting, and they aren't quietly selling their own supply. It's a verdict from a group chat, not a fact. The part of it you can actually check, you check on ripr: a coin page shows what else that creator has launched.

Meme trading runs on a few dozen words like that, most of them shorter than their explanations. Below are the ones you'll meet in your first week, in roughly the order you'll meet them, each with the place in the app where the word turns into something you can look at.

'Based dev', 'rug' and the slang for whoever made the coin

Dev is whoever created the coin, named or not. An anon dev hasn't attached a real identity to the project, which is ordinary in memes rather than damning. Based is the compliment on top: present, talkative, not dumping. Rug is the opposite, and it stretches to fit the act ("it rugged") as well as the person ("rugger"). Either way the result is holders left with a coin nobody wants to buy.

Good intentions aren't something anyone can verify in advance, so read the record instead. ripr shows the other coins that creator has launched, which lets you judge the history yourself rather than taking the chat's word for it.

ripr also checks coins, new ones included, for the patterns that usually sit behind a rug: a creator holding unlocked liquidity, liquidity that has already been pulled, linked wallets, a coordinated launch. Anything it finds shows up as a warning on the coin before you buy. The coin page also shows how much of the supply the creator still holds, with pools and vaults left out.

Ape, degen, FOMO: buying words

• Ape, or ape in: buy fast, on instinct, with almost no research.
• Degen: a self-aware badge for trading the riskiest end of the market.
• FOMO: buying because a coin is already running and watching it hurts.
• Size, full port: how much you put in, and the version where you put in everything you have.
• Fumbled the bag: passed on a coin that then ran without you.

ripr has fast paths for exactly that pace. On iOS, the quick-trade bar on a coin's page buys at your usual size in one tap. On desktop web, the chart's buy button trades in one click at a pre-filled amount: your last buy, or $10 the first time. The help centre covers how buying a coin works screen by screen.

Auto slippage is what separates fast from reckless. ripr sets your maximum slippage from how much the coin moved over the last five minutes, between 3% and 15%, and you can set it by hand instead. If that sentence meant nothing to you, read what slippage is and how to set it before your first buy.

Jeet, paper hands, rekt: selling words

• Jeet: someone who sold early, used as an insult. It comes from an ethnic slur, which is worth knowing before you type it.
• Paper hands / diamond hands: sells on the first red candle / holds through anything.
• Rekt, down bad: took a heavy loss.
• Bags, bagholder: the coins you're left holding, and the person holding them.
• Exit liquidity: you, when you're the one buying what somebody else is dumping.

Nearly all of it is about one decision: when to sell. You can make that call in advance on ripr: on the iOS and Android charts you drag take-profit and stop-loss lines onto the price, and they sell for you while the app, or the coin page on desktop web, is open. Nothing fires while it's closed. Afterwards the apps show your realised and open profit and loss over the last 7 or 30 days, which is a calmer scoreboard than the group chat.

CA, mcap, LP: the slang for a coin's numbers

CA is the contract address, a coin's mint address on Solana, and the only label that identifies it exactly. Names and tickers get copied within minutes of a coin running, so pasting the full address is the habit worth building early. ripr's search takes a name, a ticker or a full contract address.

Mcap is market cap, and low cap or mid cap places a coin on that ladder. LP, or liq, is the liquidity pool the coin trades against, which makes "LP pulled" a rug in two words.

A whale is a wallet big enough to move the price on its own, and that one is checkable rather than rumour: ripr's coin pages show how much of the supply the top 10 and top 50 holders hold, with pools and vaults left out. On one live coin, ripr's own market data put the largest holder at about 17% of the supply it tracks, across close to 29,000 holders.

Graduated, or migrated, means a coin has finished its bonding curve and moved to an ordinary pool. ripr shows curve progress updating live as a coin trades toward that point, and the help centre explains bonding curves in plain words. When you'd rather filter than scroll, Explore sorts and filters coins by market cap, liquidity and age.

Meta, narrative, cooking: the words for the mood

• Meta: what the market is rewarding this week, such as the dog meta or the AI meta.
• Narrative: the story a group of coins shares.
• Cooking, sending, printing: the price is climbing fast.
• Shill: talking up a coin you hold, which is most of what you're reading.
• GM, ser, fren: greetings and in-group filler, and harmless.
• WAGMI, NGMI: "we're all gonna make it" and its opposite, the second usually aimed at someone.

A meta is easier to see than to argue about. On iOS and Android, ripr's Narratives group coins that share a theme word in their name or ticker and label each group Hot, Rising or Cooling, by rule rather than by opinion. ripr also files coins into categories such as memes or AI, so a theme is one tap away. Explore's trending and newest lists are usually where the words are pointing.

The conversation itself lives in the app too: the ripr feed is where people post about coins and follow the traders they want to hear from.

A quick slang glossary, and how to read it without getting rekt

Keep this near you for a week and the chat stops being a foreign language. The right-hand column is the important one, because a word only becomes useful when you can check what it claims.

Term	Plain meaning	Where you check it
Based dev	A creator who looks honest	The creator's other launches, on the coin page
Rug	Liquidity pulled, or supply dumped	Rug-pattern warnings, before you buy
CA	Contract address	Paste the full address into search
Mcap	Market cap	Coin page, or the market-cap sort in Explore
LP	Liquidity pool	The liquidity filter in Explore
Whale	A wallet big enough to move the price	Top 10 and top 50 holder share
Aped	Bought fast	Quick buy, and Auto slippage
Jeeted	Sold early	Take-profit and stop-loss lines
Graduated	Curve finished, now an ordinary pool	Live bonding-curve progress
Meta	What is being bought this week	Narratives and categories

None of these words is a reason to buy anything. The habits that keep beginners out of trouble are boring ones: start small enough that a zero wouldn't hurt, paste the full contract address instead of trusting a ticker, ignore direct messages and random link drops, and keep a little SOL spare for network fees.

Then read the warnings on a coin page, and take ripr's own sentence about them literally: "These are the risks we can check for. Not seeing one never means a coin is safe." Explore has a Hide warnings filter that removes coins ripr has flagged, and it stays off until you switch it on. The apps never put a "safe" label on a coin, and neither should the chat.

The quickest way to stop feeling lost is to read a thread with a coin page open beside it. Signing up on ripr creates a Solana wallet for your account, so you can look a word up and check what it claims on the same screen. For the checklist version of all this, read how to spot a risky meme coin.

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Last verified 2 November 2026. This article is published by ripr, which builds an app for trading Solana coins. Nothing here is financial advice.