By Reuters Tech Team

(Reuters] – Tech CEOs drew their inspiration this year from a 1990s sci fi novel. Reddit investors’ lexicon saw Reddit users become mainstream and Wall Street was shaken by “diamonds hands” and the “apes”. A DAO then attempted to acquire a rare copy the U.S. Constitution.

This glossary will help you to understand 2021 if it’s still unclear.

METAVERSE

In general, the metaverse is a set of digital immersive environments people have access to via computer screens or virtual reality.

It will likely be the future of mobile internet, according to some CEOs in tech. Three decades ago, the term “snow crash” was invented in the dystopian novel Snow Crash. The metaverse was built this year by CEOs from tech companies like Match Group (NASDAQ;) and Microsoft (NASDAQ.:). Facebook (NASDAQ 🙂 changed its name to Meta in October. This was due to the company’s new metaverse focus.

WEB3

Web3 describes a future phase of the internet. It is a decentralized Internet run on blockchain-based record-keeping technology.

The model where the users own stakes in applications and platforms would be different from Web2, which is controlled by a handful of tech titans such as Alphabet (NASDAQ) and Facebook.

SOCIAL AUDIO

The tech industry waxed passionate this year about live audio conversations tools, hurrying to launch features after Clubhouse, an invite-only app that saw a surge in popularity amid COVID-19 lockdowns.

NFT

These non-fungible tokens have seen a lot of popularity in the last year. They are digital assets that exist on a Blockchain, which is a record of all transactions on computers connected to each other.

A work by American artist Beeple was sold at Christie’s for almost $70 million in March. This is the first major art auction house to ever sell art that doesn’t exist physically.

DECENTRALIZATION

In the technology industry, a major theme was decentralization. This is the shifting of power and operations away from government agencies or corporations to the users.

This could have an impact on all aspects of the market and industry, including how they are structured. It also may affect functions such as content moderation. Twitter (NYSE:) invests in Bluesky as a project that will establish a standard decentralized for social networking sites.

DAO

A decentralized autonomous organisation (DAO), is an online community that members own and runs on blockchain technology. Smart contracts are pieces of code which establish rules for the group and execute actions automatically.

ConstitutionDAO is a crypto-group funded from crowd funding that tried to acquire a scarce copy of U.S. Constitution during an Sotheby’s auction.

STONES

A meme that originated on the internet made this deliberate misspelling “stocks” headlines. This was because online traders congregating at Reddit’s WallStreetBets pushed up stocks such as GameStop (NYSE -) and AMC. These traders became popular by calling themselves “apes” and praising “diamond hand” for holding positions in big market swings.

GAMEFI

GameFi can be described as a general term that refers to gamers earning cryptocurrency via playing videogames. Gamers have the option of making money by acquiring financial tokens or winning games.

ALTCOIN

This term includes all cryptocurrency other than ethereum. It can be used to refer to anything from ethereum which is destined to become the backbone for a future financial systems to ethereum.

FSD BETA

Tesla has released an upgraded Full Self-Driving software (FSD), which includes driving-assist features such as automatically changing lanes or making turns, to the public.

Even the name of the software, which is much scrutinized has been contentious. Both regulators as well as users claim that it does not accurately represent its capabilities and still requires attention from drivers.

FABS

“Fabs”, an abbreviation for a semiconductor manufacturing plant, became mainstream this year. A shortage of chips at fabs was blamed for the worldwide shortage of gadgets and cars.

NET ZERO

This term was popularized by the COP26 U.N. Climate talks in Glasgow this year. It refers to a country or company that does not contribute to global climate gas emissions. This is usually achieved by reducing emissions such as the use of fossil fuels and then balancing out any remaining emissions through efforts to absorb carbon like planting trees. Critics claim that any emission is unacceptable.