Volatility is great for traders, but often costs others dearly. As prices move more violently, this term becomes more relevant.
What Does REKT Mean?
In the crypto and trading world, rekt is used to describe traders who were liquidated, or lost a large chunk of their account on a bad investment. For example, when Dan opened a big leveraged long position before the market dumped by 10%, you could say Dan got REKT.
In other cases, rekt can also be used to describe a coin that took a big correction or got rug pulled. For example, Wonderland (TIME) investors were promised amazing returns, and quick riches. Since the market peak at almost ten thousand dollars, the price has now dropped back to just ten dollars, without the thousand. Wonderland, and its community, is REKT.
Entire markets can be rekt, as we saw this week when Bitcoin took a 7% nosedive, pushing Ethereum down more than 10%. Even tech stocks saw 5% declines. Pretty much anyone with a long position got rekt that day.
In short, REKT is used to describe when traders, communities or coins take a heavy loss. Traders can also get REKT when the market goes up if they are in a short position. The only requirement for being rekt is losing a lot of money.
Where Does Rekt Come From?
The word seems to have originated in British slang, as a word for being extremely drunk or high, and quickly spilled over into online communities. In 2012, a user by the name of Balrogboogie wrote on a World of Warcraft forum:
“Get rekt, ally srcublords! Post here if you are strong independent horde who has a galleon killrekt, ally scrubs need not apply.”
I will not get into the details of the game, but the quote makes more sense if you know that the Horde and the Alliance are two factions at war in the World of Warcraft game, and that the two factions cannot communicate in the game itself. The post by Balrogboogie was the start of using rekt as good, old-fashioned trash talk. Since then, gamers use the term when they wipe the floor with their opponent, like when you get annihilated in FIFA or Modern Warfare.
From there, it did not take long for trading communities to pick up on the word and find their own use for it; to playfully mock traders that lost a lot of money.
Examples of REKT in Context
- “He bought Ethereum above 4k lol, rekt af!”
- “What, my NFTS? They’re f*ckin rekt bro lmao”
- “Bro, that guy got absolutely rekt, he lost his seed phrase!”
All in all, REKT has become a household term in crypto. Everyone gets rekt every now and then, it’s part of the game. Don’t take it too seriously when people make a joke of your rektness, you’ll see the humour in it after you recover. Just don’t stay rekt!