Hodl

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About

Hodl is an intentional misspelling of the word "hold," which is used among cryptocurrency enthusiasts when encouraging traders to resist the urge to sell one's holdings in response to market fluctuations. Following the term's surge in popularity online, the backronym "hold on for dear life" was subsequently attributed to the term.

Origin

On December 18th, 2013, Bitcoin Talk Forums^[1] user GameKyuubi submitted a post titled "I AM HODLING," arguing in favor of holding his bitcoins during a crash. In response to the post, many users mocked the misspelling of the world "hold" in the post title.

Spread

On July 20th, 2014, Redditor rafaelnorman submitted a post titled "what's HODL?" to /r/Bitcoin,^[5] to which user bitskeptic cited the Bitcoin Talk Forums thread as the origin of the term.

On December 19th, 2015, Urban Dictionary^[2] user netspider submitted an entry for "hodl," defining it as a prompt for "bitcoin users to avoid the temptation of selling off their coins once price starts rising."

On April 10th, YouTuber Bitcoin With Attitude uploaded a parody Bitcoin-themed rap video titled "BWA – HODL" (shown below).

On April 30th, 2017, an article explaining the origin of the term was submitted to the blogging site Medium.^[3] On November 30th, the tech news site Inverse^[4] published an article titled ''What Does 'Hodl' Mean? The Bitcoin Meme Causing a Storm on Reddit.''