2021 has been the year that has given rise to new words in our vocabulary to reflect the changing technology scene.
Here are some of the words that have emerged this year and their meaning.
NFT (Non-fungible token)
NFT or non-fungible token was made the word of the year by Collins Dictionary in 2021.
NFTs are certificates that show you own a digital item, which can be original versions of videos, tweets or memes. They can be anything digital but a lot of the excitement is around digital art.
They confirm an item’s ownership by recording the details in a digital ledger known as a blockchain, which is public and stored on computers across the internet, making it effectively impossible to lose or destroy. Most NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain.
Metaverse
After Facebook changed the name of its parent company to Meta, setting out its ambitions in the virtual world, the word has been on everybody’s lips.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the metaverse is “a virtual-reality space in which users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users.”
It means people can move between digital virtual environments by using headsets or computer screens. The metaverse had already been in existence long before Facebook changed its name and has been particularly popular in gaming.
The term was coined in the dystopian novel “Snow Crash” three decades ago.
IRL (In Real Life)
Virtual reality has given rise to the abbreviation IRL (In Real Life). It refers to something real and an experience outside the virtual world.
Decentralisation
A big theme in the tech industry is decentralisation, meaning transferring power from governments and big companies into the hands of users.
DeFi
Short for decentralised finance, DeFi is a financial system that removes the need for banks or centralised intermediaries to execute transactions.
Instead, DeFi uses smart contracts which are programs stored on a blockchain that execute actions automatically once agreed conditions are…
