What does crypto stand for?

The crypto meaning most people want today is simple: crypto is short for cryptocurrency, digital money secured by cryptography. The word itself is much older. It comes from the Greek kryptos, meaning hidden or secret, and has been used in English as a prefix for centuries.

What does crypto mean in Greek?

In ancient Greek, kryptos means hidden, concealed or secret, according to the etymology site Etymonline. Etymonline links the same root to the English word crypt, a vault or cavern, which is literally a hidden place.

Cryptography joins kryptos with graphia, from the Greek verb for writing. Etymonline traces cryptography in English to the 1650s, when it meant the art of writing in secret characters. So the original idea was secret writing, not money.

What does crypto mean in Latin?

Crypto is not originally a Latin word. Etymonline describes the English prefix as a Latinized form of the Greek kryptos. In practice, that is why the Greek k became a c in the English spelling. Cryptography followed a similar path, reaching English from French cryptographie or the Modern Latin cryptographia.

What does crypto mean as a prefix?

As a prefix, crypto- means hidden or secret. Etymonline records it in English since at least 1760. Merriam-Webster lists three senses for the combining form: hidden or covered, as in scientific terms; hidden by pretense, as in crypto-fascist, a person with concealed political loyalties; and cryptographic.

Before computers, crypto on its own was a political label. Etymonline and Merriam-Webster both date the noun crypto, meaning a person who secretly supports a party or cause, to 1946.

What is crypto short for?

Today, crypto is mostly short for cryptocurrency. Merriam-Webster lists that as the first sense of the noun, often used before another word, as in crypto market or crypto assets. It defines cryptocurrency as digital-only money, usually without a central issuer, that relies on cryptography to prevent counterfeiting and fraud. The dictionary dates the first known use of cryptocurrency to 2009, the year the bitcoin network launched.

Crypto is also short for cryptography, and many security professionals prefer that meaning. In November 2021 the security writer Bruce Schneier complained that the word had been taken over by the blockchain world. The Register reported that others in the field disagreed, arguing that most of the public now hears crypto as cryptocurrency and that language changes.

Both meanings are connected. Cryptocurrencies take their name from the cryptography that protects them, as our guide on how cryptography secures crypto explains. For what the money itself is, see what is cryptocurrency, and for the privacy activists who used crypto in the older sense, see what is a cypherpunk. The guide on whether crypto is the same as bitcoin covers a related mix-up.