Crypto glossary
Diamond hands
Diamond hands is crypto and trading slang for holding an asset through sharp drops and big swings without selling, out of strong conviction.
Someone with diamond hands refuses to sell when the price falls or when it jumps, trusting that holding will pay off. The phrase is often written with diamond and hand emojis and is the opposite of paper hands, the label for people who sell at the first sign of trouble.
The expression was popularized by the WallStreetBets community on Reddit during the GameStop short squeeze in January 2021 and quickly spread to crypto, where it overlaps with HODL. Communities around bitcoin, memecoins and NFTs use it to encourage members to keep their positions during crashes, and on-chain data on long-term holders is sometimes described as a measure of diamond hands.
Holding through volatility can work for assets that recover, but conviction is not a strategy on its own. Refusing to sell a token whose project has failed, been hacked or lost its liquidity simply locks in a larger loss, so it helps to know in advance why and until when a position is being held.
Example
A holder who bought ETH and kept it through a 75% drawdown without selling, posting the diamond hands emoji all along, is showing diamond hands.
