What do WAGMI and NGMI mean?
- Author
- CRYPTO PORT Editorial
- Published
- Updated
- Reading time
- 4 min
In short
WAGMI means 'we're all gonna make it' and NGMI 'not gonna make it'. The first is encouragement, the second a jab at someone judged to have got it wrong. Both circulate sentiment rather than information, and neither belongs in a decision about money.
Key points
- WAGMI: we're all gonna make it
- NGMI: not gonna make it, used to mock
- They share sentiment, never evidence
- They make selling or stepping back socially costly
Definition
Paired community catchphrases: WAGMI asserts that everyone in the group will succeed, while NGMI is aimed at those who sold, hesitated or stayed out.
WAGMI spread through NFT communities around 2021. It keeps people from drifting away during declines and works as a shared marker of solidarity, and teams often adopt it themselves.
NGMI is its mirror. It can be self-deprecating, but it is mostly aimed outward — at people who sold, stayed out or voiced caution. Inside a group that uses it freely, not selling and not questioning become the socially correct positions.
The core problem is that both words judge attitude rather than reasoning. Whether to exit a position depends on the project's situation and your own finances. In this vocabulary, exiting is simply losing. The larger the unrealised loss, the more that framing delays a decision that should have been made on the numbers.
Watch out for
- · Where selling marks you as NGMI, people cut losses too late
- · Encouragement tells you nothing about what a project does
- · Keep your standing in a group separate from the state of your portfolio