Glossary

A distributed ledger in which transactions are recorded in cryptographically linked blocks maintained by a network of nodes.

A service or protocol for moving assets, or representations of them, between blockchains.

The native asset of its own blockchain, such as BTC on Bitcoin.

The procedure by which a decentralised network agrees on the valid state of the ledger.

Decentralised finance: financial applications executed mainly through smart contracts.

The point from which a transaction is considered practically or technically irreversible.

A split or rule change in a blockchain protocol.

The fee paid to execute a transaction or contract operation on certain networks.

The periodic halving of Bitcoin's block subsidy, which fixes its issuance schedule.

A fixed-length cryptographic fingerprint of data.

The base blockchain and the scaling or execution layers built on top of it, such as Lightning on Bitcoin or rollups on Ethereum.

A layer-2 payment network for fast, low-cost Bitcoin transactions.

The use of computing power to produce blocks and secure a proof-of-work network, rewarded with newly issued coins and fees.

A computer that stores, verifies and relays a network's data according to the protocol rules.

A consensus mechanism in which staked assets are the basis for validating blocks and securing the network.

A consensus mechanism in which computational work secures the network and produces blocks.

Program code on a blockchain that executes defined rules automatically.

Locking assets to participate in validation on a proof-of-stake network, usually for a reward.

A digital asset issued on an existing blockchain, such as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum.

The economic rules of a token: supply, issuance, distribution and incentives.

Unspent transaction output: the accounting model Bitcoin uses to track who can spend what.

Cryptographic methods that prove a statement without revealing the underlying information.