Glossary

A group of blockchains that can communicate with each other in a trust-minimized way.

The header of a block contains a list of relevant metadata.

A full node that is responsible for producing blocks.

The capacity of each block.

The ability for applications on a blockchain to read and write state to each other.

The ability for separate blockchains to communicate and interact with each other.

A technique in which nodes can verify that data is available for a block without having to download the entire block, formerly known as data availability proofs.

The condition of whether or not transaction data was made available for nodes to download, when a block was proposed.

A measurement of the data capacity of a blockchain. Data throughput is calculated by the amount of data that a blockchain can process, measured in kb/s or mb/s.

A type of attack that occurs when a block producer proposes a new block but does not share the underlying transaction data that was used to create the block.

The virtual environment within a blockchain where transactions are processed, and accounts and smart contracts live.

>A type of market that blockchains implement to prevent malicious actors from spamming the network.

A type of node that fully verifies a blockchain.

The assumption that a majority of blockchain participants (such as the validator set) are honest and follow the rules of the protocol.

The assumption that only a minority of blockchain participants are honest and follow the rules of the protocol.

Communication that occurs between blockchains that are in different clusters.

A type of node that only downloads and verifies block headers, relying on an honest majority assumption that the state of the chain indicated by the block header is valid.

A type of blockchain that specializes in only a few functions, rather than all of them.

A type of rollup that posts its blocks to a separate chain without any cryptographic proofs that attest to their validity.

A network in which nodes are connected and can communicate directly with each other without reliance on a third party to facilitate communication.

A type of blockchain that posts their blocks to a separate chain to receive consensus and ensure data availability.

The process of separating a blockchain from a single chain into multiple chains (shards).

Security that a blockchain inherits from an external source.

A mechanism employed in PoS blockchains that is used to deter and punish malicious behavior.

The process by which individuals come to an agreement on a change that will be made to a blockchain.

An application that is deployed on its own sovereign blockchain.

A blockchain that has independent control over itself and its applications via social consensus.

A method for proving that a state transition is invalid.

An assumption that the network is synchronous such that when a message is sent it will be received within a certain amount of time.

A measurement of the capacity of a blockchain. Throughput primarily measures two elements: data throughput and transaction throughput.

A problem that is concerned with whether the data in the proposed block can be verified that it is available.

The computational capacity of a blockchain. Transaction throughput is commonly calculated by the number of transactions that can be processed per second (TPS).

A bridge between two blockchains that doesn’t require an intermediary, a committee, or an honest majority assumption to ensure that funds can’t be stolen.

A bridge between two blockchains that requires either a trusted intermediary, committee, or an honest majority assumption to ensure that funds can’t be stolen.

A full node that is part of the validator set in a PoS blockchain.

A group of validators that are responsible for directly participating in the consensus of a blockchain through either voting, producing, or proposing blocks.

A problem that is concerned with whether the data in the proposed block can be verified that it is available.

A bridge between two blockchains that doesn’t require an intermediary, a committee, or an honest majority assumption to ensure that funds can’t be stolen.

A bridge between two blockchains that doesn’t require an intermediary, a committee, or an honest majority assumption to ensure that funds can’t be stolen.

A type of rollup that posts its blocks to a separate chain with a validity proof that attests to the correctness of the block.