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Glossary

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Ouroboros BFT

Olga Hryniuk
A version of Ouroboros deployed in May 2020 to prepare Cardano for decentralization as part of the Shelley development phase.
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Oracle

Olga Hryniuk
A service to transfer information from the real world to smart contracts. The oracle fetches and authenticates live data such as exchange rates and weather conditions to provide this data for smart contracts.
0 up votes and 0 down votes. Total score

Transaction (tx)

Morgan
The process of sending or receiving assets on the blockchain.
0 up votes and 0 down votes. Total score

Networking

Olga Hryniuk
A technical infrastructure linking Cardano nodes in one unified system to process transactions. Stake pool operators run Cardano nodes that communicate with other nodes to share information about new blocks and transactions. This includes three processes: each operator runs a block-producing node (the node that verifies and creates a block) and two relay nod...
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Native tokens

Olga Hryniuk
Native tokens is the feature that lets users create their own tokens on Cardano and these interact with the blockchain just like ada. Tokens can be fungible (interchangeable) or non-fungible (unique), and act as payment units, rewards, trading assets, or information holders. There is no need to create smart contracts to handle native tokens, which removes a ...
0 up votes and 0 down votes. Total score

Multi-asset

Olga Hryniuk
Cardano can support more than one asset type, including user-defined tokens.
0 up votes and 0 down votes. Total score

UTXO Alliance

Morgan
A group formed to encourage collaboration on making the unspent transaction output (UTXO) model more scalable, secure, and interoperable. Formed by Input Output Global, Ergo, Nervos, Komodo, and Topl.
0 up votes and 0 down votes. Total score

Market capitalization

Olga Hryniuk
A measure used by crypto exchanges to rank coins. The ‘market cap’ is calculated by multiplying the number of coins in circulation by the coin price on the day.
0 up votes and 0 down votes. Total score

Mainnet

Olga Hryniuk
The live blockchain. Cardano upgrades are assessed on a testnet before being released on the mainnet.
0 up votes and 0 down votes. Total score

Voltaire

Morgan
The fifth phase of Cardano development in which treasury and governance capabilities are being delivered.
0 up votes and 0 down votes. Total score

Layer 2

Olga Hryniuk
An additional, off-chain protocol that works on top of the layer 1 blockchain. Parties can securely transfer funds from the blockchain into an off-chain protocol, settle transactions in this protocol independently of the underlying chain, and safely transfer funds back to the underlying chain as needed. Layer 2 protocols improve overall throughput and scalab...
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Layer 1

Olga Hryniuk
The main blockchain ledger that operates on the underlying consensus protocol. This layer includes protocol parameters that control capabilities such as scalability and throughput.
0 up votes and 0 down votes. Total score

Wallet

Morgan
Software to manage cryptocurrency balances and make transactions. ‘Light’ wallets for Cardano such as Yoroi are designed for fast, easy access via browser or on a mobile phone; full node wallets such as Daedalus are designed for desktops. While they require a high-spec machine and regular syncing, they are the most secure (non-hardware) wallet and help maint...
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Yoroi

Morgan
Yoroi is a light wallet for daily use with Cardano. Yoroi was developed by Emurgo.
0 up votes and 0 down votes. Total score

KEVM

Olga Hryniuk
K Ethereum Virtual Machine. It allows developers to experiment with any smart contract that can be run on the EVM, and offers improved security and performance.
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IOHK

Olga Hryniuk
Input Output Hong Kong was founded in 2015 by Charles Hoskinson and Jeremy Wood to create Cardano. The company became Input Output Global in 2018.
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IOG

Olga Hryniuk
Input Output Global. The new name for IOHK, the company that developed the Cardano blockchain. IOG was registered in the US state of Wyoming in 2018, along with an office in Singapore.
2 up votes and 0 down votes. Total score

Interoperability

Olga Hryniuk
Aims to enable interconnection between blockchains. Cross-chain transfers and the ‘internet of blockchains’ will grant enhanced user experience and functionality. Sidechains and the AGIX ERC20 converter support Cardano's interoperability.
0 up votes and 0 down votes. Total score

Hydra

Olga Hryniuk
A family of protocols that overlay the layer 1 Cardano blockchain to process transactions off the main chain. Hydra uses the main ledger as the secure settlement layer, boosts throughput, minimizes the delay in starting to process transactions, incurs low to no costs, and greatly reduces storage requirements.
2 up votes and 0 down votes. Total score

Hydra Head

Olga Hryniuk
The first of several Hydra protocols, and the basis of improving Cardano's scalability. Each Hydra Head works as an off-chain mini ledger, similar but faster than the main on-chain ledger, shared between small groups of participants. Many complex protocols can be added as layers on top of Cardano.
1 up votes and 0 down votes. Total score