Web3 & Dime Network Glossary

A high-frequency Verifiable Delay Function (VDF) evaluated sequentially via SHA-256 hashes that provides an unforgeable cryptographic record of the passage of real time across distributed network nodes.

A custom Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus algorithm optimized for Proof of History, utilizing exponential voting lockouts that increase as subsequent blocks are confirmed.

A deterministic schedule generated at the beginning of each epoch that assigns specific slots to validators proportionally weighted by their active delegated stake.

A slot is the fundamental unit of ledger time (nominally 400ms) during which a leader produces a block. An epoch is a collection of slots (typically 432,000 slots, ~2-3 days) where validator stakes and reward schedules are recalculated.

A consensus state reached when at least two-thirds of the total active validator stake has voted on a given block, providing rapid assurance before full 31-slot root finality is reached.

A multi-layer tree-based block propagation protocol that breaks blocks into small packets called shreds, utilizing Reed-Solomon erasure codes to broadcast data across large clusters with minimal leader bandwidth.

An asynchronous peer-to-peer communication network where nodes periodically exchange network health, active node lists, and consensus votes over UDP sockets.

The dedicated hardware and network pipeline on a validator node responsible for receiving inbound user transactions via QUIC, verifying signatures, and staging transactions into the execution engine.

A fractional slice of a block payload. Leaders generate data shreds and parity (recovery) shreds using Reed-Solomon algorithms, allowing receiving nodes to reconstruct the complete block even if up to 33% of packets are lost in transit.

A traffic management policy that allocates TPU ingress bandwidth and transaction processing priority to RPC nodes and stakers proportionally to the amount of network stake they represent.

A multi-threaded smart contract execution engine that analyzes transaction read and write account access lists to process non-conflicting instructions simultaneously across all available CPU threads.

All state in the network is stored inside discrete accounts. Each account contains a balance, a data byte vector, an executable flag, and an assigned owner program ID that possesses exclusive write authority over the account's data.

An off-curve public key generated deterministically from an owner Program ID and a set of seed strings. PDAs do not have corresponding private keys and can only be signed for by the owning program via runtime Cross-Program Invocations.

A direct synchronous call made from one on-chain program to another during instruction execution, allowing composable smart contracts to pass signed privileges and invoke external logic.

A measure of computational execution resources (CPU cycles, memory allocation, syscalls) consumed by a transaction. Each transaction specifies a maximum CU limit and priority fee rate per CU.

A high-speed Edwards-curve Digital Signature Algorithm (EdDSA) utilizing Curve25519 that provides robust security against side-channel attacks and allows hardware-accelerated batch verification.

Standardized hierarchical deterministic (HD) key derivation framework for Ed25519 curves based on BIP39 mnemonic phrases.

A cryptographic governance scheme requiring M valid signatures out of N designated authorized signers before an on-chain instruction (such as a program upgrade or treasury transfer) can be committed.

Penalties enforced against validators for malicious consensus behavior (such as producing conflicting blocks on two forks) or prolonged offline delinquency that degrades cluster finality.

A dedicated physical computing device designed to securely store private cryptographic keys and perform onboard transaction signing without ever exposing the raw secret key to host memory.

A storage fee mechanism where accounts must maintain a minimum balance proportional to their byte size. Accounts holding at least two years of rent fees are deemed 'rent exempt' and remain permanently in active RAM storage.

A memory-mapped file architecture optimized for concurrent reads and writes across solid-state drives, avoiding standard SQL or key-value storage bottlenecks.

A technique that stores large collections of data off-chain inside concurrent Merkle trees, writing only the root hash onto the blockchain to dramatically reduce on-chain storage costs.