NMKR Glossary

A 51% attack is when an entity controls over 50% of a blockchain's power, allowing transaction manipulation and double-spending.

Cardano ensures accessibility and inclusivity by prioritizing user experience, diversity, and affordability in its blockchain ecosystem and applications.

Cardano's approach to addressing scalability challenges involves layer 1 and layer 2 scaling solutions, sharding techniques, and optimization strategies that increase transaction throughput, reduce latency, and improve network efficiency without compromising security, decentralization, or sustainability of the blockchain.

An Account Abstraction Layer (AAL) separates the user accounts from the underlying blockchain protocol, allowing for more flexible and user-friendly account management and interactions.

An airdrop is a distribution of cryptocurrency tokens or coins, usually for free, to a large number of wallet addresses. Airdrops are often used as a marketing strategy to promote new projects and encourage widespread adoption of the token.

An airdrop in crypto is a distribution of free tokens to a large number of wallet addresses, usually as a marketing strategy to promote a new project. Airdrops can also reward loyal users or incentivize participation in a network.

Blockchain is a decentralized digital ledger technology that records transactions across multiple computers in a way that makes them tamper-proof and immutable. Each block contains a list of transactions, and these blocks are linked together in a chronological chain using cryptographic hashes. This technology enables trustless and transparent transactions without the need for intermediaries.

A block explorer is an online tool that allows users to view and search blockchain transactions, blocks, addresses, and other data.

A block reward is the incentive given to miners for successfully validating and adding a new block to a blockchain.

A burn address is a cryptocurrency address where tokens are sent to be permanently removed from circulation.

A blockchain fork occurs when a blockchain splits into two separate chains. Forks can be classified as hard forks.

The Cardano Improvement Proposal (CIP) process is a community-driven mechanism for proposing, discussing, and implementing improvements, upgrades, and changes to the Cardano protocol and ecosystem.

Cardano's role in climate action encompasses its commitment to reducing carbon emissions, promoting renewable energy, and driving sustainable.

Cardano ensures compatibility with legacy systems and protocols through interoperability standards, protocol adapters, and middleware layers that facilitate communication and data exchange between blockchain networks and traditional IT infrastructure, enabling seamless integration and coexistence of blockchain solutions with existing systems and technologies.

Cardano enables fast, secure, cost-effective cross-border payments by leveraging blockchain, bypassing traditional banks, and reducing fees.

Cardano employs a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism called Ouroboros, which ensures network security and achieves consensus through a process where participants, known as stakeholders, are chosen to validate transactions and produce new blocks based on the amount of ADA they hold and are willing to "stake" as collateral.

Cardano ensures data availability and durability in storage through replication, redundancy, and data distribution techniques that store multiple copies of blockchain data across network nodes, ensuring resilience against data loss, corruption, or tampering and maintaining availability and accessibility of historical data for archival and auditing purposes.

Cardano's approach to decentralized identity and self-sovereign identity involves cryptographic key pairs, digital signatures, and verifiable credentials that enable individuals to create, own, and control their identity information without relying on centralized authorities or intermediaries, ensuring privacy, autonomy, and security in identity management and verification on the blockchain.

Cardano's approach to disaster relief centers on leveraging blockchain technology to provide transparent, efficient, and accountable support.

Cardano promotes digital democracy by leveraging blockchain technology to enable transparent, decentralized, and participatory governance systems.

Cardano's role in digital inclusion encompasses its commitment to providing access, affordability, and opportunity for individuals, communities, and societies.

Cardano's approach to education and awareness focuses on empowering individuals, communities, and organizations with knowledge, skills, and resources to understand, adopt, and contribute to the Cardano ecosystem.

Cardano's approach to ethical investment centers on promoting transparency, sustainability, and social responsibility in its investment practices and ecosystem development.

Cardano's approach to ethical leadership centers on promoting integrity, transparency, and accountability in its governance, operations, and ecosystem development.

Cardano's approach to environmental conservation centers on sustainability, resilience, and responsible stewardship of natural resources and ecosystems.

Cardano's role in environmental activism encompasses its commitment to raising awareness, supporting action, and driving change on critical environmental issues.

Cardano ensures fair distribution of rewards in staking through delegation mechanisms, reward formulas, and incentive structures that encourage active participation, decentralization, and long-term commitment from stakeholders while preventing centralization, manipulation, and unfair advantage in the staking process.

Cardano ensures fairness and transparency in stake pool operations through disclosure requirements, performance metrics, and governance mechanisms that enable stakeholders to evaluate and compare stake pools based on factors such as performance, reliability, and operator integrity, ensuring accountability and trust in stake pool management on the blockchain.

Cardano's approach to handling forks and chain reorganizations involves consensus mechanisms, fork resolution policies, and network parameters that determine how conflicts and discrepancies between competing chains are resolved, ensuring network stability, continuity, and integrity in the face of network disruptions or protocol upgrades.

Cardano promotes financial literacy by providing educational resources, tools, and platforms that empower individuals to understand, manage, and invest in cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance (DeFi) responsibly.

Cardano ensures fairness and transparency in stake pool operations through disclosure requirements, performance metrics, and governance mechanisms that enable stakeholders to evaluate and compare stake pools based on factors such as performance, reliability, and operator integrity, ensuring accountability and trust in stake pool management on the blockchain.

Cardano promotes gender equality by advocating for diversity, inclusion, and equal opportunities for women and gender minorities.

The genesis block is the first in a blockchain, hardcoded with initial transactions and metadata. In Cardano, it marks the blockchain's start.

Cardano implements governance mechanisms on the blockchain through decentralized decision-making processes, voting protocols, and stakeholder engagement mechanisms that enable users to propose, discuss, and vote on protocol upgrades, funding proposals, and governance parameters, ensuring transparency, accountability, and inclusivity in the governance of the ecosystem.

Cardano supports green technology initiatives by prioritizing energy efficiency, sustainability, and environmental responsibility in its blockchain infrastructure and operations.

A gas fee is the fee required to conduct a transaction or execute a contract on the Ethereum blockchain. Gas fees compensate miners for the computational power used to validate and process transactions, and they fluctuate based on network demand.

Cardano's approach to handling smart contract upgradability involves versioning mechanisms, upgradeable proxy contracts, and migration strategies that allow developers to deploy, manage, and upgrade smart contracts without disrupting existing contracts or affecting user interactions and balances, ensuring flexibility and maintainability of smart contract applications on the blockchain.

Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) wallets in Cardano allow users to generate and manage multiple addresses from a single seed phrase or master key, providing enhanced privacy, security, and usability for managing funds and transactions across different applications and services on the blockchain.

The history of blockchain dates back to 2008 when an unknown person or group using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto published a whitepaper titled "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System." This paper introduced the concept of a decentralized digital currency and the underlying blockchain technology. Since then, blockchain has evolved into a revolutionary technology with applications beyond cryptocurrencies, including supply chain management, voting systems, and digital identity verification.

Cardano promotes access to healthcare by leveraging blockchain technology to address barriers to healthcare delivery, affordability, and quality in underserved and remote communities around the world.

Cardano's role in humanitarian aid encompasses its commitment to leveraging blockchain technology to support humanitarian organizations, relief efforts.

Cardano empowers users with secure, verifiable digital identities. Decentralized solutions enable users to control and share credentials without central authorities.

Cardano ensures interoperability with legacy systems, traditional financial infrastructure, and off-chain data sources through its focus on standardization, compatibility, and communication protocols.

Cardano fosters innovation in education by leveraging blockchain technology to address challenges related to access, affordability, and quality in education systems worldwide.

Cardano fosters innovation in healthcare by leveraging blockchain technology to address challenges related to data security, interoperability, patient privacy, and healthcare delivery.

Cardano ensures immutability and integrity of transaction history through cryptographic hashing, digital signatures, and distributed consensus mechanisms that create a tamper-resistant and verifiable record of transactions, blocks, and ledger state changes, ensuring transparent and trustless verification of blockchain history and integrity.

To join a blockchain consortium, research existing consortiums in your industry, understand their requirements and benefits

Cardano's ledger state includes the UTXO set, tracking unspent funds; transaction history; and stake distribution, determining voting power in the consensus process.

Cardano promotes access to legal services by leveraging blockchain technology to facilitate transparent, secure, and affordable mechanisms for individuals and communities to access legal information, assistance, and representation. Through decentralized identity solutions, smart contracts, and dispute resolution platforms, Cardano enables users to verify their identities, enforce agreements, and resolve disputes in a trustless and efficient manner, regardless of geographic location or socioeconomic status. By promoting access to legal services, Cardano empowers individuals to exercise their rights, protect their interests, and access justice, contributing to a more equitable and inclusive society under the rule of law.

Cardano implements layer 2 scaling solutions such as state channels, sidechains, and off-chain computation layers that enable off-chain processing, aggregation, and settlement of transactions while maintaining the security and integrity of the main blockchain, improving throughput and scalability without sacrificing decentralization or security.

Cardano implements layered architecture, dividing its protocol stack into distinct layers that handle different aspects of the blockchain network. This includes the settlement layer (CSL), responsible for handling value transactions and native token transfers, and the computation layer (CCL), responsible for executing smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps). By separating concerns and functionalities into modular layers, Cardano achieves scalability, flexibility, and interoperability, allowing for efficient resource management and future protocol upgrades without compromising security or stability.

Cardano implements layer 1 and layer 2 scaling solutions such as sharding, state channels, and off-chain computation layers that improve transaction throughput, reduce latency, and increase network capacity without compromising security, decentralization, or sustainability of the blockchain.

A light node is a type of blockchain node that stores only a subset of the blockchain data, relying on full nodes for transaction verification.

A Merkle tree, also known as a binary hash tree, is a data structure used in blockchain technology to efficiently summarize and verify the integrity of large sets of data. It consists of nodes where each leaf node represents a data block and each non-leaf node represents the cryptographic hash of its child nodes. Merkle trees enable quick and secure verification of the contents of a block without needing to download and process the entire blockchain, improving scalability and efficiency.

Cardano supports mobile wallets through various software applications and platforms that allow users to securely store, manage, and transact with ADA and other digital assets on their mobile devices. These mobile wallets provide features such as address generation , transaction history, and QR code scanning, enabling users to send, receive, and monitor their cryptocurrency holdings on the go. Cardano's mobile wallet ecosystem includes both native wallets developed by the Cardano community and third-party wallets integrated with the Cardano blockchain, offering users a diverse range of options for managing their funds securely and conveniently.

Cardano's metadata feature enables users to attach additional data or information to transactions, tokens, or smart contracts on the Cardano blockchain.

Cardano implements metadata storage on the blockchain through the use of transaction metadata fields, which allow users to attach additional data to transactions, such as timestamps, signatures, or arbitrary strings, enabling a wide range of applications, including identity verification, document certification, and asset management.

Cardano supports multi-asset tokens through its native token functionality, which allows users to create and transact with custom digital assets on the Cardano blockchain. These tokens can represent various assets, including cryptocurrencies, securities, commodities, and collectibles, and can be securely traded, transferred, and programmed within smart contracts. Cardano's multi-asset token standard enables interoperability, composability, and innovation within the ecosystem, fostering the growth of token economies and decentralized applications (DApps).

Cardano's native tokens let users create and trade custom assets, including cryptocurrencies, securities, utility tokens, and NFTs, securely on its blockchain.

Cardano's approach to handling network congestion and spam attacks involves fee market mechanisms, transaction prioritization policies, and rate limiting controls that incentivize efficient resource allocation, discourage abusive behavior, and maintain network stability and performance under heavy loads or attack conditions.

Cardano ensures network resilience and fault tolerance through redundancy, failover mechanisms, and adaptive protocols that mitigate the impact of node failures, network partitions, and malicious attacks, maintaining availability, reliability, and continuity of service for users and applications on the blockchain.

Cardano ensures network sustainability through its focus on energy efficiency, resource optimization, and long-term viability. By utilizing a Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, Cardano reduces energy consumption and carbon footprint compared to traditional Proof of Work (PoW) systems, making it more environmentally friendly and sustainable. Additionally, Cardano's treasury system and governance mechanisms enable stakeholders to allocate resources and fund initiatives that promote the growth, development, and resilience of the network over time.

Cardano ensures immutability and integrity of transaction history through cryptographic hashing, digital signatures, and distributed consensus mechanisms that create a tamper-resistant and verifiable record of transactions, blocks, and ledger state changes, ensuring transparent and trustless verification of blockchain history and integrity.

Cardano implements off-chain state channels for scalability through peer-to-peer communication, cryptographic commitments, and dispute resolution mechanisms that enable parties to conduct off-chain transactions, execute smart contract logic, and settle disputes off-chain, reducing on-chain congestion and latency while preserving security and trustlessness.

Ouroboros is Cardano's innovative Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm designed to achieve decentralization, scalability, and security. It divides time into epochs, each consisting of slots where blocks are produced. Slot leaders are chosen randomly from a pool of stake-holding validators to create and validate blocks. Ouroboros ensures consensus through a process of securely aggregating transactions and reaching agreement on the valid chain.

On-chain refers to transactions or processes that occur directly on the blockchain network.

Off-chain refers to transactions or processes that occur outside of the main blockchain network.

On-chain scaling involves making changes to the base layer of a blockchain to increase its capacity and performance.

A public blockchain is a decentralized network where anyone can participate, transact, and validate transactions. It operates on an open-source protocol and is not controlled by any single entity or organization. Public blockchains like Cardano provide transparency, security, and inclusivity, allowing for permissionless innovation and peer-to-peer interaction without the need for intermediaries.

Plutus is Cardano's smart contract platform, enabling developers to build and deploy secure and scalable smart contracts on the Cardano blockchain. It consists of a purpose-built smart contract language called Plutus Core, which is based on Haskell, a functional programming language. Plutus Core programs are executed on the Cardano Settlement Layer (CSL), ensuring security through formal verification and minimizing the risk of vulnerabilities.

Cardano handles privacy through various cryptographic techniques, including zero-knowledge proofs, ring signatures, and zk-SNARKs (zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge). These techniques allow for confidential and anonymous transactions on the blockchain while preserving the integrity and security of the network. Cardano's focus on privacy ensures that users can transact and interact with confidence, knowing that their sensitive information is protected.

A private blockchain is a permissioned blockchain network where access and participation are restricted to a specific group of authorized entities or participants. Unlike public blockchains, which are open to anyone, private blockchains are controlled by a centralized authority or consortium of organizations. Private blockchains are often used in enterprise settings where privacy, control, and scalability are prioritized over decentralization and censorship resistance.

Performance metrics for Cardano's blockchain include parameters such as throughput, latency, transaction confirmation times, and network scalability, which measure the efficiency, reliability, and responsiveness of the blockchain network under various conditions and workloads.

Cardano's reward system incentivizes stakeholders to participate in the network's consensus and governance processes by providing rewards in the form of ADA, the native cryptocurrency of the Cardano blockchain. Stakeholders who delegate their ADA to stake pools or operate their own pools are eligible to earn rewards based on their contribution to block production and validation. Rewards are distributed automatically through the protocol and are designed to encourage long-term participation, decentralization, and sustainability of the network.

Oracles in Cardano's smart contracts serve as trusted sources of off-chain data, information, and events that are used to trigger contract execution, validate conditions, and update contract state based on real-world inputs, enabling smart contracts to interact with external systems, APIs, and data feeds securely and reliably.

Cardano supports renewable energy initiatives by prioritizing energy efficiency, sustainability, and environmental responsibility in its blockchain infrastructure and operations.

Metadata in Cardano's transaction structure provides additional context, information, and functionality to transactions, allowing users to attach metadata tags, annotations, or payloads to transactions, which can be used for purposes such as identity verification, document certification, or data storage on the blockchain.

Validators in Cardano's proof-of-stake consensus play a critical role in block production, transaction validation, and network security by participating in the slot leader election process, proposing and validating new blocks, and ensuring the integrity and validity of transactions and ledger state changes on the blockchain.

A soft fork is a backward-compatible change to the blockchain protocol that imposes new rules or restrictions on the network without requiring all participants to upgrade their software. Soft forks typically tighten consensus rules or introduce new features that are compatible with the existing protocol, allowing nodes that have not upgraded to continue validating and participating in the network. Soft forks are considered less disruptive than hard forks and often result in temporary network forks that are resolved as the majority of miners or validators converge on the new consensus rules.

Stake pools in Cardano play a crucial role in the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism by allowing ADA holders to delegate their stake to a pool operator, who then participates in block production and validation on behalf of the delegators, earning rewards for themselves and their delegators based on their combined stake and performance.

Cardano promotes social equity by fostering inclusive growth, empowerment, and opportunity for individuals, communities, and societies around the world through its blockchain ecosystem and initiatives.

Cardano addresses Sybil attacks, a type of attack where a single entity controls multiple identities or nodes on a network to manipulate consensus or disrupt operations, through its Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism and delegation model. By requiring stakeholders to hold and "stake" ADA as collateral to participate in block production and validation, Cardano disincentivizes Sybil attacks and ensures that the majority of stakeholders have a vested interest in the security and integrity of the network. Additionally, Cardano's delegation mechanism encourages decentralization and discourages concentration of power among a small number of entities, further mitigating the risk of Sybil attacks.

Cardano addresses sustainability through its treasury system, which allocates a portion of transaction fees to fund ongoing development, maintenance, and growth of the ecosystem . By incentivizing stakeholders to participate in governance and decision-making, Cardano ensures the long-term viability and sustainability of the network. Additionally, Cardano's focus on research, peer review, and academic collaboration promotes continuous innovation and improvement.

Tokenomics, short for token economics, refers to the economic principles, incentives, and mechanisms governing the creation, distribution, and utilization of tokens within a blockchain ecosystem. Tokenomics encompasses various aspects, including token issuance, supply dynamics, distribution mechanisms, utility functions, and value accrual models, that shape the behavior of participants and stakeholders in the ecosystem. Effective tokenomics design is crucial for ensuring the sustainability, fairness, and growth of token economies and decentralized networks like Cardano.

Tokenization is the process of converting real-world or digital assets into tokens on a blockchain. These tokens can represent ownership rights, assets, or utility within a decentralized ecosystem. On Cardano, tokenization enables the creation of custom assets and digital tokens that can be securely transacted, traded, and programmed within smart contracts. Tokenization opens up new possibilities for asset management, fundraising, and decentralized finance (DeFi).

Cardano's treasury system plays a critical role in funding development, research, and community projects through a decentralized funding pool, where a portion of transaction fees and inflationary rewards are allocated to a common pool of funds that can be allocated through community governance processes for ecosystem development and maintenance.

Cardano achieves transaction finality through its consensus mechanism, Ouroboros, which relies on the longest-chain rule to determine the valid chain of blocks and ensure that once a transaction is included in a block and added to the blockchain, it is considered final and irreversible.

Transaction mempools in Cardano's blockchain serve as temporary storage pools for pending transactions awaiting validation and inclusion in blocks by network validators, enabling efficient propagation, validation, and prioritization of transactions based on fee rates, gas limits, and other parameters.

Cardano's Extended Unspent Transaction Output (EUTXO) model comprises three key components: the ledger state, which represents the current distribution of funds among addresses; transactions, which transfer funds between addresses by consuming and producing UTXOs; and scripts, which specify the conditions under which transactions can be executed, providing flexibility and security.

A utility token is a type of cryptocurrency that provides access to a product or service within a blockchain ecosystem.

To use a smart contract, write the contract code using a programming language like Solidity, deploy it on a blockchain like Ethereum, and interact with it using a compatible wallet or application interface.

Cardano ensures accessibility and inclusivity by prioritizing user experience, diversity, and affordability in its blockchain ecosystem and applications.

Use a cold wallet: generate and store private keys offline, transfer crypto from a hot wallet for long-term storage, and connect only for transactions.

Cardano ensures accessibility in voting systems by leveraging blockchain technology to provide secure, verifiable, and inclusive mechanisms.

Cardano enables voting on the blockchain through its decentralized governance mechanisms, where stakeholders can participate in decision-making and dispute resolution processes through on-chain voting protocols. Stakeholders can propose, debate, and vote on proposals related to protocol upgrades, treasury funding, and governance matters using their ADA holdings and voting power. Cardano's voting mechanisms ensure transparency, accountability, and inclusivity in governance decisions, empowering stakeholders to shape the future of the network and drive its growth and adoption.

Cardano ensures verifiability and auditability of stake pool performance through transparency, reporting requirements, and data analytics that enable stakeholders to evaluate and verify stake pool performance, reliability, and operator integrity based on objective metrics, ensuring accountability and trust in stake pool management on the blockchain.

Cardano's approach to handling validator collusion and cartel formation involves stake redistribution mechanisms, penalty policies, and decentralized governance processes that disincentivize collusion, punish malicious behavior, and promote decentralization, fairness, and integrity in the consensus process and network operations.

A validator node is a participant in a blockchain network responsible for verifying transactions and maintaining the integrity of the ledger.

A wallet in blockchain is a digital tool or software application that allows users to securely store, manage, and transact with cryptocurrencies and digital assets. Wallets can be categorized into hot wallets (connected to the internet) and cold wallets (offline storage), each offering different levels of security and accessibility. Wallets typically include features such as address generation, transaction history, and private key management, enabling users to send, receive, and monitor their cryptocurrency holdings with ease.

A whitepaper is an authoritative report or guide that informs readers about the details of a project, especially in the context of cryptocurrency and blockchain. It typically outlines the problem, the proposed solution, technical details, and the roadmap for the project's development.

A wrapped token is a cryptocurrency token that represents another underlying asset.

A watchtower is a service in the Lightning Network that monitors the blockchain for fraudulent transactions and helps protect users' funds by penalizing malicious actors.

Cardano promotes youth empowerment by providing educational opportunities, resources, and platforms for young people to learn about blockchain.

Yield farming, also known as liquidity mining, is a process where users provide liquidity to decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols in exchange for rewards.

A zk-SNARK (Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge) is a cryptographic proof that allows one party to prove to another that they know a value without revealing the value itself.

A zero-knowledge proof is a cryptographic method by which one party can prove to another that a statement is true without revealing any information beyond the validity of the statement itself.