Glossary

Term	Definition	Notes
Distributed Ledger	A distributed ledger (also called a shared ledger or distributed ledger technology or DLT) is the consensus of replicated, shared, and synchronized digital data that is geographically spread (distributed) across many sites, countries, or institutions.
Hash	A cryptographic hash function (CHF) is a hash algorithm (a map of an arbitrary binary string to a binary string with a fixed size of � bits) that has special properties desirable for a cryptographic application:
Merkle Tree	In cryptography and computer science, a hash tree or Merkle tree is a tree in which every "leaf" node is labelled with the cryptographic hash of a data block, and every node that is not a leaf (called a branch, inner node, or inode) is labelled with the cryptographic hash of the labels of its child nodes. A hash tree allows efficient and secure verification of the contents of a large data structure. A hash tree is a generalization of a hash list and a hash chain.
Blocks	Blocks are data containers where data is permanently recorded on a blockchain.
Finite-state machine	A behavior model that consists of finite number of states
Public Key	The key available for anyone to use when utilizing Public Key Cryptography
Private Key	The key designed to decrypt data encrypted with the public key
Cryptography	the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversarial behavior.[
Authentication	the act of proving an assertion, such as the identity of a computer system user
Node	A single processing server in a communications network
Peer-to-peer (p2p)	A distributed application design that partitions taks or workloads between peers.
Game Theory	Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents.
Mining	On a blockchain, mining is the validation of transactions. For this effort, successful miners obtain new cryptocurrency as a reward. The reward decreases transaction fees by creating a complementary incentive to contribute to the processing power of the network.
Wallet	Key manager used to manage your cryptocurrencies or tokens
mnemonic phrase	Equivalent to a private key and is not encrypted.
Testnet	An equivalent technology blockchain but intended to be used of experimentation
Faucets	A provider that produces and distributes tokens for testing
Smart Contract	Collections of logic that exist on the block chain that automate transactions between two parties.
Integrated Development Environment (IDE)	A piece of software or service that facilitates the development of software.
Block Explorer	A service that facilitates the examination of the blockchain in an easy manner.
Application Binary Interface (ABI)	A JSON object that describes the input, outputs, and structure of smart contracts.
Solidity	A programming language optimized to develop smart contracts and compile them for blockchain deployment.
Compile	Transforming Human Readable code into machine code
Validators	Are authoritative mechanisms that check whether new transactions align with the network’s rules and ensure that the sender has adequate funds to complete the transaction
finite-state machine (FSM)	A finite-state machine (FSM) or finite-state automaton (FSA, plural: automata), finite automaton, or simply a state machine, is a mathematical model of computation. It is an abstract machine that can be in exactly one of a finite number of states at any given time.