The most comprehensive crypto glossary for Advanced level
The most comprehensive crypto glossary out there.
User activated hard fork (UAHF)
A mandatory rule set added by developers to change the node software. These changes make previously invalid blocks become valid after a flag day, which does not require a majority of hash power to be enforced.
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Level: Advanced
User activated soft fork (UASF)
A mechanism where the activation time of a soft fork occurs on a specified date enforced by full nodes; a concept sometimes referred to as the economic majority.
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Level: Advanced
Validity proof
Evidence that a state transition is correct. The presence of validity proofs helps to make sure that the blockchain reflects a correct L2 state, and that a new state can be relied upon and used.
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Level: Advanced
Vault
A part of the blockchain architecture used for storing, depositing, and withdrawing various types of cryptocurrency assets, especially in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. For example, when a user stakes, lends, borrows, or mints various crypto assets, the DeFi protocol should automatically exchange the correct amount of assets between different parties using smart contracts.
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Level: Advanced
Fully homomorphic encryption
A type of encryption scheme that allows computations to be performed on encrypted data. This allows computations to be performed on ciphertexts without requiring intermediate steps to be decrypted.
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Level: Advanced
Formal verification
Proving certain properties of cryptographic algorithms and blockchain mechanisms mathematically rigorously.
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Level: Advanced
Front running
Queueing a transaction with knowledge of its future execution. On a blockchain platform, front running is typically done when a miner who knows about pending trades places an order to earn a profit from it.
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Level: Advanced
Fraud proof
Decentralized method for creating bonds that utilizes Optimistic Rollups. The term fraud proof is used in the world of blockchain to describe a technical method that is critical to enabling on-chain scalability (such as by sharding and creating larger blocks) while simultaneously ensuring that on-chain data is available.
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Level: Advanced
Flash Loan Attack
Decentralized finance (DeFi) exploits are exploits where a smart contract designed to provide flash loans is hacked in order to siphon assets from a particular pool.
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Level: Advanced
Flash Loan
A form of DeFi loan that is processed, acquired, and repaid within a short period of time without collateral.
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Level: Advanced
Spoon
A type of blockchain fork where the new cryptocurrency inherits the account balances of an existing cryptocurrency. It allows a new project to add its own features to the previous software, whilst still allowing the users of the existing protocol to participate in it.
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Level: Advanced
Solidity
Solidity is an object-oriented, high-level language for implementing smart contracts. It is influenced by C++, Python and JavaScript, and is designed to target the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
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Level: Advanced
Sidechain
A separate blockchain compatible with Ethereum. While a sidechain is a scaling tool of sorts, it is simply a way to transfer cryptocurrency faster and with lower fees than using the main network. Sending tokens from the side chain to the main Ethereum network can result in token loss. That’s why it often required routing tokens through a dedicated portal or bridge.
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Level: Advanced
Sharding
The process of dividing the entire network into several parts called shards. Each shard will contain its own independent state, which means a unique set of account balances and smart contracts. Sharding contributes to better blockchain scalability, enabling the network to process more transactions per second.
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Level: Advanced
Serialization
The process of converting data objects, represented in complex structures, into a stream of bytes in order to easily store, transmit, and distribute it on physical devices. Ethereum internally uses an encoding format called recursive-length prefix encoding (RLP).
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Level: Advanced