There's a lot of lingo that gets flung around in Charles Hoskinson and IOG updates as well as on Twitter, Reddit, and the Cardano Forums.
Sometimes it's hard to keep track of what all the terms mean, especially if you are just learning about Cardano.
Hopefully this small glossary of Cardano related terms will be helpful.
Please let me know if you have any corrections, suggestions, or additions at info@squidpool.com.
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| ADA | The token used in the Cardano network. ADA is named after Augusta Ada (Byron) King, Countess of Lovelace who is known as the first computer programmer for her work with Charles Babbage's mechanical computer. |
| Adrestia | A set of tools and libraries for integrating with Cardano used by exchanges and developers. |
| Adversarial Fork | When a fork is created by multiple leader nodes from the same stake pool. This is discouraged by the community. |
| Atlas | Next generation blockchain explorer. |
| Atala | An enterprise permissioned distributed ledger framework being developed by IOG primarily for government use. |
| Atala Prism | Blockchain identity management solution which is being used by the country of Georgia. |
| Atala Scan | Blockchain anti-counterfeiting solution. |
| Atala Trace | Blockchain supply chain tracking solution which is being used by Beefchain. |
| Block | A collection of recent transactions that are verified and added to the blockchain. |
| Basho | The fifth phase of Cardano whose focus is on scalability and interoperability. |
| Byron | The first phase of Cardano whose primary purpose was to create liquidity for the ADA token. |
| Cardano-node | The Haskell based network node that will be used in the Shelley mainnet. |
| CBDC | Central Bank Digital Currency |
| CCCI | Cardano Commercially Critical Infrastructure |
| CIP | Cardano Improvement Proposal |
| CRC | Cardano Request for Comment. Part of the CIP process. |
| Daedalus | Full node wallet developed by IOG. |
| DID | Decentralized Identifier. This is a standard developed by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) which can be used for blockchain based identity. |
| Epoch | A division of time in Cardano currently equal to 5 days. It is further divided into slots. |
| EVM | Smart contract virtual machine used in Ethereum. |
| Extended UTXO Model | The accounting model used in Cardano which is an extension of the Unspent Transaction Output model used by Bitcoin. |
| Fork | When multiple pools create blocks from the same parent block, creating alternate blockchain candidates. See Slot Battle. |
| Gerolamo | Permissioned Cardano based blockchain solutions for Hyperledger. |
| Goguen | The third phase of Cardano whose primary purpose is to provide a smart contract platform for developing applications. |
| Haskell | A functional programming language used in the development of cardano-node. |
| HFC Event | Hard Fork Comninator Event. A change in the Cardano protocol. |
| Honeycomb | An API marketplace that links blockchain-based smart contracts to the datasets they need through decentralized oracles. |
| Hydra | The multiheaded and highly scalable version of Ouroboros. |
| Hyperledger | Enterprise permissioned blockchain standards industry collaboration hosted by the Linux Foundation. |
| IELE | Smart contract virtual machine alternative to EVM. |
| IoB | Internet of Blockchains. A network of interoperable blockchains. |
| IOG | Input Output Global. The new name of Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK). The primary developers of Cardano. |
| ITN | The Shelley Incentivized Tentnet. |
| Jormungandr | The Rust based network node that has been used in the Shelley ITN. |
| Kachina | A protocol for deploying privacy preserving smart contracts. |
| KES | Key Evolving Signature |
| Lovelace | One millionth of an ADA. This is the smallest value and is the unit in which transactions are expressed in the protocol. |
| Marlowe | A DSL (Domain Specific Language) for modeling financial instruments as smart contracts built on top of Plutus and Haskell. |
| Nash Equilibrium | A stable state of a system involving the interaction of different participants, in which no participant can gain by a unilateral change of strategy if the strategies of the others remain unchanged. |
| NiPoPoW | Non-interactive Proof of Proof of Work. Used as a checkpointing system for PoW blockchains. |
| Oracle | A third party information provider that provides data for use in smart contracts. |
| Ouroboros | The Proof of Stake consensus protocol used in Cardano. Named after the snake swallowing it's own tail which represents infinity. |
| OBFT | Ouroboros Byzantine Fault Tolerant. The Byron reboot permissioned blockchain consensus. |
| Ouroboros Praos | Shelley permissionless blockchain consensus. |
| Plutus | A strictly typed pure functional programming language used for defining smart contracts in Cardano. |
| Plutus Application Framework | Full featured development tools for Plutus. |
| Plutus Foundation | Basic essentials for Plutus. |
| Project Catalyst | Voltaire experiments with real funding. |
| Proof of Stake | Instead of using hashing power as in Proof of Work the number of coins owned (or delegated) is used to determine who validates blocks of transactions. |
| ROS | Return On Staking. |
| Rosetta | Custodial staking for Coinbase. |
| Rust | Rust is a language similar to C++ but focused on performance and safety. |
| Shelley | The second phase of Cardano whose primary purpose is to decentralize the network by introducint staking of ADA by delegators to stake pools and the creation of the treasury. |
| Slot | The amount of time during which a block can potentially be made. Currently 20 seconds. |
| Slot Battle | Multiple pools assigned leadership for the same (or very close) slot. First pool to make and distribute the block gets the block reward. |
| Slot Leader | The stake pool or pools that have been selected to make a block during a slot. |
| SMASH | Stakepool Metadata Aggregation Server. |
| Sonic | IOG developed improved zk-SNARK specification. |
| SPO | Stake Pool Operator |
| tADA | ADA on the incentivized testnet. |
| Treasury | A repository of funds created by taking a small percentage of fees and rewards which will be used to fund proposals for development of the system. |
| Voltaire | The fourth phase of Cardano whose primary purpose is to introduce on chain governance. |
| VRF | Verifiable Random Function |
| Yoroi | A browser based light wallet developed by Emurgo that uses their servers to keep the entire blockchain. |
| zk-SNARK | Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge. This is a way of proving that you have certain information without revealing that information. It may be used to create a "light" wallet that does not need the entire blockchain or provide transaction privacy. |
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