Technical Glossary
Active Cell
A Cell in the current state of CKB. Active cells can be used as inputs to transactions.
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Aggron
The name of the main public testnet for Nervos CKB.
Synonyms
Not To Be Confused With
Animagus
A framework layer that runs on top of Nervos CKB which provides an easy way to query for account balances without having to go through the Cell Collection process.
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Args
Args is short for arguments, and is data provided to a Lock Script or Type Script within a Cell. This is nearly identical to arguments provided to a normal command-line application.
Arguments are stored as part of the Cell when it is created.
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Axon
A layer 2 side-chain of the Nervos CKB developed by the Nervos Core Team. Axon provides high-performance smart contract execution while utilizing Nervos CKB as a trust layer.
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Blake2b
A general-purpose cryptographic hashing algorithm that can create a succinct data fingerprint for any type of data.
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Block Subsidy
A payment that is made in the native currency of the blockchain that is paid to to miners for providing the computational resources create a block and secure the blockchain.
The subsidy consists is the portion of the total block reward that is issued out of inflation for creating the block, but does not include any additional transaction fees that may be paid on top.
Synonyms
BLS
A cryptographic signature scheme for signing and verification.
BLS is short for Boneh–Lynn–Shacham.
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Boxer
A lightweight Rust library for verifying the Nervos layer 1 blockchain, the Common Knowledge Base.
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Cell Collection
The process of gathering cells that meet certain criteria.
For example: To find the balance of a particular account, all active cells for the address would need to be collected.
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Cellbase
The transaction in each block that is responsible for the minting of new CKBytes.
This is the equivalent of a coinbase transaction in Bitcoin.
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Code Hash
A field in a Cell that contains a hash value which could refer to a specific piece of data, or a specific cell referenced by Type ID.
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Commit
The process of taking a proposed transaction and adding it to the blockchain. After the transaction has been committed it is confirmed.
Miners are incentivized to commit transactions by being paid a commit reward.
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Commitment Zone
Section of the block that contains transaction commitments. The commitment zone can only contain valid transactions which have appeared in the proposal zone of one of the previous 2 to 10 blocks.
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Consume
The process of using a Live Cell as an input to a transaction.
The process of consumption marks the Live Cell as a Dead Cell. This is the equivalent of marking a UTXO as spent in Bitcoin.
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Crypto Primitives
Well-established, low-level cryptographic algorithm commonly used to build out a cryptographic protocol.
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Data
In Nervos specific contexts, data may refer to the data structure within a Cell. This structure is used to hold any form of information that needs to be stored on the Nervos blockchain.
In more general contexts, data may refer to any form of information.
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Dead Cell
A cell that has been used as an input to a previous transaction and is consumed.
A dead cell cannot be used as an input to a new transaction, nor can it be used as a dependency. It is effectively destroyed and removed from the active state of the network.
A dead cell is the equivalent of a "spent UTXO" in Bitcoin.
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Dep Group
A method for referencing multiple dependencies which are commonly used together using a single dependency field.
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Dep Type
A field that specifies the type of the dependency.
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Deps
A shorthand name for dependencies.
Synonyms
Dependencies
Cells that are referenced in a transaction. Cells that are referenced as dependencies are read-only and made available to any Scripts executing within the transaction. Dependencies are not consumed.
Dependencies are commonly referred to as deps.
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Duktape
Duktape is an embeddable Javascript engine, with a focus on portability and compact footprint.
Duktape is used to run Javascript based smart contracts on Nervos.
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Difficulty
A measurement of how difficult it is to solve the Proof of Work cryptographic puzzle required to create a block.
Networks automatically adjust the difficulty to control the speed at which blocks are generated as mining participants enter and exit the network.
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Diviner
A deterministic testing framework for Rust.
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Eaglesong
The proof of work function used for mining on Nervos CKB.
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ERC20
An Ethereum token standard for basic fungible tokens.
An SUDT on Nervos is the equivalent of Ethereum tokens standards ERC20 or ERC777.
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ERC721
An Ethereum token standard for non-fungible tokens.
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ERC777
An updated Ethereum token standard for basic fungible tokens that is backwards compatible with ERC20.
An SUDT on Nervos is the equivalent of Ethereum tokens standards ERC20 or ERC777.
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ERC1155
An Ethereum token standard that supports the creation any number of fungible or non-fungible tokens on a single contract.
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Generator
A program that is used to create transactions that can be broadcast to the Nervos CKB network.
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Genesis Block
The first block on a blockchain. The genesis block is unique because it does not contain a reference to the previous block because it is the first.
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Godwoken
A tool that provides a programmable layer on Nervos CKB that emulates the account model used by other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum.
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Governance Script
A Type Script which defines the monetary policy of a User Defined Token (UDT).
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Governance Script Hash
A Blake2b hash of a Type Script which is used as an identifier for the Script when referenced by a Cell.
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Historical Cell
An alternative term for Dead Cell.
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Indexer
An application or library that keeps track of live Cells that match criteria specified by the developer or user.
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Input
A Live Cell that is used in a transaction. If the transaction is accepted by the network, the Live Cell will be consumed, and marked as a Dead Cell.
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Keyper
A specification of how to manage wallet Lock Scripts which apply to a specific user.
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Late Spawning
When a node joins a blockchain network for the first time after the network has already been in operation for a period of time.
A network is said to support late spawning if that participant can download and verify the entire blockchain without having to trust any of the participants in the network to feed them unaltered data.
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Layer 1
A proof of work blockchain known as the Common Knowledge Base (CKB) that serves as the base layer for the Nervos Network.
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Layer 2
Any framework or protocol that is built on top of and dependent on a layer 1 blockchain.
Layer 2 systems often address different concerns than layer 1, allowing for a wider range of use cases while directly inheriting many of benefits of layer 1.
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Lina
The name of public Mainnet of the Nervos CKB.
Synonyms
Not To Be Confused With
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Live Cell
A Cell that has not been consumed and is available for use.
This is similar to an unspent transaction output (UTXO) in Bitcoin.
Synonyms
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Lock Script
A Script that enforces access and ownership of a Cell. This Script controls who has permission to use the Cell as an input.
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Lock Script Hash
A Blake2b hash of a Lock Script which is used as an identifier for the Script when referenced by a Cell.
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Long Address
An address format used on Nervos that includes the full code hash of the lock script which is associated with it.
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Mainnet
The Nervos CKB public blockchain.
The name of the Nervos CKB Mainnet is Lina.
Synonyms
Not To Be Confused With
Minting
The process of creating of new tokens.
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Molecule
A serialization library for encoding data which is used extensively on the Nervos blockchain.
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Muta
A framework used to create highly customizable layer 2 blockchain implementations on Nervos.
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Nervos CKB
The layer 1 blockchain of the Nervos Network, the Common Knowledge Base.
Nervos CKB is often referred to as the Nervos Blockchain.
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Off-Chain Computation
A programming model where all computation is done off-chain to reduce the burden on the nodes in the network and provide higher levels of scalability.
Nervos uses off-chain computation and on-chain verification.
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Off-Chain State
A programming model where the data that represents the state of an application is not stored on the blockchain, or is not accessible by on-chain smart contracts.
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On-Chain Computation
A programming model where all computation by smart contracts is done on-chain every node on the network simultaneously.
Ethereum uses on-chain computation.
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On-Chain State
A programming model where the data that represents the state of an application is stored on the blockchain and is accessible by on-chain smart contracts.
Nervos provides on-chain state for all smart contracts.
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On-Chain Verification
A programming model where all computation is done off-chain to reduce the burden on the nodes in the network, but verification of the resulting data is done on-chain to enforce the smart contract rules created by the developer.
Nervos uses off-chain computation and on-chain verification.
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Open Transaction
A signed piece of a transaction that is incomplete and invalid on its own. When combined with other signed transaction pieces can form a complete transaction which can be processed.
One use of open transactions is to create the functionality required for a trustless decentalized exchange.
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Orphan
A shorthand name for Orphan Block.
Synonyms
Orphan Block
A valid block that was found simultaneously with another valid block by another miner, but was not selected by network because it arrived after the other block.
Orphan blocks are expected to occur under normal operation and do not become a problem unless they occur too frequently.
On Nervos, orphan blocks are better described as Uncles.
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Orphan Rate
A measure of the speed at which Orphan blocks occur within the blockchain network.
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Outpoint
A particular output Cell in a transaction.
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Output
A Live Cell that is created in a transaction.
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Overlord
A byzantine fault tollerant consensus algorithm designed by Nervos for Huobi which can support thousands of transactions per second.
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Polyjuice
An Ethereum compatible layer that provides account model functionality on top of Nervos' Cell Model.
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Proposal Zone
Section of the block that contains transaction proposals.
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Propose
The process of taking an unconfirmed transaction out of the mempool and proposing it for commitment. A transaction is not confirmed until after it has been committed.
Miners are incentivized to propose transactions by being paid a proposal reward.
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RISC-V
An open standard instruction set architecture (ISA) for general computing.
RISC-V is the instruction set used by the CKB-VM.
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Schnorr Signature
A cryptographic signature scheme for signing and verification.
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Script
A program that executes on the CKB-VM. A Script can be one of two types:
- Lock Script - Used to control ownership and access to a Cell.
- Type Script - Used to control how a Cell is used in a transaction.
A Script is a binary executable in the ELF format for the RISC-V architecture.
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Seed Cell
A design pattern on Nervos from creating unique identifiers used to create unforgeable assets.
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Shannon
A fractional denomination of CKBytes. One CKByte is equal to 100,000,000 Shannons.
A Shannon is the equivalent of a Bitcoin Satoshi.
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Short Address
An address format on Nervos that does not include the code hash of the associated lock script, and instead uses one of many commonly used lock scripts.
The short address format is the most common address format used, and is often referred to as simply "address".
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Simple UDT
A standard that defines a the most basic implementation of a UDT fungible token on Nervos.
A Simple UDT is often referred to by its abbreviation, SUDT.
An SUDT on Nervos is the equivalent of Ethereum tokens standards ERC20 and ERC777.
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Since
A field on a Cell which can contain an optional value that prevents consumption before a certain block timestamp or a block number.
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SPV
An abbreviation for Simplified Payment Verification. A protocol for using a blockchain cryptocurrency without having to operate a full node.
SPV clients require far less data to be stored, but also must requires the trust of the network clients it is connected to directly.
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SPV Wallet
A light-weight cryptocurrency wallet that uses the SPV protocol.
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SUDT
An abbreviation for Simple UDT.
Synonyms
Testnet
An alternate public blockchain used for testing purposes that is running the same or similar software as the Mainnet. All tokens and data on testnets have no value.
The name of the Nervos CKB Testnet is Aggron.
Synonyms
Not To Be Confused With
Type Script
A Script that enforces the rules that must be followed in a transaction for a Cell to be consumed as an input or for a Cell to be created as an output.
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Type Script Hash
A Blake2b hash of a Type Script which is used as an identifier for the Script when referenced by a Cell.
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Type ID
A unique identifier for asset types on Nervos. This idenfier is based on the Type Script and Arguments of a Cell.
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Uncle
A valid block that was found simultaneously with another valid block by another miner, but was not selected by network because it arrived after the other block.
Uncles are paid a reduced block reward when they are found and reported.
On Nervos, Uncles are tracked by consensus to adjust the block interval of the network.
Synonyms
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Uncle Rate
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Validator
A Script that is used to ensure that a transaction created by a Generator is valid.
Validators are Scripts that run within the CKB-VM, and are either Lock Scripts or Type Scripts.
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Witness
A set of cryptographic signatures that contains the data required to prove authorization to the resources used in a transaction.
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Zk-SNARK
A form of cryptographic proof, that when used in cryptocurrencies, allows for privacy features which do not reveal the amounts or participants in transactions.
Zk-SNARKs require a trusted setup, but are otherwise trustless.
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Zk-STARK
A form of cryptographic proof, that when used in cryptocurrencies, allows for privacy features which do not reveal the amounts or participants in transactions.
Unlike Zk-SNARKs, Zk-STARKs do not require a trusted setup.