The Cardano Glossary

Cardano is a blockchain platform for changemakers, innovators, and visionaries, with the tools and technologies required to create possibility for the many, as well as the few, and bring about positive global change.

A listing of all the terms you may need to know to understand the Cardano Blockchain, ADA and native tokens.

A multi-lingual, multi-feature & multi-device online website focused on the Cardano Ecosystem and aims to educate people about the Cardano Blockchain, the applications built on it and the native digital currencies launched.

The Catalyst app is a mobile application that helps Project Catalyst members view and vote on proposals for each funding round. The voting app is available both on iOS and Android.

contract for difference. Part of a wider group of trading products known as derivatives, they are a popular method of trading stocks, bonds, and commodities that allow you to speculate on the price.

a set of blocks that have been produced and are connected to another in consecutive order.

A challenge is a specific problem or focus area that aims to help improve the Cardano ecosystem. Challenges could range from attracting software developers, creating DApps, improving decision making or making improvement proposals to Cardano itself. Anyone can try to address a challenge in a funding round by submitting a proposal with their idea.

The three main phases in Project Catalyst are innovation, governance and execution. Each challenge will go through these phases with a subset of stages that take a challenge from idea to execution.

Challenge setting is a challenge where the community come up with proposals for what challenges should be set for future funds. Proposals for challenge setting will include the purpose of the suggested challenge and how it would help the ecosystem and the amount of funding that they suggest should be made available to solve the problem set our in their challenge setting proposal.

Challenge stages are a collection of milestones for a challenge where different members of Project Catalyst will perform tasks to move a challenge from idea towards execution. A list of the phases and stages of the funding process is listed here.

The action of coding is to write programming statements for a program.

A coin can refer to a cryptocurrency that can operate independently or to a single unit of such cryptocurrency.

Offline storage of cryptocurrencies, typically involving hardware non-custodial wallets, USBs, offline computers, or paper wallets.

A cryptocurrency wallet that is in cold storage, i.e. not connected to the internet.

A community advisor is someone who is familiar with the innovation platform, the challenge, and best practices for developing a proposal. They act to assist innovators in ensuring that their ideas are auditable, achievable, and impactful.

In cryptocurrency, a confirmation is a measure of how many blocks have actually passed since a transaction was added to a blockchain.

A cryptocurrency transaction is considered confirmed when it is included in a block on the blockchain. Each new block after the first one is an additional confirmation for that transaction.

Consensus is achieved when all participants of the network agree on the order and content of the blocks in the blockchain.

A consensus mechanism is an underlying technology behind the main functionalities of all blockchain technology, which makes them an essential operating feature of all cryptocurrencies.

the total amount of stake that a stake pool controls. It combines the stake that is owned by the pool operator with any stake that has been delegated to the pool by other ada holders. It can be measured as a total ada amount (e.g., 3 million ada), or as a percentage of the total supply of ada within the network (e.g., 5%).

a fixed fee, in ada, which the stake pool operator takes from the pool rewards every epoch to cover the costs of running a stake pool. The cost per epoch is subtracted from the total ada rewarded to a pool, before the operator takes their profit margin. Whatever remains is shared proportionally among the delegators.

Cross-chain is a technology that enhances the interconnection between blockchain networks by allowing the exchange of information and value.

Crowdfunding enables fundraisers to collect money from a large number of people through a variety of different platforms.

A crypto debit card is a type of debit card that allows its holder to pay for goods and services using cryptocurrencies.

A cryptoasset is any digital asset that uses cryptographic technologies to maintain its operation as a currency or decentralized application.

Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies that use cryptographic technologies to secure their operation.

Exchanges utilize cryptocurrency pairs in order to facilitate the trade between different tokens.

A field of study and practice to secure information, preventing third parties from reading information to which they are not privy.

Currency is a medium of exchange that defines value.

A custodian is responsible for safely holding assets for an institution or individual for a variety of purposes.

Custody is a financial institution's legal capacity to keep and preserve financial assets for its clients to avoid asset theft or loss.

The cypherpunk movement promotes the use of cryptography and other privacy-focused technologies to advance social and political progress.