Address: A unique address associated with a wallet to send a receive a transaction to and from
Asset: Digital value representation on a blockchain, which includes cryptocurrencies, tokens, and non-fungible items.
API: An API is like a messenger that helps different software systems communicate and share information with each other. It's a set of rules that allows applications to talk to each other and exchange data.
APR (Annual Percentage Rate): a measure of the yearly interest or cost associated with borrowing money or using credit.
APY (Annual Percentage Yield): a measure of the yearly interest earned or gained on an investment or savings account.
Automated Market Maker: An automated market maker (AMM) is a smart contract that holds liquidity reserves. Users can trade against these reserves at prices determined by a fixed formula. Anyone may contribute liquidity to these smart contracts, earning trading fees in return.
Babel Fees: Ergo's feature that allows users to pay transaction fees in native tokens
Bitcoin (BTC): The first and most well-known cryptocurrency, a decentralized digital currency that operates on a blockchain and enables peer-to-peer transactions.
Block: A collection of transactions that are bundled together and added to the blockchain, forming a permanent record.
Blockchain: A digital ledger that records transactions across multiple computers in a decentralized and transparent manner, providing secure and tamper-proof records.
Blockchain Pruning: A feature allowing nodes to discard unnecessary historical data while maintaining security.
Blockchain Resilience: The ability of a blockchain to withstand various challenges and continue to operate effectively.
Blockchain Security: Measures and protocols put in place to protect a blockchain from various threats and vulnerabilities.
Block Size: The maximum size of a block in a blockchain
Bounties: Specific tasks or projects listed by the Ergo community that developers can work on for rewards. Bounties are a way to encourage contributions to the platform.
Bridge: A platform or protocol that enables the transfer of digital assets (cryptocurrencies) between different blockchain networks.
Burning: The process of permanently removing or destroying a certain amount of cryptocurrency tokens from circulation, typically done to manage supply or increase value.
Censorship Resistance: The ability of a blockchain to resist attempts at censorship.
CEX (Centralized Exchange): a cryptocurrency exchange platform where transactions are facilitated by a centralized authority or organization, typically holding custody of users' funds.
Clone the Repository: The process of creating a local copy of the documentation repository from the GitHub repository.
Codebase: The collective source code of a software project. Developers can contribute to Ergo's codebase by making improvements or adding new features.
Coins: Standalone cryptocurrencies with their own blockchains
Coin Mixer (Mixer): A service that combines and mixes cryptocurrency transactions to enhance privacy and make tracing transactions difficult.
Cold Wallet: A cryptocurrency wallet that is not connected to the internet, providing enhanced security.
Collective Growth: The idea that the Ergo community, through collaborative efforts and contributions, can collectively advance the platform's development and success.
Community-curated Wiki: A comprehensive resource hub available in multiple languages where community members contribute information and resources to make Ergo more accessible globally.
Community Marketing: The practice of promoting and raising awareness of Ergo within the community, often through collaborative efforts, discussions, and content creation.
Core Developer: A developer responsible for the fundamental components and protocols of the Ergo blockchain.
Counter to Centralization: Ergo's stance against the centralization of banking and the misuse of money, aiming to provide individuals with more control over their financial interactions.
Created for Regular People: An ideology stating that Ergo is designed to serve ordinary individuals and protect their interests rather than favoring large entities. This includes preventing centralization in mining and enabling regular people to participate in the network through running full nodes and mining with a small probability.
DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization): An organization represented by rules encoded as a computer program that is transparent, controlled by the organization members, and not influenced by a central government.
DarkFund0: A fund dedicated to supporting privacy applications within the Ergo ecosystem.
Decentralization: The distribution of control and decision-making across a network of participants rather than being controlled by a central authority. A core principle of Ergo's design.
Decentralized Governance: Ergo's approach to making decisions about changes to the blockchain, ensuring community-driven leadership.
DeFi (Decentralized Finance): A movement that aims to create an open and permissionless financial system using blockchain technology.
Development Environment: The setup on your local system that allows you to build and test documentation changes before contributing.
Development Reward Program: A program that recognizes and rewards significant contributions made to the development and improvement of Ergo's repositories, including its codebase and technical infrastructure.
Development Server: A local server that allows you to view and interact with the documentation changes you are making.
DEX (Decentralized Exchange): a cryptocurrency exchange that operates on a decentralized platform, allowing users to trade directly with each other without the need for an intermediary.
Directory Structure: The organization and hierarchy of files and directories within the documentation repository.
Discord Server: An online platform where developers and community members can engage in discussions and collaborate on Ergo-related projects and/or channels.
Documentation Repository: A centralized location, often hosted on platforms like GitHub, where educational content and documentation related to Ergo are stored and managed.
Dust: Tiny, negligible amounts of cryptocurrency or digital assets that are not practical to spend due to transaction fees.
Emission Schedule: The plan detailing the release of new ERGs into circulation over time.
Empowerment: The act of enabling and supporting community members to take an active role in the growth and innovation of the Ergo ecosystem.
Ergo Improvement Proposals (EIPs): A set of guidelines and standards used for proposing and implementing continuous improvements to Ergo.
Ergo Forum: A platform for discussions and communication within the Ergo community.
Ergo Foundation ('EF'): A non-profit, community-driven entity focused on promoting the development and adoption of Ergo.
ErgoScript: The scripting language used in Ergo's smart contracts.
Ergo's Social Contract: The set of main principles that should be followed in the Ergo protocol, defining its core values and guiding philosophy.
Ergo Summit: An event or conference focused on Ergo blockchain-related topics.
ERGs: The native token of the Ergo blockchain, used as a unit of value and for various purposes within the Ergo ecosystem.
Enthusiast: An individual who has a strong interest in Ergo and its technology but may not necessarily be a developer or marketer.
Extended UTXO (eUTXO) Model: A model used by Ergo, based on the original UTXO model of Bitcoin but with enhanced capabilities that enable more expressive smart contracts. The eUTXO model allows for advanced scripting and smart contract functionalities while retaining the advantages of the UTXO model.
Fair Competition: Ensuring a level playing field for all projects and participants within the blockchain ecosystem.
Farming: A process in which cryptocurrency holders provide liquidity to DeFi protocols and receive rewards in return.
Fiat: Government-issued currency, such as the US Dollar or Euro, that is not backed by a physical commodity like gold or silver.
Financial Activities: The various financial transactions and operations conducted by the Ergo Foundation to support the ecosystem's development.
FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt): A tactic used to spread negative or misleading information to create fear and uncertainty among cryptocurrency users or investors.
Future of Finance: The vision of Ergo as a blockchain platform that plays a pivotal role in the future of decentralized finance (DeFi).
Hall of Fame: A section featuring notable contributors to Ergo's development.
Hard-Fork: An upgrade that requires all nodes to update and can be disruptive.
Hardware Wallet: A physical device used to store cryptocurrency offline securely.
Hash: A mathematical function that takes an input and produces a fixed-size string of characters, used to ensure data integrity and secure transactions.
Hash rate: The computational power of a blockchain network, measuring the speed at which miners or validators can solve complex mathematical problems.
Hot Wallet: A cryptocurrency wallet that is connected to the internet and used for online transactions.
Howey Test: A legal framework used to determine whether a financial instrument qualifies as an "investment contract" under US securities law.
Incentives: Mechanisms designed to encourage specific behaviors, such as mining or developing on the Ergo network.
Infographic: A visual representation of information or data designed to make complex concepts more understandable.
Interface: A user-friendly platform or program that allows users to interact with a system or application.
Interoperability: UTXOs are well-suited for off-chain and sidechain protocols, enabling seamless integration with various solutions beyond the main blockchain, promoting interoperability.
Internal Promotions: The process of filling roles, such as paid community manager positions, from within the existing Ergo community based on demonstrated skills and contributions.
KYA (Know Your Assumptions): It emphasizes the importance of understanding the underlying assumptions and principles in various contexts, such as cryptocurrencies, decentralized finance (DeFi), and decision-making processes, to make informed choices and decisions
KYC (Know Your Customer): a process used by businesses and financial institutions to verify the identities of their customers.
Layer 1 (Core Blockchain Layer): The core blockchain layer of Ergo's scalability model, where the main blockchain transactions and consensus mechanisms operate.
Layer 2 (Off-chain Layer): The off-chain layer in Ergo's scalability model, typically used for scaling solutions that reduce the burden on the main blockchain by moving certain operations off-chain.
Light Nodes: Nodes in the Ergo network that support light clients and allow for trustless contract execution on common devices.
Lightweight Clients: Clients that interact with the blockchain with minimal data and computational resources.
Liquidity: The ease with which assets or tokens can be bought or sold without affecting their market price.
Liquidity Provider: A liquidity provider is someone who deposits tokens into a liquidity pool. Liquidity providers take on price risk and are compensated with trading fees.
Liquidity Pool: A pool of funds locked in a smart contract that enables trading and liquidity for decentralized exchanges.
Logarithmic Space Mining: A feature allowing the existence of light miners who can bootstrap using block headers without downloading the entire blockchain, enhancing network scalability.
Long-term Collaboration: The potential for individuals who actively engage with the Ergo community to establish ongoing partnerships and collaborations with the Ergo Foundation.
Major Changes: Indicates substantial updates or additions that require setting up a local development environment for documentation changes.
Malware: Malicious software designed to disrupt, damage, or gain unauthorized access to computer systems.
Market Maker ('MM'): A participant in the financial market who provides liquidity by buying and selling assets.
Memory-Hard Mining Proof of Work: A PoW algorithm designed to be memory-intensive, ensuring decentralization.
Mempool (Memory Pool): it is a data structure that holds pending transactions in a blockchain network before they are confirmed.
Miner-Adjustable Parameters: Parameters that miners can modify to influence the network's scalability, including block size and transaction size, affecting throughput and computational load.
Minor Changes: Refers to small edits or updates that can be made directly through the GitHub interface, typically for minor corrections or improvements.
Mining: The process of obtaining ERG tokens by solving computational problems using hardware and electricity.
Mining Pool: A collective group of miners who combine their computational resources to increase the chances of earning cryptocurrency rewards.
Miners: Individuals or entities who validate transactions and add new blocks to the Ergo blockchain.
Miner Extracted Value (MEV): The total value miners can extract from a block using tactics like reordering and front-running.
Miner Fee: Fees that are rewarded to miners for confirming the transactions.
Mixing: A process that obscures the origin and destination of cryptocurrency transactions for increased privacy.
Multi-Stage UTXO Model: Ergo's extended UTXO model, detailed in a peer-reviewed paper, enables the implementation of Turing-complete smart contracts, offering advanced scripting capabilities.
Nascent Project: A project that is in its early stages of development and growth.
Native Asset: A cryptocurrency or digital token that is unique to a specific blockchain.
Network Fee: A fee paid by users to include their transactions in a blockchain network and incentivize miners or validators.
Non-Custodial Wallet: A cryptocurrency wallet where the user has full control (ownership) over their private keys and funds without relying on a third party.
Non-Interactive Proofs of Proof-of-Work (NIPoPoWs): A technology that allows users to make and verify transactions confidently with minimal data, making it accessible to any device.
Open Model: Ergo operates on an open model where contributions from the community are encouraged and highly regarded. This model emphasizes inclusivity and collaboration.
Open Source: Software or technology that is publicly accessible and can be freely examined, modified, and distributed.
Order: A transaction a user submits to a DeFi protocol.
Orderbook: An order book system is similar to what you will see on traditional centralized exchanges. It shows buyers and sellers with amounts and the value of bids on one table.
Output: When performing a swap, this is the range of expected output you will receive depending on slippage.
Payment Request: A formal request submitted by a developer who has completed a task or project, requesting payment for their work.
Permissionless: Refers to the philosophy that the Ergo protocol should be open and inclusive, allowing anyone to join the network and participate in the protocol without requiring preliminary actions
Phishing Scam: A fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information like usernames, passwords, and financial details by posing as a trustworthy entity.
Privacy: refers to the right to keep personal information and activities confidential and secure from unauthorized access or disclosure. In blockchain, privacy technologies protect user data and transaction details.
Privacy Tools: Features and technologies, like Sigma protocols and ErgoMixer, used to enhance user privacy.
Proof-of-stake (PoS): A consensus mechanism in which validators are chosen to create new blocks and secure a blockchain network based on the number of tokens they hold and "stake.”
Proof of Work (PoW): A consensus algorithm used by Ergo and many other blockchains, where miners compete to solve complex mathematical puzzles to validate transactions and create new blocks.
Proprietary IP: Intellectual property that is owned by a specific entity and not freely available to the public.
Raffle: A fundraising initiative where participants purchase tickets for a chance to win prizes.
Resource: Additional reading materials, articles, documentation, and videos related to Ergo's eUTXO model and its advantages.
Review: The process in which the Ergo team evaluates the work submitted by a developer to ensure it meets the specified criteria and quality standards.
Reward Allocation: The process of assigning bounties or rewards to contributors based on the quality and impact of their contributions.
Scalability: Another advantage of the UTXO model is its inherent support for parallel transaction processing, simplifying network scalability. It is also more compatible with stateless client solutions.
Scripting Language: A programming language used to specify the rules for spending cryptocurrency. ErgoScript is designed to support various features like ring signatures, atomic swaps, and more.
Security Audit: A comprehensive assessment conducted to evaluate the security of certain components or aspects of Ergo. The goal is to identify vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and potential risks in the system.
Seed Phrase: A set of words used to back up and restore a cryptocurrency wallet; it is crucial for wallet recovery.
Sharding: A scaling technique that divides the blockchain into smaller, parallel chains to increase throughput while maintaining security.
Shared Figma Graphic Space: A collaborative platform where community members can work together on visual content and design projects related to Ergo.
Sidechain: A separate blockchain connected to the main blockchain, allowing for different features and scalability.
Sigma Protocols: A set of cryptographic protocols forming the backbone of Ergo's smart contracts. They enable efficient zero-knowledge proofs, enhancing privacy and trustlessness.
SigCAN (Sigmanaut Candidate): An individual who has applied to the Sigmanauts Program and is in the initial stage of becoming a Sigmanaut, where they can showcase their skills and contributions.
Sigma-Protocols: Efficient zero-knowledge proofs used in Ergo for advanced privacy options.
Sigmanaut Programme: A program aimed at transitioning responsibilities from the Ergo Foundation to the Ergo community.
Sigmanauts: Members of the Ergo community who actively participate and contribute to the platform's growth and development.
Smart Contracts: Self-executing contracts with the terms of the agreement directly written into code. Ergo's eUTXO model allows for the creation and execution of smart contracts, enabling complex operations securely and efficiently.
Soft-Fork: An upgrade that requires some nodes to update but is backward compatible.
Staking: The act of holding and locking up cryptocurrency tokens in a wallet to support network operations and earn rewards.
State Bloat Management: Strategies to address the growth of blockchain state size (state bloat), which can impact scalability, including persistent updatable storage and a Storage Rent Fee to reduce network pollution.
Storage Rent: A mechanism that requires users to pay for the storage their data occupies on the Ergo network, providing miners with a consistent income stream.
Submit a Pull Request: The process of proposing and sharing your documentation changes with the maintainers by creating a pull request on GitHub.
Technical Infrastructure: The underlying technology and architecture that supports Ergo's blockchain and ecosystem.
Telegram: A messaging service where community members engage in discussions and collaborate on various aspects of Ergo and projects on Ergo
Tokens: digital assets that exist and function within the frameworks of an existing blockchain network rather than having their own separate blockchain.
Tokenomics: The study of the economic aspects of cryptocurrency tokens, including their distribution, circulation, and usage.
Tor (The Onion Router): A network that enables anonymous communication and web browsing by routing internet traffic through a series of servers and relays.
Transaction: An exchange of data or value between participants on a blockchain network, typically involves the transfer of cryptocurrency.
Transaction Size: The size limit for transactions in the mempool, which miners can adjust to balance transaction processing capacity and the computational load on nodes.
Transparency Report: A document that provides a comprehensive overview of financial activities and expenditures, ensuring openness and accountability.
Treasury: The funds set aside by the Ergo Foundation to support the growth and development of the Ergo ecosystem.
Turing-Complete: A property of a computational system that can simulate a Turing machine, indicating that it can perform any computation that a Turing machine can, given enough resources.
TVL (Total Value Locked): a measure of the total funds (cryptocurrency) locked in a specific protocol or smart contract in the DeFi ecosystem.
Two Categories of Participation: The Growth and Creative categories within the Sigmanauts Program, each catering to different strengths and skills of community members.
UI Fee: Fees that the UI provider is rewarded with.
UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output) Model: A foundational concept in blockchain technology where transactions create outputs, which can later be used as inputs in new transactions. UTXOs represent ownership of cryptocurrency and are spent entirely in each transaction.
Validator: A participant in a blockchain network responsible for validating transactions and maintaining the integrity of the network.
Venture Capitalist (VC): An investor or firm that provides capital to startups and small businesses, usually in exchange for an allocation of the project's tokens at a significantly lower price.
VPN (Virtual Private Network): A service that masks your IP address and encrypts internet connections to enhance online privacy and security.
Zero-Knowledge Proofs: Cryptographic methods that allow one party to prove the truth of a statement to another party without revealing any additional information. Ergo uses zero-knowledge proofs for privacy and security.
ZK-rollup: A layer 2 scaling solution that aggregates multiple transactions into a single proof, enabling faster and more scalable blockchain transactions while maintaining security and decentralization.