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Project Catalyst

Morgan
CatalystVoltaire+ 3
Project Catalyst is a decentralized innovation fund for Cardano projects set up in 2020. Within two years, 30,000 members had set hundreds of projects underway with a treasury worth $1 billion ada. The project marked the start of Cardano’s Voltaire phase and is one of the world’s largest examples of on-chain governance.
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Plutus

Morgan
ProgrammingPlutus+ 2
A programming language and a set of tools for writing and testing smart contracts to be used on Cardano. Plutus is based on Haskell and provides a safe, full-stack programming environment.
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Ouroboros Praos

Olga Hryniuk
OuroborosConsensus+ 1
This version of Ouroboros was deployed in August 2020. Praos introduced decentralized block production by stake pools. It also implemented a novel incentive mechanism for participating in block production and introduced mechanisms to defend against Sybil attacks.
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Ouroboros Crypsinous

Olga Hryniuk
OuroborosConsensus+ 1
The Crypsinous version of Ouroboros aims to provide security against adaptive attacks and introduces secure encryption relying on Snarks. Crypsinous is currently not planned for deployment on Cardano.
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Ouroboros Classic

Olga Hryniuk
OuroborosConsensus+ 1
A version of Ouroboros deployed on Cardano in December 2017. It established the foundation for an energy-efficient, proof-of-stake consensus protocol.
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Ouroboros Chronos

Olga Hryniuk
OuroborosConsensus+ 1
A version of Ouroboros designed to use a system clock based on blockchain technology. This removes the potential for attacks on blockchains that rely on external time sources such as the internet’s Network Time Protocol.
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Ouroboros BFT

Olga Hryniuk
OuroborosConsensus+ 1
A version of Ouroboros deployed in May 2020 to prepare Cardano for decentralization as part of the Shelley development phase.
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Oracle

Olga Hryniuk
Smart Contracts
A service to transfer information from the real world to smart contracts. The oracle fetches and authenticates live data such as exchange rates and weather conditions to provide this data for smart contracts.
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Transaction (tx)

Morgan
TransactionGlossary
The process of sending or receiving assets on the blockchain.
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Networking

Olga Hryniuk
NetworkingNode+ 2
A technical infrastructure linking Cardano nodes in one unified system to process transactions. Stake pool operators run Cardano nodes that communicate with other nodes to share information about new blocks and transactions. This includes three processes: each operator runs a block-producing node (the node that verifies and creates a block) and two relay nod...
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Native tokens

Olga Hryniuk
Native tokensCryptocurrency+ 1
Native tokens is the feature that lets users create their own tokens on Cardano and these interact with the blockchain just like ada. Tokens can be fungible (interchangeable) or non-fungible (unique), and act as payment units, rewards, trading assets, or information holders. There is no need to create smart contracts to handle native tokens, which removes a ...
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Multi-asset

Olga Hryniuk
Native tokensCryptocurrency+ 1
Cardano can support more than one asset type, including user-defined tokens.
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UTXO Alliance

Morgan
UTXO AllianceUTXO+ 3
A group formed to encourage collaboration on making the unspent transaction output (UTXO) model more scalable, secure, and interoperable. Formed by Input Output Global, Ergo, Nervos, Komodo, and Topl.
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Market capitalization

Olga Hryniuk
blockchainCryptocurrency
A measure used by crypto exchanges to rank coins. The ‘market cap’ is calculated by multiplying the number of coins in circulation by the coin price on the day.
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Mainnet

Olga Hryniuk
Mainnetblockchain
The live blockchain. Cardano upgrades are assessed on a testnet before being released on the mainnet.
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Voltaire

Morgan
VoltaireGovernance+ 1
The fifth phase of Cardano development in which treasury and governance capabilities are being delivered.
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Layer 2

Olga Hryniuk
Scalabilityblockchain
An additional, off-chain protocol that works on top of the layer 1 blockchain. Parties can securely transfer funds from the blockchain into an off-chain protocol, settle transactions in this protocol independently of the underlying chain, and safely transfer funds back to the underlying chain as needed. Layer 2 protocols improve overall throughput and scalab...
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Layer 1

Olga Hryniuk
Scalabilityblockchain
The main blockchain ledger that operates on the underlying consensus protocol. This layer includes protocol parameters that control capabilities such as scalability and throughput.
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Wallet

Morgan
WalletGlossary+ 1
Software to manage cryptocurrency balances and make transactions. ‘Light’ wallets for Cardano such as Yoroi are designed for fast, easy access via browser or on a mobile phone; full node wallets such as Daedalus are designed for desktops. While they require a high-spec machine and regular syncing, they are the most secure (non-hardware) wallet and help maint...
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