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Questions tagged [terminology]

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Questions concerning terminology, jargon, abbreviations, acronyms and phrases that are essential to the cryptocurrency community.

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Why is "regtest" called "regtest"?

Bitcoin "regtest" is for when you want to run a local version of Bitcoin where the state is only shared within a small community, whereas both "mainnet" and "testnet" are ...
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33 views

What is difference between Lightning Wallet and Lightning Node?

I am confused with the terminology of lightning node vs and wallet, as I see that each individual can run its own wallet like eclair so does that mean the person running a wallet is also running a ...
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1answer
57 views

What does the abbreviation "HTLC" stand for?

I noticed a discrepancy in what various sources state the abbreviation HTLC is short for. It is... "Hashed Timelock Contract" according to the Lightning Network Paper "Hashed Time ...
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1answer
56 views

How do difficulty, hashrate, and network hashrate fit together?

I understand that there are multiple terms for the idea of how hard it is to successfully mine BTC. The terms I have seen are "difficulty", "network hashrate" and "hashrate&...
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1answer
159 views

How can I efficiently search the bitcoin-dev mailing list for discussion of a specific term?

How can I efficiently search the bitcoin-dev mailing list for discussion on a specific term e.g. deprecating BIP37 support? This question was asked by pinheadmz on IRC.
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1answer
119 views

Does Bitcoin Core have/need an archive mode?

Similar to Ethereum's Archive Node: Stores everything kept in the full node and builds an archive of historical states. Needed if you want to query something like an account balance at block #4,000,...
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2answers
71 views

What is the control block in Taproot?

What is the definition of "control block" in the context of Taproot? It is referred to in standard.cpp in the Bitcoin Core repo and in BIP 341.
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2answers
69 views

Isn't burning bitcoins a kind of fraud?

BitCoin burning is the process by which digital currency miners and developers can remove bitcoins from circulation, thereby slowing down inflation rates or reducing the total circulating supply of ...
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1answer
78 views

What does "buy the dip" mean?

I keep hearing "buy the dip" constantly with Bitcoin people/comments. I get that it means that you should buy Bitcoin while the price is temporarily low, but what do they mean by it? Do they ...
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1answer
135 views

What exactly is a "blockchain developer"?

Hello everyone. This isn't specifically a bitcoin thread but due to recent events I think it is important that people get an understanding of the real Elon Musk as I have no doubt he will try and ...
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1answer
190 views

What is the difference between key aggregation and signature aggregation?

What is the difference between key aggregation (e.g. MuSig) and signature aggregation? Many people (including myself) have in the past used these terms interchangeably. Why is it important to be ...
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23 views

Please help me with this bitcoin sentence

The sentence (I need to add underneath the main paragraph) that I am unhappy with is: If you are not awaiting any newly broadcasted deposits this message may not apply to you. I am unhappy with my ...
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27 views

I need help figuring out what happened with my BFGminer overnight

I'm a newbie to crypto and was experimenting with usb erupters because I was getting into ETH mining with my rig and wanted to test it on something less risky. I ran ck pool for my USB erupter just to ...
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1answer
29 views

What exactly is sol/s as far as a hash rate is concerned? [closed]

What is sol/s? Is it the same as MH/s? Please don't answer it depends, because that makes no sense! I have already tried googling this question but to no avail.
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1answer
453 views

What does PSBT stand for?

What is PSBT? What does it stand for? bitcoin-qt has menu items "Load PSBT from file…" and "Load PSBT from clipboard…"; the dialog box says the file format is "Partially ...
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1answer
1k views

Why is coinbase mentioned in a BIP?

I thought that BIPs were similar to Pythons PIPs. So I was confused when I read BIP 34 mentioning coinbase explicitly. The author, Gavin Andresen, seems not to have a connection to coinbase. I thought ...
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2answers
60 views

Is this the ledger?

Lots of articles about bitcoin say that anyone can see all the transactions that have ever taken place, and they call that "the ledger." But none of those articles give a link for where to ...
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1answer
161 views

BTC Treasure hunt

Alright, I’m new to Bitcoin/Crypto, and this might be a long story but worth it. My life long friend had a $50 Visa gift card back in 2009-2011. His friends were over the house one day and mentioned ...
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1answer
83 views

What is the difference between Consensus and Distributed Consensus?

This is more of a clarification than as a question. Since I didn't have the rep to post a comment in this question, I'm putting this itself as a question. Sources I've referred till now: A ...
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1answer
1k views

What is the difference between "native segwit" and "bech32"?

People seem to be using "native segwit" and "bech32" interchangeably. Are they really the same thing?
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1answer
107 views

What is a stale blockchain tip? Is it a blockchain tip missing the latest mined block?

Stale blocks and orphaned blocks are defined here. What is a stale blockchain tip? Is it a blockchain tip missing the latest mined block? Or is it a blockchain with a stale block (as defined in that ...
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1answer
121 views

How do we know which soft-forks were implemented using User-Activated Soft Fork or Miner-Activated Soft Fork?

This seems to be the most common definition When a majority of miners upgrade to enforce new rules, it is called a miner-activated soft fork (MASF). When full nodes coordinate to enforce new rules, ...
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1answer
500 views

Sidechain vs layer 2

I want to know what's the difference between "sidechain" and "layer 2". Is it the same thing ? Thanks
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1answer
40 views

What do "support" and "resistance" mean?

I'm still very much a newbie to all this and would like to get some help.
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39 views

what is referred as coin in bitcoin network?

I gathered information about bitcoin from various resources. All those resources said that when a transaction is done, the transaction get added to a block. So when Alice send 2 btc to Bob, network ...
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1answer
635 views

Redeem script. script hash, witness script and witness program

I have a little confusion about naming in Bitcoin. Redeem script is the conditions that will be satisfy. For example P2PKH inside P2SH OP_DUP OP_HASH160 <PubKHash> OP_EQUALVERIFY OP_CHECKSIG ...
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1answer
4k views

What does mBtc mean [duplicate]

I’m using Electrum 3.3.8 and I recently made a sale and got 0.83 mBTC. I’ve tried to convert the mBTC to USD. it says i have $5000+ but I was selling the product for only $6
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1answer
493 views

What is an extended fingerprint (xfp) and how does it differ from an xpub?

Coldcard requires the xfps of all of its cosigners to be able to verify and sign multisig transactions. Providing the coldcard with just the xpubs is not enough, which I believe to mean that the xfp ...
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3answers
193 views

Ironically, encryption is not an important part of bitcoin (?)

The above statement is taken out of a book which I've been reading: Mastering Bitcoin 2nd Edition. ...as its communications and transaction data are not encrypted and do not need to be encrypted ...
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3answers
106 views

What is "consensus"?

I’m really struggling to get my head around a particular piece of lingo in the bitcoin/blockchain space, and would really appreciate if someone was able to give a bit of clarity. I have been doing a ...
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1answer
490 views

what is measured in units of sat/kw?

Whilst learning about bitcoin & lightning fees I have encountered the abbreviation sat/kw a few times, most recently here: Why can’t lightning tx’s be signed with sighash single to allow for fee ...
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0answers
46 views

How to detect a consensus is BFT or not? [closed]

Can we divide consensus algorithms into BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerant) and non-BFT ? If so, How to detect a consensus is BFT or non-BFT ? Is there any non-BFT consensus algorithm example ?
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1answer
319 views

"Fork choice rule" : A general term? or a specific algorithm?

Is "Fork choice rule" a general term including all the algorithms used for choosing a branch among other branches in a fork (including longest chain rule in Bitcoin etc) ? Or is it a specific ...
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2answers
1k views

What is a txn? How can it be invalid?

I read this in a IRC exchange: verifies your txns against a random node that you don't control. if for some reason that node went rogue, you might have accepted an invalid txn What is a txn?
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1answer
49 views

What does "Green address verification" mean in the context of transaction validation?

I am only new to Bitcoin and I would like to know what a "Green address verification" is. I have an Electrum wallet ver 3.3.6 and I think the term is being used in the context of faster transactions ...
3
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1answer
175 views

Why do we need to chain the blocks (creating blockchain) in a permissioned blockchain?

The main question is: What does "chaining block" mean in a permissioned blockchain? OR in any blockchain network in which creating a new block does NOT need consuming resources/energy ? (even in the ...
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2answers
585 views

What is the unit of time_lock_delta in LND?

LND has a configuration setting called time_lock_delta with the description "The required timelock delta for HTLCs forwarded over the channel.". I assume this to refer to some measure of time, but ...
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3answers
82 views

What does channel num_updates mean?

Some LND wallets provide a channel's "Number of Updates". Here's an example from Zap Desktop: The LND gRPC API Channel Reference cites a property called num_updates. The description of this field is ...
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1answer
70 views

Required conditions to be selected as intermediary node (Payment Service Provider) in Lightning Network?

I bring up some important questions about terminology of the Lightning Network and how to select the intermediary node as the Payment Service Provider in a routing channel: The following video (Link ...
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1answer
94 views

"stable-coins": A formal definition?

In crypto-currency news, we might heard about term of "stable-coins". Can we define a stable-coin as follows: A crypto-currency that is pegged to a fiat / formal currency to minimize the ...
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1answer
43 views

Is there any "permissionless" blockchain "without a native coin"?

We may certainly say that a "permissioned" blockchain cannot have a native coin (or cryptocurreny) since in permissioned blockchain we need a permission to be eligible to participate for transactions ...
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1answer
190 views

If Bitcoin addresses are a single-use token, how several transactions belong to a single address? (Edited)

While in Bitcoin wiki (Link to the page) is explicitly mentioned: "A Bitcoin address is a single-use token." We therefore expect that every address would be belonged to only a single transaction ...
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1answer
226 views

How to fund a bidirectional channel in Lightning Network by two participants? (Edited)

I brought up a similar question here: (Link to question) for a payment channel (in general case and without specifying which payment channel implementation.) Since this funding channels depends on the ...
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1answer
75 views

meaning of "full node" in Lightning Network?

According to this answer: (Link to answer), "A 'full node' refers to a fully validating node on the Bitcoin network, meaning the node validates each block and transaction that happens on the ...
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1answer
211 views

Lightning Network: asymmetry in the information tracked by each participant?

In following paper, written by Christian Decker et al., there is a paragraph that is not clear to me. eltoo: A Simple Layer2 Protocol for Bitcoin "The central idea of Lightning is to invalidate ...
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1answer
71 views

Implementing an "ad-hoc-like network of payment channels" on top of Bitcoin network?

If we define an ad-hoc network as follows: "An ad hoc network is a network that is composed of individual devices communicating with each other directly." [1] ad-hoc networks do not rely on ...
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1answer
108 views

What is a "half" in Bitcoin?

I saw in an article something about a Bitcoin algorithm half in 2020. What exactly is this? I have tried looking this up but I couldn't find anything that told me what it was only a website counting ...
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1answer
91 views

In what way does Spectre have "weak" liveness?

In his article The Spectre Protocol, Aviv Zohar, one of Spectre's authors, mentions that Spectre has weak liveness. Why does he mention that Spectre has "weak" liveness, and how would "strong liveness"...
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2answers
832 views

Exact definition of "Liveness" and "Safety" properties in a consensus?

Two main properties of a consensus are "Liveness" and "Safety". What are the exact and precised definition of "Liveness" and "Safety" properties in a consensus ? Are the following definitions ...
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1answer
832 views

What is meant by transaction 'pinning'?

What is meant by the term 'transaction pinning'?

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