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Glossary

Validating​

Creation of new blocks on the Mavryk blockchain by participants known as validators , who are given a reward for each block that they validate. A validator may also be referred to as a delegate.

Block​

A set of operations for validation. A block contains, besides operations, information such as the current block number, information about the previous block, and also the time at which it was validated.

Cycle​

Period of time during which 16,384 blocks are created on the Mavryk blockchain. Also used as a unit of time. It corresponds to roughly 2 days, 20 hours, and 16 minutes (based on 15 seconds per block created if no validator has missed their validating slots).

Delegation​

Every Mav holder can transfer the validating and voting rights associated with their Mav to a validator. The holder always retains control of their funds and may change delegate at any time.

Fitness​

Score representing the quality of the chain up to a given block.

Node​

A Mavryk node is a peer (a machine) on the peer-to-peer network. It keeps a copy of the current state and propagates the blocks validated and operations performed to the other peers. A node is not necessarily a validator, but a validator is always associated with one or more nodes. Nodes are running in one of the following three modes, with respect to how they keep the chain history:

  • In archive mode, they keep the whole history of the chain.
  • In rolling mode, they keep the minimum data required to operate the chain, with the oldest information being deleted regularly.
  • In full mode (the default mode), they keep all the information in a rolling mode, plus the minimum data required to reconstitute the entire chain from the genesis block. Thus, the full mode combines elements of the archive and rolling modes.

Pre-attestation / Attestation​

In addition to creating new blocks, validators may attest blocks made by other validators. They are known as pre-attestations (1st approval phase) and attestations (2nd approval phase) of a block.

Roll​

An amount of mav (e.g. 6000ṁ) serving as a minimal amount for a delegate to have validating and voting rights in a cycle. However since Ithaca and Jakarta amendment, rolls are not used anymore as a unit for validating or voting rights, these are based on the actual, non-approximated stake.

Round​

A period of time (made up of 3 phases) during which a given validator (selected to produce a block) proposes a block, obtains pre-attestations, and then attestations. If, for certain reasons it fails, we go to another round, and so on.

Stake​

To have the right to be recognized as a validator in a network, a Mav holder must possess at least one roll, in their staking balance (own balance + delegated balance). Voting rights are also indexed to the staking balance.

Slot​

A slot is an opportunity available for a block creation or an attestation: each cycle has 16,384 validating slots and 2,097,152 attestation slots. At the start of each cycle, the protocol assigns a list of validators to each slot using a uniform law weighted by staking balance. The first validator on the list is tasked with validating or attesting as appropriate. If they don't, the next validator is given the task, etc.