Glossary

Amaroo’s terms, one line each. Where the whitepaper uses a different word or sense, a note says so.

anchoring: How a dapp-chain can be tied to Amaroo’s network: the simplex records one sequence of the dapp-chain’s headers.
Whitepaper: “anchoring” there means recording a hash of some data in another chain’s transactions (section 3.4.2, footnote, p. 45); the paper calls recorded dapp-chain headers “header-transactions” (section 3.4, p. 40).
base pair: The asset every book is priced against: ROO.
block header: A block’s summary: it commits to every transaction in the block and links to the block before it.
book: An order book: the orders resting to buy and sell one coin against ROO. Each connected coin’s book is chain state on the simplex chain that images that coin’s chain.
clearing price: The one price a book matches at in each block: the price at which the most volume can trade. Everyone matched in that block gets it.
collateral: ROO a seller locks with an order on the SDEX. It comes back once the seller’s payment is proven; if the seller never pays, the buyers share it.
configuration: One of Ultra Terminum’s ways to arrange chains: the simplex alone, the simplex with dapp-chains, deeper nesting, and tiling, a research direction.
Whitepaper: “scaling configurations”, named UT1, UT2, UT3 and UTℵ (abstract, p. 1); its analysis of how far each scales is theoretical.
confirmation depth: The number of blocks that must bury a payment on its chain before Amaroo acts on a proof of it, set for each chain.
connected: Joined to Amaroo by imaging. A connected chain is a foreign chain that Amaroo’s chains image, and a connected coin is that chain’s coin. Amaroo’s own chains are simplex chains, and dapp-chains are anchored, not connected.
conversion: How a chain counts another chain’s work in its own units, so that its fork rule can compare the two.
Whitepaper: sections 2.3-2.5 (pp. 18-34). Amaroo’s chains share one token, ROO, which the paper calls a “single root token” context (section 2.4.1, p. 26).
dapp-chain: An application chain with its own rules, which can be anchored to Amaroo’s network. A dapp-chain runs the consensus its builders choose, and is as secure as that consensus; its headers can be imaged onto the simplex. The first dapp-chains’ consensus: Dapp-chains.
Whitepaper: introduced in section 3.4 (p. 40) as Ultra Terminum’s second configuration, UT2.
DEX infrastructure: The exchange built into Amaroo’s protocol: the order books, the Settlement DEX (SDEX) and the OTC path.
escrow: Value held by the protocol until a trade resolves.
execution: Running a chain’s transactions and updating its state.
foreign chain: A chain outside Amaroo’s network, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum. Amaroo images foreign chains one way; it doesn’t reflect them.
Whitepaper: it calls these “external chains” (section 4.13, p. 104). In its section 4.12 (pp. 98-101), “foreign chain” means another chain inside the simplex.
fork rule: How a chain picks between competing histories, by comparing the work behind each.
home chain: The chain an asset lives on. SDEX trades settle on the assets’ home chains.
image: To record and check another chain’s block headers inside your own blocks. Imaging runs one way, and the imaged chain changes nothing.
Whitepaper: its noun for the record is “projection”; “imaging” is making one (section 2, p. 9).
integrated chain: A foreign chain Amaroo has built an integration for, adopting that chain’s consensus rules and block data so that proofs can be checked against it.
layer 1: A base network with consensus of its own, not built on top of another chain. Amaroo is a layer 1.
Whitepaper: its term is “base-chain”, a chain with no parent, and it finds “layer” terms too coarse for Ultra Terminum (section 5.1, p. 105).
light client: Software that uses a network by checking block headers and proofs instead of downloading every block, light enough for a phone.
maker: On the OTC path, the party who escrows ROO and offers it, priced off the book with a premium it sets.
marker: Data in the seller’s payment on the foreign chain that ties the payment to one match on Amaroo, so that it counts for that match only.
miner: A node that builds blocks on Amaroo’s simplex chains and adds its hash power to the network.
Whitepaper: “miner” there is any block producer, “in an inclusive sense” (section 2, p. 9).
mutual reflection: When two chains each record the other’s headers and count the other’s work.
non-mining node: A node that helps gossip messages across the network without building blocks.
OTC path: A trade taken directly from a maker instead of off a book: the maker escrows ROO, the taker pays on another chain, and a proof of that payment releases the ROO. It needs no collateral, and is designed so that a first trade needs no ROO.
premium: The adjustment an OTC maker sets on the book’s price when offering ROO directly.
Proof of Authority: Consensus in which a known set of operators produce blocks.
proof of payment: A proof, checked against a foreign chain’s imaged headers, that a payment happened on that chain and is buried at its confirmation depth.
Proof of Reflection: A consensus technique: a chain counts the work of other chains that record its history, designed so that attacking it means attacking them too.
Whitepaper: “The consensus technique whereby a blockchain becomes more difficult to attack by including work done by reflecting blockchains in its fork rule.” (section 2.2.4, p. 15). The paper also calls the proof itself “a proof of reflection” (section 2.2.3, p. 12).
proof of reserve: A proof, checked the same way, of the balance at addresses a holder names on that chain.
Proof of Stake: Consensus in which validators stake tokens they can lose if they cheat.
Proof of Work: Consensus in which block producers spend computing power to build blocks.
reflection: When a chain counts the work of another chain that records its headers, it is reflected in that chain.
Whitepaper: section 2.2.4, p. 14. One step earlier, the paper also says a chain “is reflected” once it proves its history is recorded in another chain (section 2.2.3, p. 12).
ROO: The network’s token. It pays fees, every order book is priced against it, and it is locked as collateral and escrow while trades settle.
SDEX: The Settlement DEX: orders rest on chain in each coin’s book, every block matches at one clearing price, and trades settle on the chains the assets live on, with no custodian.
simplex: A network of chains in which every chain reflects every other. Amaroo’s simplex carries the order books.
simplex chain: One of Amaroo’s own chains. Each reflects every other chain in the simplex.
Whitepaper: hyphenated, “simplex-chain” (section 3.2, p. 38).
tiling: A research direction: joining simplexes into a larger network, with neighboring simplexes reflecting each other.
Whitepaper: “simplex tiling”, its UTℵ configuration (section 6, p. 115).
timeout: The deadline for a matched seller to pay. If it passes unpaid, the buyers get their ROO back, plus a share of the seller’s collateral.
Ultra Terminum: Amaroo’s consensus strategy: it applies Proof of Reflection across a whole network of chains. It is proof-agnostic; Amaroo’s simplex chains use Proof of Work.
wave: The rhythm of confirmations across the network: the chains’ blocks are offset in time, and each chain counts the others’ work, so confirmations are designed to arrive far more often than any one chain’s blocks.
Whitepaper: not its term; section 4.7 (p. 65) treats confirmation timing, in theory.
weight: What a fork rule compares: the work behind a chain’s blocks, summed. Under Proof of Reflection it also counts the converted work of the blocks that reflect the chain.
Whitepaper: “chain-weight”, the sum of “block-weights” (section 2.3, p. 18).

How Amaroo works