Glossary: blockchain words in plain English

Plain-English meanings of the words used on Dznye Chain: address, block, validator, token, gas, nonce, treasury, contract, channel and more.

Every word you will meet on Dznye Chain, explained simply. They are in alphabetical order.

Account: What holds your coins and tokens. It is named by an address, and controlled by one or more keys.
Address: A 64-letter-and-number code that names an account. It is safe to share. You can also take a name.
Agent key: A limited key for an app, bot or AI agent. It can send only one kind of token, up to a total, until a date, and nothing else.
Archive: The whole chain saved as plain files, so anyone can keep a copy anywhere and rebuild the chain from it.
Authority (issuing key): The one key that can issue new DZY from the pools and pay out the treasury, in public and within strict limits. It can be set to need several people to agree.
Block: A page of the chain's record: a batch of payments, linked to the one before by a fingerprint. About one block a second when the chain is in use.
Blockchain: A record kept by many computers, in blocks chained together, that nobody can quietly change.
Bench: When a validator misses its turn 12 times in a row, it leaves the set until it asks to come back. It loses no stake.
Payment channel: A way for two people to pay each other instantly and for free by agreeing balances between them, and settling on the chain once.
Contract: A small program on the chain that holds coins and follows its own rules. Nobody can change its code.
Co-signature: An extra signature, from another key, agreeing to the same transaction. Needed by accounts that require several keys.
Decimals: How small a piece of a coin or token can be. DZY has 6, so the smallest piece is 0.000001.
Device key: A key for one device (phone, laptop) on a shared account.
DZY: The chain's own coin. 12,000,000 in total, never destroyed.
Event: A message a contract announces ("sold to …") that apps can read. Each contract keeps its newest 50.
Fee: A tiny charge, 0.001 DZY, for each action. Half goes to the validator that made the block and half to the treasury.
Follower: A computer that copies and checks every block but holds no key and takes no part in agreement. Anyone can run one.
Gas: The measure of how much work a contract call does. A call states its limit, so no call can run for ever.
Genesis: The first block's settings: the chain's name, its starting validators and its fee. Its fingerprint proves a node is on the right chain.
Guardian: A person or service you trust to help you recover an account. They can only ask for a new key to be added, and it waits 3 days so you can cancel it.
Key: A secret that signs your actions. Whoever holds it controls the account. Back it up and never share it.
Market: Where offers to swap one token for another are listed and taken.
Mint: To create new units of a token. Only the token's maker can, and only up to any limit set.
Several keys (multi-signature): A rule that an account needs, for example, 2 of 3 keys to agree before anything moves.
Name: A short handle like @alex for an address. 3 to 20 small letters, digits or dashes; 0.1 DZY.
Node: A computer running the chain's software.
Nonce: A counter in every transaction that goes up by one each time, so no transaction can be repeated.
Hash lock: Coins held by the chain until someone shows a secret (whose fingerprint is the lock code) before a time, or given back after it. The same lock on another chain makes a swap with no bridge. See swap with other chains.
Offer: A listed swap: "I give this, I want that". It can be taken in full or in part, at its price, with both sides moving at once, and it can have an end time.
Pay link: A link (or QR code) that asks for a payment: who to pay, how much, what for. See pay links and receipts.
Pool: One of five fixed shares of the 12,000,000 DZY, each released on its own timetable.
Signature: Proof that the owner of a key approved exactly this action. Changing anything afterwards breaks it.
Simulate: To try a transaction on a copy of the chain, to see what it would do and cost, without sending it.
Snapshot: A copy of the whole state at one block, so a new node can start there instead of replaying everything.
Stake: DZY a validator locks up as a promise to behave. It can be partly taken for cheating.
Token: Anything someone creates on the chain that others can hold and send: points, gold, tickets, items.
Treasury: A balance held by the chain itself that collects charges and penalties and pays them out again in public.
Validator: A computer that checks every payment and signs blocks, backed by locked-up DZY.
View: A contract function that can be asked for free and cannot change anything.
Wallet: The app in your browser that holds your key and signs for you: wallet.dznye.com.
Welcome fund: A fund that pays the fee for newcomers' everyday actions, within daily limits, so they can start with nothing.