Glossary
The words to understand decentralization.

The words to understand

Each key term has its simple definition and technical explanation. Goal: 50+ entries, under permanent construction.

The glossary is the central system of digirelik.org: each term is linked to others through cross-references. Two reading levels: simple definition + technical explanation.

UTXO

Unspent Transaction Output — the 'unspent coins' in the transaction model of DigiByte and Bitcoin.

Hash

Unique and irreversible digital fingerprint of content. Foundation of blockchain.

CID

Content Identifier — the unique address of a file on IPFS, based on its content.

OP_RETURN

Arbitrary data field in a blockchain transaction, used to anchor proofs.

Seed phrase

A set of 12 or 24 words to restore a wallet. Must be protected at all costs.

DigiAsset

DigiByte's native NFT standard. Allows creating digital assets directly on-chain.

Pinning

Action of keeping a file on IPFS by marking it as important to prevent deletion.

Wallet

Digital wallet that stores your private keys and allows interaction with the blockchain.

Private key

Unique secret code proving ownership of your assets. Must never be shared.

Decentralization

Distribution of power and data across a network without a single central authority.

SegWit

Segregated Witness — optimization separating signatures from transaction data, reducing block size.

Proof of Work

Consensus mechanism where miners solve calculations to validate blocks. Used by DigiByte with 5 algorithms.

Howey Test

US legal criterion (SEC) to determine if an asset is a 'security' subject to regulation.

MiCA

Markets in Crypto-Assets — European regulation governing crypto-assets, progressively entered into force since 2024.

Tokenization

Process of converting a real asset (real estate, art) into a digital token on a blockchain.

Gateway

HTTP access point to the IPFS network, allowing IPFS files to be viewed from a regular browser.

Multi-algo

Mining system using multiple algorithms simultaneously. DigiByte uses 5 to maximize decentralization.

DigiShield

Real-time difficulty adjustment algorithm created by DigiByte and adopted by other blockchains.

Merkle tree

Tree data structure that efficiently verifies the integrity of large amounts of data.

Smart contract

Self-executing program stored on the blockchain. Executes programmed conditions without intermediary.