Glossary
Mysticeti concepts
Short definitions for the protocol terms that appear throughout the simulator and tutorial.
Concepts worth knowing
- DAG
- A directed acyclic graph: blocks can reference several earlier blocks, but references never loop backward.
- Validator
- A node participating in consensus by proposing blocks and referencing blocks from earlier rounds.
- Round
- A protocol step in which validators have an opportunity to produce proposal blocks.
- Quorum
- Enough validator support to make a protocol rule meaningful despite some faulty or offline validators.
- Commit
- A decision that a slot's chosen block is finalized and its transactions can be ordered.
- Skip
- A decision to move past a slot when the available evidence is not strong enough to commit it.
- Equivocation
- A validator creating conflicting proposals for the same slot, usually treated as faulty behavior.
- Fast path
- The low-latency path where enough clean references arrive for the protocol to finalize quickly.