Plain Terms
Glossary: PILLAR in Plain Language
This glossary translates the protocol’s technical terms into non-technical language, using how PILLAR uses each term in practice.
Glossary
- Protocol
- A formal set of transparent rules and software logic that coordinates settlement, proof generation, and state updates across sovereign jurisdictions.
- Share
- The base accounting unit in PILLAR. Every displayed value maps to one or more shares, which are the real units tracked by the ledger.
- Fixed Supply
- The hard cap on all shares (`SHARE_SUPPLY_MAX`). The supply total is a public constant and is not expandable by routine operation.
- Mint
- Issuance of shares from the reserve pool. Minting only happens through protocol rules and published quotas.
- Burn
- Permanent removal of shares from circulation, typically when users redeem and receive backing assets.
- Custodian
- An approved party that holds backing assets under policy controls and release conditions set outside protocol core logic.
- Custody
- The guardrails around who can hold, move, or release backing assets and under what circumstances.
- Country Node
- A sovereign participant role in finality and governance. These nodes build and sign batch commitments under diversity thresholds.
- Processing Node
- A role focused on distribution and storage tasks, including fragment transport and availability reconstruction support.
- Data Availability
- The guarantee that batch data is still reconstructable even if some nodes are offline, enabled by erasure coding and sampling.
- Epoch
- A fixed time window in which the protocol finalizes one batch of commitments and signatures.
- Finality
- The point where a batch is finalized and can no longer be treated as tentative by protocol rules.
- Sovereign Diversity
- A minimum number of distinct countries required in the finality path so the system is not controlled by one regional cluster.
- Value per Share (VPS)
- The published conversion value used when redemption requests are evaluated.
- Redemption Window
- A queued cycle during which redemption requests are processed in order and priced using published VPS values.
- FIFO Queue
- First-In, First-Out order for redemptions so older requests are processed before newer ones.
- Reserve Pool
- The source bucket from which shares can move into circulation according to unlock and emission rules.
- Circulating Supply
- Shares currently available in the active system, excluding burned shares and unused reserve shares.
- Usage Fee
- A fee that scales with assigned amount and elapsed time using published time-based parameters.
- Base Transaction Fee
- The minimum per-transfer charge that also protects against spam-level activity.
- Attestation
- A proof signal from nodes confirming receipt and availability conditions before a batch progresses.
- Slashing
- A reduction in participation rights or rewards when a node misses obligations or submits incorrect reports.
- Governance
- Publicly governed processes for changing non-immutable parameters with delay, review windows, and publication.
- Immutable Parameters
- A bounded set of constants that cannot be altered through ordinary upgrades and define monetary safety.
- Upgrade Guardrails
- The constraints, delays, and checkpoints that prevent unsafe or abrupt protocol changes.
- Country Tax Cap
- A published maximum optional tax input per country path to keep local policy friction transparent.
- Proof Root
- A compressed cryptographic digest (such as a Merkle root) representing batch commitments.