We know it might not be easy to navigate the blockchain – and Polkadot – world at first. We've come up with a glossary that helps everyone grasp some essential concepts regarding our project and the universe it lives in.
Attesteer is a service offered by Integritee. Relevant to users of Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), it aims to provide them with public auditability and an integrable service. It delivers the same proof as Intel SGX with the additional benefit of verifying the software running in the TEEs hasn't been modified. All the information delivered by the Attesteer is registered on Integritee's blockchain.
Though it is a broad term, it most often refers to a network of computers that uses a common protocol to maintain consensus on data in such a way that, after being sequenced, ensures it can't be modified by anyone dishonest user. It creates a trusted record using cryptography.
Polkadot allows parachains to source tokens for their parachain bids in a decentralised crowdloan.
Anyone who has registered a parachain can create a new crowdloan campaign for a slot by depositing a specified number of tokens. A campaign is configured as a range of slots (i.e. the duration of the parachain will bid for), a cap, and a duration. The duration can last over several auctions, meaning that the team will not need to restart the campaign just because they do not secure a slot on their first attempt.
More information here: Starting a Crowdloan Campaign
In blockchain, decentralization refers to the transfer of control and decision-making from a centralized entity (individual, organization, or group thereof) to a distributed network.
Decentralization ensures that the blockchain is not governed by an individual, group, or even the government. It is distributed in a systematic digital network so that nobody can meddle with the transactions. Other securities are managed by specific individuals that lead to a possibility of human error and bias.
The General Data Protection Regulation is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy in the European Union and the European Economic Area. The GDPR is an important component of EU privacy law and of human rights law, in particular Article 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
Blockchain governance refers to the formal structure that a blockchain ecosystem maintains to ensure the long-term integrity, transparency, and technical innovation of the project. An equitable governance structure involves different methodologies for voting on platform technology, strategy, updates, and rules. Blockchain governance typically includes both on-chain governance (like cryptographic algorithms that govern the network's computational architecture and consensus mechanism) and off-chain governance (like interpersonal decision-making that is not written in computer code).
Integritee is a parachain on Kusama and Polkadot, and the most scalable public blockchain solution for securely processing sensitive business or personal data.
Intel Software Guard Extensions is a set of security-related instruction codes that are built into some Intel central processing units. They allow user-level and operating system code to define private regions of memory, called enclaves, whose contents is inaccessible from the outside.
More information here: TEE 101: How Intel SGX works and why we use it at Integritee
Kusama is a scalable network of specialized blockchains built using Substrate and nearly the same codebase as Polkadot. The network is an experimental development environment for teams who want to move fast and innovate on Kusama, or prepare for deployment on Polkadot.
Kusama was founded in 2019 by Gavin Wood, founder of Polkadot and co-founder and former CTO of Ethereum.
More information here: Kusama Network
An oracle is a third-party information service provides that sends real-word data to a blockchain protocol. They are used to empower a blockchain network's protocol by securing, verifying, and strengthening the validity of data that said network receives and makes use of. There are different kinds of oracles and they can be centralized or decentralised. One of the most common uses for oracles is providing prices and data needed for financial mechanisms in the decentralised finance (DeFi) industry.
Cloud infrastructures, dedicated hosting, domain names, e-commerce, storage and archiving and virtual servers; OVH is a solution to develop IT projects. OVH offers a wide range of IT services to companies, and to individuals passionate about tech.
Website: OVH Cloud
Parachains are Polkadot-based independent blockchains that connect to and run off of the Polkadot network’s main Relay Chain Parachains can also be considered shards (with entire blockchains inside them). Parachains run in parallel to the Relay Chan and process transactions through parallelization by using sharding and exhibit extremely fast transaction times. Parachains are able to host their own blockchain-based tokenized assets within their independent network and control their own governance processes by paying to use a parachain slot by attaching to the main Relay Chain. Parachains also run on the Rococo Relay Chain on the Kusama network (both the Polkadot and Kusama networks have the capacity to operate 100 parachains via their corresponding Relay Chain).
Polkadot is a software that seeks to incentivize a global network of computers to operate a blockchain on top of which users can launch and operate their own blockchain.
Polkadot is a protocol that connects blockchains — allowing value and data to be sent across previously incompatible networks (Bitcoin and Ethereum, for example). It’s also designed to be fast and scalable. The DOT token is used for staking and governance; it can be bought or sold on Coinbase and other exchanges.
More information here: Polkadot Network & What is Polkadot? YT
The Relay Chain is the central chain that is used by the Polkadot network. Polkadot is a heterogeneous multi-chain and translation architecture that allows specialized blockchains and public blockchains to connect within a unified network.
The SDK – Software Development Kit is a tool created by Integritee. It enables developers to build high-performance, scalable, second-layer blockchain solutions quickly, easily, and optimized for any use case. You can add privacy features to your solution and freely decide which information to keep confidential and which to make public.
The SDK is relevant to any Substrate (the blockchain framework that underlies Polkadot) developer in need for low latencies, scalability and/or confidentiality. Both existing Substrate-based projects and developers who want to build a new application from scratch can leverage the benefits of our SDK. Substrate pallets, which are the pre-built modules of the Substrate framework, can be reused and instantiated inside an Integritee Sidechain with just a few lines of glue code. Develop your use case on Substrate, write your own pallets and integrate any of them seamlessly (without modification) into the Sidechain SDK to benefit from low latencies, scalability, and confidentiality.
The SDK provides all the groundwork for trusted execution by setting up Sidechain validators within TEEs, thereby enabling confidential state transition functions and greatly reducing the complexity of the consensus protocol. Sidechains connected to our Parachain benefit from a service called remote attestation, which delivers a public (i.e., verifiable by any third party) cryptographic proof of the TEEs’ and process’ integrity.
A sidechain is a separate blockchain network that connects to another blockchain – called a parent blockchain or mainnet – via a two-way peg.
The Polkadot platform offers highly competitive scalability balanced with security and flexibility. However, some use cases require transaction privacy, high transaction throughput, or low latency. Integritee sidechains are ideally suited to processing sensitive data at scale, or for any blockchain use case that requires ultra-fast response times.
More information here: Sidechain 101: What are sidechains and why do we need them on Polkadot?
Substrate is a blockchain integration platform and application development framework that was designed by Parity Technologies, the creator of blockchain interoperability pioneer Polkadot. The purpose of Substrate is to help simplify the process of building dApps or independent blockchains that run on the Polkadot network. Substrate accomplishes this by offering a fully adaptable blockchain design framework that features software development in numerous languages, forkless upgradability, light-client architecture, and multifaceted development tools. As a result, Substrate is one of the most powerful components of the Polkadot ecosystem. However, blockchains on the Polkadot network do not need to be built with Substrate.
The TEER token is the fuel that drives the Integritee platform — a common token across both Kusama and Polkadot parachains. Integritee users will require TEER to pay for Integritee services. Given the growing consumer and regulatory pressure for data services that protect user privacy, technologies like Integritee are rapidly becoming essential for firms. The value of TEER is directly linked to our core competitive advantage as well as other features of the economic system, such as the burn mechanism and lockdrop, are designed to drive long-term growth in TEER value.
The TEEracle is a customizable framework to easily build trusted oracles that provide API data to any Substrate-based blockchain in a secure and efficient way. Source-authenticated data is served to our Integritee Parachain and can subsequently be retrieved by any other blockchain through cross-chain messaging (XCM). The TEEracle allows to implement timestamped (to show the actuality of the data), custom oracle services, i.e., queries can be customized according to your specific needs.
A secure area of a main processor. It guarantees code and data loaded inside to be protected with respect to confidentiality and integrity, Data integrity — prevents unauthorized entities from altering data when any entity outside the TEE processes data, Code integrity — the code in the TEE cannot be replaced or modified by unauthorized entities. This is done by implementing unique, immutable, and confidential architectural security such as Intel® Software Guard Extensions (Intel® SGX) which offers hardware-based memory encryption that isolates specific application code and data in memory.
XCM integrations – cross-consensus messaging – enable connections between the different parachains of the Polkadot ecosystems. XCM is, in a way, a universal language that enables different systems (in this case, projects) to speak to each other. This integration allows different projects to connect, which enables the exchange of tokens, the use of certain applications, and much more. XCM integrations represent a step toward interoperability in the Polkadot and Kusama networks.
A wallet address is a string of letters and numbers from which cryptocurrencies or NFTs can be sent to and from. A wallet address is also known as a public key and can be shared with different contacts like an email address.
Web3 (also known as Web 3.0 and sometimes stylized as web3) is an idea for a new iteration of the World Wide Web based on blockchain technology, which incorporates concepts such as decentralization and token-based economics.
Web3 hosts decentralized apps that run on blockchain technology. Web3 advocates emphasize user privacy and ownership of data.