Index of Terms

This page provides an index of key terms used throughout the Gummiworm specification.

Acknowledgment, hard: A single peer's signature(s) for a block stack's effects in the slow consensus cycle. Distinct from hard confirmation, which requires collecting hard acknowledgments from all head peers and a quorum of coil peers. See Acknowledgment.
Acknowledgment, soft: A single head peer's signature of a block brief's serialized header. Distinct from soft confirmation, which requires collecting soft acknowledgments from all head peers. See Acknowledgment.
Block: A unit of consensus consisting of a block brief and the L1 effects derived from it. Blocks package the head peers' decisions on user request ordering and outcomes so that they can be confirmed together. See Block.
Block brief: The essential content of a block: a block header and a block body recording the head peers' decisions on the total order and validity of user requests, and on which deposits to absorb or reject. Block briefs are what the head peers produce and soft-confirm in the fast consensus cycle. See Block brief.
Block number: The sequential index of a block, starting from zero for the initial block. Used by the leadership schedule to assign leaders in round-robin fashion. See Block number.
Block stacks: A sequence of blocks with consecutive block numbers that are hard-confirmed together in the slow consensus cycle. Confirming whole stacks at a time avoids redundant signatures for superseded evacuation commitments. See Block stacks.
Block types: One of four categories: initial (starts the head), minor (updates the evacuation map only), major (absorbs deposits, remits payouts, and supersedes the previous fallback), or final (gracefully terminates the head). See Block types.
Coil network: The set of coil peers that collectively act as custodians of the head's funds. Coil peers verify and ratify the head peers' decisions in the slow consensus cycle, providing a wider safety net that secures L1 funds even if all head peers collude. See Coil network.
Compartment: Custody compartments isolate funds of different kinds (main custody/equity/contingency) that come from different L1 networks and/or that belong to different process stages (deposit/main custody/exit). See Compartment.
Confirmation, hard: The stronger tier of finality in Gummiworm, achieved when a block stack's effects have been acknowledged by all head peers and a quorum of coil peers. Hard-confirmed effects can be executed on the L1 blockchain. See Confirmation.
Confirmation, soft: The first tier of finality in Gummiworm, achieved when all head peers have signed a block brief. Provides fast feedback on user request outcomes (on the order of hundreds of milliseconds) but is not yet anchored to L1. See Confirmation.
Consensus protocol: Gummiworm's two-cycle protocol for agreeing on user request outcomes: a fast consensus cycle among head peers for rapid soft confirmation, and a slow consensus cycle involving both head and coil peers for hard confirmation of L1 effects. See Consensus protocol.
Custody Settlement Protocol: The term used to describe Gummiworm's approach, which doesn't fit neatly into existing scaling solution taxonomies (rollup, sidechain, state channel). Gummiworm separates custody from execution: the coil network secures funds while the head network handles fast execution, with the evacuation map as the universal fallback. See Custody Settlement Protocol.
Dispute resolution: The on-chain voting mechanism used in the rules-based regime to select the prevailing evacuation commitment. Head peers have exclusive ballot boxes, and the public may have additional non-exclusive ballot boxes with a ratchet requiring each successive vote to supersede the previous. See Dispute resolution.
Deposit: Funds placed by a user on L1 under Gummiworm's custody, intended for absorption into the L2 ledger's main compartment. Deposits go through a structured lifecycle: registration, maturity wait, and then absorption or rejection. Unabsorbed deposits are automatically refundable by the depositor after a deadline. See Deposit.
Effects: An executable action against the underlying L1 network that the head peers agreed on. Comes in different forms and varieties: can be immediate or post-dated, unconditional or contingent. See Effects.
Equity: Funds contributed by the head peers at initialization, held in the equity compartment. Gummiworm uses equity to pay L1 operational costs (settlement, finalization, and rollout transaction fees). Equity is returned to head peers proportionally upon finalization or fallback. See Equity.
Evacuation: The emergency process of withdrawing funds from a Gummiworm head when consensus fails. See Evacuation.
Evacuation map: A mapping of the black-box L2 ledger state into a state fully compatible with the underlying L1 network. Opaque evacuation keys are used to identify elements of the map; the values in the case of Cardano as L1 are transaction outputs. See Evacuation map.
Evacuation commitment: A contingent effect that binds Gummiworm to a particular evacuation map when it evacuates L1 funds in the rules-based regime. See Evacuation commitment.
Fallback: A deferred effect that acts as a dead man's switch: if no subsequent settlement or finalization effect is executed by a set deadline, the fallback transitions Gummiworm to the rules-based regime for orderly fund evacuation. Set on initialization, reset on each settlement, and canceled on finalization. See Fallback.
Finalization: An immediate effect that gracefully terminates the head by distributing equity to head peers and remitting all main compartment funds per the latest evacuation map. Preferable to fallback evacuation because it is cheaper and faster. See Finalization.
Forced settlement: A timing rule that upgrades a minor block to a major block when too little time remains before the competing fallback effect becomes valid. This ensures that the fallback deadline is periodically pushed forward, maintaining liveness even during periods of inactivity. See Forced settlement.
Head: A single instance of the Gummiworm protocol, comprising a head network and a coil network that collectively manage a joint ledger. Each head has its own Head ID, participants, L2 ledger, and lifecycle (initialization through finalization or fallback). See Head.
Head ID: A unique opaque identifier of the head derived from a unique seeding utxo used upon its initialization. See Head ID.
Head network: The fully connected mesh of head peers that participates in fast consensus. Head peers receive user requests, decide their total order and outcomes, and produce block briefs. All head peers must be continuously available. See Head network.
Head peers: The core participants who operate the head, own its equity, and serve as the only entry points for users. Head peers collectively run fast consensus to determine user request outcomes and produce block briefs. Each head peer has veto power over the head's decisions. See Head peers.
Initialization: An immediate effect to which the peers consent before starting consensus. It sets up the head's initial L1 state, specifies the initial L2 state and protocol parameters, and establishes the head's unique ID. See Initialization.
Joint ledger: The combined state that Gummiworm maintains: a prospective L1 ledger tracking cumulative L1 effects, and a black-box L2 ledger whose rules are fully customizable. The joint ledger keeps these two in sync as it processes user requests. See Joint ledger.
KZG commitments: A polynomial commitment scheme currently used to build evacuation commitments. KZG commitments provide constant-size proofs and efficient membership verification. See KZG commitments.
Leadership schedule: The round-robin assignment of head peers to lead block production, based on block number and head peer numbers. Fast and slow consensus each rotate through the schedule independently, so the fast consensus leader may differ from the slow consensus leader at any given time. See Leadership schedule.
L1 network: The public blockchain on which Gummiworm holds custody of funds and executes its confirmed effects. The L1 grounds the L2 ledger to real assets and provides the safety net for the rules-based regime. Gummiworm is L1-agnostic by design; Cardano is the initial target, with Midnight following close behind. See L1 network.
L2 ledger: The private ledger managed by Gummiworm's consensus protocol. Gummiworm treats the L2 ledger as a black box: its state, transitions, and rules are fully customizable (e.g., EUTXO, EVM, a custom ERP) as long as it satisfies properties like no-op on failure and no replay. See L2 ledger.
Main compartment: The compartment holding funds under Gummiworm's unconditional, indefinite custody. Gummiworm has full discretion over these funds, which it manages via the consensus protocol and the L2 ledger rules. In the event of evacuation, the main compartment's funds are paid out according to the evacuation map. See Main compartment.
Minor block: A block type that only updates the evacuation map. Minor blocks cannot absorb deposits or remit immediate payouts. See Minor block.
Major block: A block type that absorbs deposits, remits immediate payouts, and supersedes the previous fallback effect with a new one. Triggered by deposit absorptions, payout-producing requests, or the forced settlement timing rule. See Major block.
Multisig regime: The normal operating mode of a Gummiworm head, in which L1 state is held under a native script requiring signatures from all head peers and a quorum of coil peers. Transitions to the rules-based regime if consensus fails. See Multisig regime.
Payout: A transfer of funds out of Gummiworm's custody on L1, remitted via settlement, finalization, or rollout effects. Payouts are triggered by valid user requests whose outcomes require immediate L1 disbursements. See Payout.
Prospective L1 ledger: The target state of the L1 network maintained by the head. The head uses that state to immediately move forward while continuing to push the L1 network toward the target state. See Prospective L1 ledger.
Peer ID: A unique identifier for a peer in the network. For head peers, this is a pair of the peer's sequential number (starting from 0) and the total number of head peers. Coil peers use a separate identifier type. See Peer ID.
Refund: A deferred effect that allows a depositor to recover their deposit on L1 if Gummiworm fails to absorb it by the deadline specified in the deposit's refund instructions. See Refund.
Request ID: A unique identifier assigned to a user request by the receiving head peer, consisting of the head peer's number and a sequential request number at that peer. See Request ID.
Request ID, opaque: A fixed-size hash derived from the request ID, used in contexts where the request ID's internal structure should not be exposed (e.g., in block bodies and L2 ledger commands). See Request ID.
Rollout: An immediate effect that progressively remits payouts from an aggregate payout in the exit compartment, extending the number of payouts that settlement or finalization can handle beyond L1 transaction size limits. See Rollout.
Rules-based regime: The emergency operating mode that Gummiworm transitions to when consensus fails. L1 smart contracts enforce an orderly evacuation of funds via dispute resolution and the prevailing evacuation commitment, without requiring peer coordination. See Rules-based regime.
Settlement: An immediate effect by which Gummiworm absorbs deposits into the main compartment, remits payouts on L1, and supersedes the previous fallback effect with a new one. Produced by major blocks. See Settlement.
Treasury: The L1 utxo that holds all funds backing the L2 ledger state, plus the head peers' equity used to pay L1 operational costs. In the multisig regime, it is held under the head's native script; in the rules-based regime, it is held under a universal Plutus script for dispute resolution. See Treasury.
Trusted setup: The one-time ceremony that generates the public parameters required for KZG commitments. Gummiworm reuses the parameters from Ethereum's KZG Ceremony, which involved over 141,000 contributions and is secure as long as at least one participant was honest. See Trusted setup.
User request: Head peers receive and process requests from users that allow them to interact with the L2 ledger by depositing funds and submitting L2 ledger transactions. See User request.
Version, major: The component of a block's version number that is incremented by every major and final block. Evacuation commitments are compatible with Gummiworm's L1 state only if they share the same major version as the most recent initialization or settlement effect. See Version.
Version, minor: The component of a block's version number that is incremented by every minor block and reset to zero by every major and final block. Among compatible evacuation commitments (same major version), each commitment supersedes those with a lower minor version. See Version.

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