Weber Glossary

Notice: This document is a work-in-progress for researchers and implementers of the Weber protocol.

A

Accountability System: Weber's enhanced mechanism for tracking validator performance through various metrics, used for determining reputation scores and associated rewards or penalties.

Active Validator: A validator that is currently participating in consensus, either by proposing blocks or voting on attestations.

Aggregate Signature: A BLS signature created by combining multiple individual signatures, allowing for efficient verification of many signatures at once.

Attestation: A vote by a validator for a specific block, containing information about the source and target epoch checkpoints.

Attestation Inclusion Delay: The number of slots between when an attestation was supposed to be produced and when it was included in a block.

B

Beacon Block: The fundamental unit of the Weber beacon chain, containing attestations, deposits, withdrawals, execution payloads, and other data.

Beacon Chain: The core consensus layer of the Weber protocol, responsible for managing validators and coordinating consensus.

Best Justified Checkpoint: The most recent justified checkpoint with the highest epoch number.

BLS Signature: A type of digital signature (Boneh-Lynn-Shacham) used in Weber for aggregating multiple signatures efficiently.

Bridge Proof: A specialized cryptographic proof format designed for cross-chain verification of Weber state.

C

Checkpoint: A reference point in the beacon chain (typically at epoch boundaries) used for justification and finalization.

Committee: A randomly selected group of validators assigned to attest to blocks during a specific slot.

Compressed Multiproof: Weber's optimized format for Merkle proofs that reduces size by identifying common patterns and structural redundancies.

Consensus Layer: The part of Weber responsible for reaching agreement on the canonical chain.

D

Domain: A context value mixed into BLS signatures to prevent signatures from one context being reused in another.

E

Effective Balance: The amount of stake (up to MAX_EFFECTIVE_BALANCE) that determines a validator's weight in consensus.

Epoch: A fixed time period in Weber consisting of 32 slots (approximately 6.4 minutes).

Execution Layer: The part of Weber that processes transactions and executes smart contracts.

Execution Payload: Transaction data from the execution layer that is included in beacon blocks.

F

Finality: The property that a block will never be reverted. In Weber, blocks are considered finalized when they have been justified by supermajority votes across two epoch boundaries.

Fork: Either a deliberate change in protocol rules, or a situation where the chain splits into multiple valid continuations.

Fork Choice Rule: The algorithm used to determine which chain is canonical when multiple valid chains exist.

G

Generalized Index: A numeric representation of a position within a binary Merkle tree, used in Weber's proof systems.

H

Head Block: The block at the tip of the chain considered canonical by the fork choice rule.

I

Inclusion Distance: The number of slots between when an attestation was supposed to be produced and when it was included in a block.

Incremental Verification: Weber's process for verifying Merkle proofs in stages to optimize for memory-constrained environments.

J

Justification: The process where a checkpoint receives attestations from more than 2/3 of the total staked ETH, marking it as justified.

L

Light Client: A Weber node that does not process or store the entire blockchain, but uses cryptographic proofs to verify certain information.

LMD-GHOST: "Latest Message Driven Greedy Heaviest Observed Sub-Tree", the base fork choice algorithm used by Weber, enhanced with reputation weighting.

M

Merkle Tree: A binary tree data structure used in Weber for efficiently proving inclusion of data in a larger set.

Merkle Multiproof: A proof that demonstrates inclusion of multiple values in a Merkle tree simultaneously.

O

Optimistic Fork Choice: Weber's mechanism to accelerate consensus by predicting the eventual canonical chain before all attestations are received.

P

Performance Score: A numeric value representing a validator's historical performance across multiple dimensions, used in Weber's accountability system.

Q

Quick Finality: Weber's mechanism for achieving faster block finality under certain network conditions through weighted voting by high-reputation validators.

Quick Finality Votes: Special votes from validators with high reputation scores that can accelerate the finality process in Weber.

R

Randao: The random number generation mechanism used in Weber to select committees and perform other random operations.

Reputation Score: A value between 0-1000 assigned to each validator in Weber, representing their historical performance and influencing their vote weight.

Reputation-Weighted Voting: Weber's enhancement to traditional consensus where validators with higher reputation scores have more influence.

S

Slot: The smallest time unit in Weber (12 seconds), during which a single validator is responsible for proposing a block.

Slashing: A severe penalty applied to validators who violate protocol rules, such as double-voting or surrounding votes.

SSZ (Simple Serialize): The serialization method used in Weber for encoding and decoding data structures.

State Root: The Merkle root of the beacon state, representing a cryptographic commitment to the entire state.

State Transition Function: The rules defining how the Weber state changes from one block to the next.

Sync Committee: A group of validators randomly selected to help light clients stay in sync with the chain.

V

Validator: A participant in Weber consensus who has deposited 32 ETH as stake.

Validator Rotation: Weber's mechanism for periodically cycling validators to enhance decentralization.

Vote Weight: The influence a validator's attestation has in the fork choice rule, which in Weber depends on both the validator's balance and reputation score.

W

Weber Optimized Proof: A specialized Merkle proof format designed for Weber's unique requirements, with improved size and verification efficiency.

Weber State: The complete representation of the network at a given point, including validators, balances, and other protocol data.

Withdrawal: The process of removing stake (ETH) from the Weber system.

Weighted GHOST: Weber's enhanced version of GHOST fork choice that weights votes based on validator reputation.