Glossary

Blockchain

Blockchain is a cryptographically secure decentralized distributed ledger of transactional records in a peer-to-peer network facilitated by a consensus mechanism for trusted or trustless participants. It can be mainly classified into public blockchains, such as Ethereum, and enterprise blockchains, such as Hyperledger Fabric.

Hyperledger Fabric

Hyperledger Fabric is an open-source, permissioned blockchain framework, within the Hyperledger Umbrella of Projects. It provides a modular architecture (plug-and-play) to deploy an enterprise-grade, distributed ledger platform for developing blockchain-based products, solutions, and applications.

Smart Contracts

A smart contract is a computer program stored on a blockchain that encodes business logic and can be automatically executed when predetermined conditions are met.

Chaincodes

Chaincode is a terminology used in Hyperledger Fabric. It refers to a single or group of smart contracts packaged and deployed into the blockchain network. Chaincode can be implemented in several programming languages. Currently, Go, Node.js and Java chaincode are supported. In Spydra, we use App as an alternative to Chaincode

Organization

An Organization is a logical entity, which can be as large as a multi-national corporation or as small as an individual. They are also knowns as members within a blockchain network such as Hyperledger Fabric. Every Hyperledger Fabric Network has at least one organization as a member, members can be invited to the network with access rights.

Network

A Fabric permissioned blockchain network is a technical infrastructure that provides ledger services to application consumers and administrators. Fabric Network comprises unique organizations (or members) that interact with each other. Each Fabric Network has multiple components: Ledgers, Chaincode, Peer Nodes, Ordering Services, Channels, and Certificate Authority.

Nodes

Nodes are the communication entities of the blockchain. A “node” is only a logical function in the sense that multiple nodes of different types can run on the same physical server. In Hyperledger Fabric, there are three types of nodes - Client, Peer, and Orderer.

Channels

A Hyperledger Fabric Channel is a private “subnet” of communication between two or more specific network members. Each channel is defined by member organizations, shared ledger, chaincode applications / Apps, ordering services, and anchor peers. Private or confidential transactions can be carried out within the channel among members.

Listeners

Listeners are event notifications, that are defined and registered by users using custom URLs. Through callbacks, users get notified of network-level or chaincode/app-level transaction events.

API

API stands for application programming interface - a set of definitions and protocols to build and integrate application software. In Hyperledger Fabric, users can access API endpoints for deployed chaincode applications/Apps using registered API keys at the organization level.

Assets

An Asset can be defined as a resource, that is controlled by an entity. Assets can range from tangible or physical (real estate & hardware) to intangible or non-physical (contracts & intellectual property). Assets are represented in Hyperledger Fabric as a collection of key-value pairs (usually in JSON format).

Asset Tokenization

Asset Tokenization is the process of managing an Asset throughout its lifecycle, from procurement to disposal. Using chaincode/app, assets can be defined with attributes, associated events and later modified. Asset state changes are recorded as transactions on a channel ledger.

Token

A token is a digital representation of some shared value of a tangible or intangible asset. In Hyperledger Fabric, tokens are stored on channel ledgers and can be owned by any member of the channel, with the ability to transfer ownership with consent and validation.

NFT

NFT stands for a non-fungible token, which is a unique record associated with a particular digital or physical asset whose ownership is recorded on the blockchain and can be transferred by the owner. In Hyperledger Fabric, NFT is an on-chain representation of an asset with certain immutable metadata properties (such as size and color) and a unique owner.

Fungible Token

Fungible Token refers to the digital representation of assets, that are divisible to fractional units, non-unique in nature, and can be interchanged with similar kind. Commodities, common shares, options, dollar bills, and cryptocurrencies are examples of fungible goods.

Swagger

Swagger is an API documentation tool, used to simply API development and management process.