Glossary
Block Producer
A block producer is an active validator selected to act as block producer for a span.
A block producer is responsible for creating blocks and broadcasting the created blocks to the network.
Bor
A Bor node is a node producing blocks on the Polygon Network.
Bor is based on Go Ethereum.
Checkpoint Transaction
A checkpoint transaction is a transaction containing the Merkle root of blocks of the Bor layer between the checkpoint intervals.
The transaction is committed to the Polygon staking contracts on the Ethereum mainnet by a Heimdall node.
See also:
Commission
A commission is the percentage of the rewards taken by validators from the delegators who stake with the validators.
See also Validator Commission Operations.
Delegator
The delegator role stakes the MATIC tokens to secure the Polygon Network with existing validators without running the nodes themselves.
See also Who Is a Delegator.
Full Node
A full node is a fully synced sentry node running both Heimdall and Bor.
See also Full Node Deployment.
Heimdall
A Heimdall node is a node running in parallel to the Ethereum mainnet, monitoring the set of contracts deployed on the Ethereum mainnet, and committing the Polygon Network checkpoints to the Ethereum mainnet.
Heimdall is based on Tendermint.
Owner Address
An owner address is the address used to stake, restake, change the signer address, withdraw rewards and manage delegation related parameters on the Ethereum mainnet.
While the signer key is kept on the node and is considered a hot wallet, the owner key must be kept very secure, used infrequently, and is considered a cold wallet.
See also Key Management.
Proposer
A proposer is the validator selected by the algorithm to propose a new block.
A proposer is also responsible for collecting all signatures for a particular checkpoint and committing the checkpoint to the Ethereum mainnet.
Sentry
A sentry node is a node running both the Heimdall node and the Bor node to download the data from other nodes on the network and to propagate the validator data on the network.
A sentry node is open to all other sentry nodes on the network.
Span
A logically defined set of blocks for which a set of validators is chosen from all the available validators.
The selection of each span is decided by at least 2/3 of the validators in terms of the staking power.
See also Bor Consensus: Span.
Staking
Staking is the process of locking up tokens into a deposit to earn the right to validate and produce blocks on a blockchain. Typically staking is done in the native token for the network — for the MATIC token is locked up by validators / stakers in the Polygon Network. Other examples include ETH in Ethereum (post-merge), ATOM in Cosmos, etc.
See also What Is Proof of Stake.
Signer address
A signer address is the address of an Ethereum account of the Heimdall validator node. The signer address signs and submits the checkpoint transactions.
While the signer key is kept on the node and is considered a hot wallet, the owner key must be kept very secure, used infrequently, and is considered a cold wallet.
See also Key Management.
Validator
Validators stake their MATIC tokens via staking contracts deployed on the Ethereum mainnet and are running both the Heimdall node and the Bor node to commit the network checkpoints to the Ethereum mainnet and to produce blocks on the network.
A validator node is only open to its sentry node and closed to the rest of the network.
See also Who Is a Validator.