# Glossary of Terms

#### A

* **Abstraction Layer**: A design pattern that translates diverse inputs into a standardized format. In Altius, the Interpreter acts as an abstraction layer to support multiple virtual machines (EVM, WASM, etc.) on a single engine.
* **AppChain (Application-Specific Chain)**: A blockchain dedicated to a single application or use case. Altius provides the high-performance execution core for developers building sovereign AppChains.

#### C

* **Commodity Hardware**: Standard, off-the-shelf computing resources (such as typical AWS or GCP instances). Altius is engineered to achieve elite performance on these affordable units rather than requiring specialized, high-cost servers.
* **Coordinator:** The Altius module responsible for managing the transaction lifecycle, enforcing deterministic execution, and interfacing with external consensus and settlement layers.

#### D

* **Data Availability (DA)**: The assurance that the data required to verify a block is accessible to all network participants. Altius ingests transaction batches from external DA layers.
* **Determinism**: A property of a system where a given set of inputs always produces the exact same output. Altius ensures total determinism across all nodes via the OCCDA protocol.

#### E

* **Execution Client Replacement**: A modular implementation where Altius is swapped into an existing Layer 1 or Layer 2 network to handle all computational logic, replacing the legacy, sequential client.
* **Execution Layer**: The functional layer of a network responsible for processing transaction logic and updating the system state.

#### I

* **Instruction-Level Parallelism (ILP)**: A technical breakthrough that allows the engine to decompose transactions into granular instructions, enabling the simultaneous execution of non-conflicting code segments within the same transaction.
* **Interpreter:** The Altius module that functions as a universal translator, allowing bytecode from various virtual machines to be executed on the Altius parallel engine.

#### M

* **Modular Architecture**: A system design that decouples core functions, such as execution, consensus, and data availability, into specialized layers that can be optimized independently.

#### O

* **Open Execution Network (OEN)**: The overarching economic framework of Altius that aligns developer incentives with network performance through the use of deterministic execution rewards.
* **Optimistic Concurrent Control with Deterministic Abort (OCCDA)**: A proprietary conflict resolution protocol that ensures all nodes arrive at the same conflict set, allowing for targeted re-execution of specific instructions rather than entire transactions.

#### R

* **Resolver**: The intelligence module within Altius that performs dependency analysis and instruction-level conflict detection to schedule parallel tasks efficiently.

#### S

* **Scalable State Merkle Trie (SSMT)**: A storage architecture that shards the network state across multiple nodes and prioritizes high-speed RAM access, eliminating the I/O bottlenecks associated with traditional disk storage.
* **Static Single Assignment (SSA)**: A mathematical representation of code where each variable is assigned exactly once. Altius uses SSA to map data dependencies at high speed during the resolution phase.
* **Sub-Second Finality:** The ability of a system to confirm and permanently record a transaction in less than one second. Altius achieves finality in under 100 milliseconds.

#### V

* **VM-Agnostic**: The ability of a system to support multiple Virtual Machines (like EVM or MoveVM) without being natively tied to the specific opcode design of any single one.


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