Glossary
A
Account — An entity with a balance, identified by a 20-byte address starting with 0x. Two kinds exist: externally-owned accounts (EOAs, controlled by private keys) and contract accounts.
B
Base Fee — The per-gas component of a transaction fee under EIP-1559, adjusting dynamically with block fullness. The resulting transaction fee is not burned in full — it enters the four-way split of 50% burned, 20% Union, 20% Miner, 10% Foundation. See Transaction Fee and Tokenomics.
Block Time — Average interval between Main Chain blocks. XPHERE targets 1 second.
Burn — Permanent removal of XP from circulation. The protocol burns 50% of transaction fees (the remaining 50% is distributed — see Transaction Fee); the XP Union Vault additionally burns more than 40% of each day's staking rewards.
Burn Address — 0x000000000000000000000000000000000000dEaD, the address burned XP is sent to. Balances there are publicly auditable and unspendable.
C
Cap — The maximum total XP the Union Vault accepts. It also sets the denominator of the staker split, staked ÷ cap. Raised in stages through the 48-hour timelock.
Chain ID — Numeric identifier used in transaction signatures to prevent replay across networks. XPHERE Mainnet: 20250217 (0x134fe69); Testnet: 1998991 (0x1e808f). The hex form is what wallet_addEthereumChain and eth_chainId use. See Network Info.
Committee — PBFT structural term: the subset of the Council producing blocks in the current round. Rotates each round. See Round-Robin for how proposer turns are ordered.
Consensus Node — Synonym for Validator Node on the Main Chain.
Cooldown — The 7-day waiting period between requesting an unstake from the Union Vault and claiming the principal. See How It Works.
Council — PBFT structural term: the full set of validator nodes registered on the Main Chain, from which the Committee is drawn each round. On XPHERE these are the node addresses registered by Union members — the Union is the membership group, the Council and Committee describe the consensus structure it operates within.
D
Dual-Chain Architecture — XPHERE's design: a Main Chain (PBFT for finality) plus a Proof Chain (PoW for trust anchoring). See Whitepaper §3.
E
Endpoint Node (XEN) — A node providing JSON-RPC access to the Main Chain. Does not participate in consensus.
Epoch (settlement) — The Union Vault's settlement cycle: 1 day. At each epoch the vault splits inflowing rewards between stakers and the burn address.
ERC-4626 — Tokenized vault standard. The Union Vault implements it, with an ERC-7540-style asynchronous redemption flow (request, then claim after the cooldown).
EVM — Ethereum Virtual Machine. XPHERE implements EVM at the Cancun level.
F
Faucet — Service distributing XPT, the Testnet native token, for free at faucet.x-phere.com. 10 XPT per address, once every 24 hours. It does not distribute Mainnet XP. See Testnet Faucet.
Finality — Point at which a block cannot be reverted. XPHERE's PBFT provides instant finality (1 block).
G
Gas — Unit of computational work. Each opcode has a fixed gas cost.
Grant Program — The XPHERE Grant Program, the Foundation's support program for builders, developers, and teams launching dApps, building infrastructure, or growing the community. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis; selected applicants are contacted within 14 business days. Amounts and funding tiers are not published. See Grant Program.
Gwei — 10^9 wei, or 10^-9 XP. Standard unit for gas prices.
H
Hard Fork — Consensus-breaking protocol upgrade. See xpHash Fork.
Hash Rate — Number of hash attempts per second by a miner.
J
JSON-RPC — The remote procedure call interface every XPHERE node exposes. See JSON-RPC Reference.
M
Main Chain — The PBFT-consensus chain holding account state and processing transactions.
Mining Node — A node performing xpHash PoW on the Proof Chain, earning the 40% miner share of each minted block reward and 20% of transaction fees. xpHash mining runs on the IceRiver XP0 ASIC; the legacy CPU software miner is deprecated. See Mining.
N
Non-custodial — Property of the Union Vault: staked principal is not re-deployed or re-staked, and remains withdrawable in full by its owner.
Nonce — Per-account transaction counter. Prevents replay and orders transactions.
P
PBFT — Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance. The consensus algorithm used on XPHERE's Main Chain.
PoW — Proof of Work. Consensus mechanism used on the Proof Chain via xpHash.
Precompile — Built-in contract at a fixed address implementing cryptographic primitives (sha256, ecRecover, etc.).
Priority Fee — The tip a sender adds above the base fee to gain inclusion priority. It is part of the transaction fee and enters the same four-way split of 50% burned, 20% Union, 20% Miner, 10% Foundation. See Transaction Fee and Tokenomics.
Proof Chain — The PoW chain anchoring Main Chain finality. Secured by miners.
R
Real Yield — Rewards paid from revenue actually earned — for the Union Vault, validator rewards earned by the Foundation's Union node — rather than from newly minted tokens.
Round-Robin — The proposer rotation used by the Union on the Main Chain: eligible Union slots take turns proposing blocks in a predetermined, sequential order rather than competing for the turn. A member holding several slots takes proportionally more turns. Proof Chain mining works the other way — miners compete through xpHash PoW. See Union Staking.
RPC — See JSON-RPC.
S
Settle — The Union Vault's daily, permissionless settlement call that splits inflowing rewards between stakers and the burn address.
Share (vault) — Internal accounting unit of the ERC-4626 Union Vault, fixed permanently at 1 XP = 1,000 shares to block share-price inflation attacks.
Slot (Union) — One Union membership position. Each slot carries its own 35,000,000 XP stake and its own turn in the round-robin proposer rotation. A member may hold several slots; governance voting is per member, not per slot. See Members.
Smart Contract — Program deployed to an account; executes on-chain when called.
Streaming (rewards) — Distribution of a settled allocation continuously over the following 24 hours, accruing every second, instead of as a lump sum. Makes reward sniping ineffective.
T
Tamsa Explorer — Block explorer serving both environments on separate instances: xp.tamsa.io for Mainnet and xpt.tamsa.io for Testnet.
Testnet — XPHERE's parallel network for development. Chain ID 1998991 (0x1e808f), native token XPT, RPC https://testnet.x-phere.com, explorer xpt.tamsa.io, funded from the Faucet. Tokens have no monetary value and are not transferable to Mainnet. See Network Info.
Timelock — The 48-hour on-chain delay every Union Vault parameter change must pass through. Contract logic itself is not upgradeable.
TPS — Transactions Per Second. XPHERE targets 4,000 TPS sustained throughput.
Transaction Fee — The fee paid by the sender of a transaction. It is split four ways: 50% burned, 20% Union, 20% Miner, 10% Foundation. See FAQ and XPHERE Union.
U
Union — The network's core validator group. Members validate the blocks produced on the Proof Chain and record them on the Main Chain, take round-robin turns proposing Main Chain blocks, and hold one governance vote each. Each membership slot requires a 35,000,000 XP stake, and admission is permissioned through the Foundation. The Union receives 40% of every minted block reward and 20% of transaction fees. See XPHERE Union.
Union Member — A party admitted to the Union, holding one or more slots. Each slot carries its own 35,000,000 XP stake and its own proposer turn, so slots scale reward share; governance voting is one vote per member, not per slot, with the Foundation casting the tie-breaking vote. See Members.
Union Staking — XPHERE's staking mechanism, under which the Union receives 40% of every minted block reward and 20% of transaction fees. See Staking.
Union Vault (XP Union Vault) — The XPHERE Foundation's non-custodial staking vault at stake.x-phere.com. Pays stakers from the Union node's real earnings and burns the remainder. See XP Staking (Union Vault).
Utilization — How full the Union Vault is, staked ÷ cap. It scales the staker allocation; the yield attached to unfilled capacity is burned.
V
Validator — The technical role: the operator of a Main Chain consensus node. On XPHERE the validator group is the Union — validator slots are permissioned and admitted through the Foundation. Infrastructure and operating requirements are on Validator Node.
W
Wallet — Software/hardware managing private keys and signing transactions. See Wallet Setup.
X
XEN — XPHERE Endpoint Node binary. See Install Guide.
xpHash — XPHERE's Proof Chain PoW algorithm, active on Mainnet from block 1,740,000 and on Testnet from block 327,400. Mining under xpHash runs on the IceRiver XP0 ASIC. See xpHash Fork.
XP — Native token of XPHERE Mainnet (Chain ID 20250217). 18 decimals. Used for gas, staking, and governance.
XPHERE v2.0 — Current version of the protocol, introducing EVM compatibility and dual-chain architecture.
XPScan — Block explorer at xpscan.io, serving Mainnet (its footer states Chain ID: 20250217). No XPScan testnet instance is published — for Testnet use xpt.tamsa.io.
XPT — Native token of XPHERE Testnet (Chain ID 1998991). 18 decimals. Obtained from the Faucet, has no monetary value, and cannot be moved to Mainnet. Configure a wallet with the symbol XPT, not XP, when connecting to Testnet.