[Glossary] Mining, Staking & Nodes Terms

CryptoKas

Below is a concise glossary of key terms you’ll encounter in Mining, Staking & Nodes discussions. Definitions are clear and practical—ideal for anyone running hardware or securing networks.

️ Mining Basics

Proof-of-Work (PoW): Consensus mechanism where miners solve cryptographic puzzles to add blocks.
Hash Rate: How many puzzle attempts your rig makes per second (e.g., MH/s, GH/s, TH/s).
ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit): Hardware built just for mining one algorithm—ultra-efficient but single-purpose.
GPU (Graphics Processing Unit): Versatile hardware that can mine many coins via parallel processing.
Block Reward: Coins awarded to the miner who successfully adds a new block.
Difficulty: A measure of how hard it is to find a block—adjusts periodically to target block time.
Orphan / Uncle Block: A valid block not accepted by the main chain (PoW) or a secondary reward in Ethereum’s uncle system.

Staking & Validators

Proof-of-Stake (PoS): Consensus where validators lock up (“stake”) tokens to secure the network.
Validator: A node chosen to propose or attest to blocks in PoS—must maintain uptime and follow protocol rules.
Delegator: A token holder who assigns stake to a validator without running a node themselves.
Staking Reward: Coins earned by validators or delegators for participating honestly.
Slashing: Penalty (stake loss) for malicious or negligent behavior (e.g., double-signing, downtime).
Commission Fee: Percentage cut a validator takes from delegated rewards before passing the rest on.

️ Node Types & Operation

Full Node: Downloads and verifies every block and transaction—ensures you have a complete copy of the blockchain.
Archive Node: Stores every historical state of the chain (not just UTXO/contract state)—used for analytics and indexing.
Light Node (SPV Node): Downloads only block headers and requests data on demand—lower resource requirements.
RPC Endpoint: “Remote Procedure Call” interface (HTTP/WebSocket) your dApps or scripts use to read from or write to the chain.
Peer / Gossip Protocol: How nodes discover and share new blocks/transactions—peers exchange data in a mesh network.
Sync Modes:
- Fast / Snap Sync: Downloads recent state and verifies ancestors only by headers—faster startup.
- Full Sync: Verifies every block and executes every transaction from genesis—slower but maximally secure.

️ Cloud vs. On-Premise Deployment

Bare Metal: Running nodes on your own physical servers—max performance and control, higher maintenance.
VPS / Virtual Server: Cloud-hosted virtual machines (e.g., AWS EC2, DigitalOcean) for easier setup and scaling.
Containerization (Docker/Kubernetes): Packaging node software in containers for portability and automated management.
High Availability (HA): Architectures with multiple redundant nodes and failover to ensure uninterrupted service.
Auto-Scaling: Dynamic addition/removal of node instances based on load or performance metrics.

Monitoring & Maintenance

Uptime: Percentage of time your node is online—critical for validators to avoid slashing.
Prometheus & Grafana: Common open-source stack for collecting metrics (CPU, memory, peer count) and visualizing performance.
Log Rotation: Automated archiving and pruning of log files to save disk space.
Health Checks: Scripts or services that ping your node’s RPC or p2p port to confirm it’s responsive.
Auto-Restart / Watchdog: Tools that detect crashes or hangs and automatically restart your node process.

Pin this thread as your go-to reference when setting up rigs, running validators, or maintaining nodes. Spot a missing term or need deeper examples? Drop a comment below!