Staking

Locking tokens to participate in consensus or delegate to validators, earning rewards while contributing to network security on proof‑of‑stake chains.

Staticcall

EVM call type that prohibits state modification, used for read‑only contract queries to guarantee no writes during execution.

State Proof

Cryptographic proof (e.g., Merkle or proof‑of‑inclusion) that a given account or storage slot had a specific value in a block, verifiable by light clients or bridges.

State Root

Merkle root summarizing the entire chain state at a block, enabling light clients to verify account or storage proofs without full data.

State Channel

Off‑chain interaction where parties exchange signed updates and only settle the final state on‑chain, reducing fees and latency for repeated transactions.

Soulbound Token (SBT)

Non‑transferable token meant to represent credentials, reputation, or identity attributes bound to a wallet rather than transferable value.

Soft Fork

Backward‑compatible protocol change that tightens rules so upgraded nodes accept a subset of previously valid blocks while legacy nodes remain functional.

Snapshot (Governance)

Off‑chain vote‑signing system that tallies token balances at a specific block height, enabling gasless on‑chain governance signaling.

Slippage

Difference between expected and executed price due to liquidity depth and price impact, controllable via slippage tolerance in swaps.

Slashing

Penalties applied to staked validators for misbehavior or downtime, burning or confiscating collateral to enforce protocol rules and security.

Sharding

Splitting state or data across multiple partitions so different validators process different subsets, increasing parallelism and throughput.

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