Glossary
Data states
Section titled “Data states”Loading A request is in flight. A placeholder never contains a figure.
Ready The reader answered with results.
Empty The reader answered and there is nothing there. A fact about the market.
Unavailable The reader did not answer. A fact about the read. The quantity is unknown, and it is never shown as zero.
Degraded The surface answered from a partial set of readers. What is shown is real and incomplete.
Dash A single figure that was not measured. Not a zero.
Availability
Section titled “Availability”Enabled Switched on in the shipped build.
Feature-gated Implemented, switched off unless an operator enables the named gate.
Read-only You can see it but you cannot trade it. No marketplace mutation is available.
Gated, testnet only Behind a gate and confined to a test network.
Retired Listings and history stay viewable; buying and listing are permanently closed. Not an outage.
Execution modes
Section titled “Execution modes”In-app execution Core builds and validates the transaction; your wallet signs it. Core owns the order book and the settlement record.
External execution An external marketplace or provider owns the order book and execution path. Core routes to it.
Read-only No execution path is deployed.
Live read-only Live reads against a real index, with no production execution path.
Trade preview only A trade can be previewed but never signed or broadcast: there is no signer.
PSBT routing only Signed PSBTs are validated and routed. Core never funds, signs, or broadcasts settlement.
Marketplace actions
Section titled “Marketplace actions”The thirteen actions the registry tracks per protocol.
View, view collection, view activity Reading.
List Create a listing.
Update listing Change a listing’s terms atomically. Several protocols require a cancel and a relist instead.
Delist (unlist) Withdraw a listing.
Buy Purchase a listing.
Make offer, accept offer, cancel offer The bid side of an order book.
Sell A specific executable offer-acceptance workflow. No protocol in the
registry supports it. Selling in the ordinary sense is list and
accept-offer.
Settle Core records a confirmed settlement itself, rather than delegating.
Reconcile Core reconciles its own order state after a dropped, replaced, or reorganised transaction.
Chain vocabulary
Section titled “Chain vocabulary”Outpoint txid:vout. The unit a metaprotocol asset actually lives at. An
address is a convenience.
Asset-bearing output An output carrying an inscription, a rune balance, or another protocol asset. It looks exactly like an ordinary output.
Satpoint The exact satoshi position an inscription occupies within an output.
Cardinal An output carrying no protocol asset, safe to spend as ordinary value.
Postage The small satoshi value carried alongside an inscription, commonly 546 satoshis.
Chain tip The current head of the chain, verified from Universe-operated infrastructure.
Index tip The height a protocol index has processed to. The difference between the two is lag.
Reorg A chain reorganisation. Sixteen protocols reconcile their own order state after one; thirteen have no local order state to roll back.
Ownership models
Section titled “Ownership models”UTXO The asset lives at a specific unspent output. Spend it and the asset moves.
Balance An indexed balance attached to an address rather than an output.
Hybrid An indexed balance whose evidence is anchored to outputs.
Gates and profiles
Section titled “Gates and profiles”Feature gate A named switch an operator must enable before a protocol’s actions can run.
Mutation gate Everything a mutation must prove before it proceeds, stated per protocol in the registry.
Fail closed A check that does not pass stops the action rather than downgrading to a warning.
Marketplace profile read-only keeps browsing open with every trading
action closed. mutation-ready opens trading.
Authority cycle The gate that opens trading: every protocol authority must report current, matching evidence for three consecutive refresh cycles.
Authorities
Section titled “Authorities”Order book authority What answers “which orders exist”.
Ownership authority What answers “who holds this, at which outpoint”.
Settlement authority What answers “did this trade complete”.
Protocol state authority The index that answers questions about the protocol itself, as distinct from questions about the chain.
Confidence, in search
Section titled “Confidence, in search”Exact The query is that entity. Nothing else has this shape.
Likely The shape identifies the entity, but another reading exists.
Candidate A lookup the protocol’s naming rules permit. Not a claim that the asset exists.