Glossary

Every term these pages use, defined once.

What you will know after this page

What separates depth, a stretch and a ring, and which of the three can still change.
The default rule for choosing a successor: the lowest index output that is not an OP_RETURN and holds at least 10000 sats.
What SEED and KEEP are, down to their opcode bytes and their payload layout.
Where a relic comes from, and what an artifact keeps once it becomes one.
Which words here are PATINA's own and which are ordinary Bitcoin, borrowed because a page needs them.

Protocol terms

Alphabetical. If you read only four, read carrier, depth, stretch and ring, because the rest of these pages is assembled out of those.

Artifact: One PATINA object. It has a permanent id, rides a carrier output, and accumulates rings.
Artifact id: SHA256("PTNA/artifact" || reveal_txid_wire || carrier_vout_le). Fixed at birth and never changed by a move.
Attestation: A BIP-322 signature over "PTNA/attest" || artifact_id_hex || block_hash_hex, made off chain by the carrier key. Shows the key is still signable at a recent block.
Baseline: The frozen file of constants and contracts every workstream builds against. Where these pages and the baseline disagree, the baseline wins.
Bundle: Several artifacts sharing one carrier. They move together and cannot be split by a single transaction.
Carrier: The unspent output an artifact rides. Written txid:vout. Spending it ends the stretch.
Census: A deterministic survival table computed per 2016-block epoch, served at /census/current and /census/:epoch.
Claimant key: The 32 byte x-only public key that appears in the commit leaf and signs the reveal.
Commit: The first of the two mint transactions. It creates a Taproot output whose script path carries the commitment.
Commitment: SHA256("PTNA/commit" || claimant_xonly || salt). Stored inside the commit leaf.
Commit leaf: The 68 byte reduced-data tapscript <claimant_xonly> OP_CHECKSIG PUSH32(commitment) OP_DROP, or its permanent 70 byte legacy conditional encoding.
Default rule: When no valid KEEP entry applies, the successor is the lowest index output that is not an OP_RETURN and holds at least 10000 sats.
Depth: current_height - carrier.height, in blocks. Computed at query time, never stored.
Deployment record: The binding of a network to its window heights, minimums, and spec_sha256.
Endowment: The sats held in the carrier. Yours the whole time. At least 100000 for a founding Seal.
Epoch: A 2016-block difficulty period, used as the unit for the census.
Firstlight Seal: An artifact created in the founding window, with founding: true. The genesis asset.
Flags: One reserved byte in the SEED payload. Every bit is reserved at marker version 1 and must be zero, so a non zero flags byte is SEED_BAD_GRAMMAR.
Founding: True when the commit output confirmed inside the window and the reveal landed at or before the end of the grace period.
Grace period: 4032 blocks after the window closes, during which a commit made inside the window can still be revealed as founding.
KEEP: Marker opcode 0x02. Routes artifacts to chosen outputs when carriers are spent. One to eight entries.
Marker: An OP_RETURN output with one minimal push containing "PTNA" | version | op | payload.
Magic: The four bytes 50 54 4e 41, ASCII PTNA, at the start of every marker payload.
Minimal push: The shortest valid script encoding for a piece of data. Required, so that one marker has exactly one valid spelling.
Museum: The endpoint listing the longest completed rings. History, as opposed to the leaderboard which is the present.
Outpoint: A transaction id and an output index together, identifying one output.
Reason code: One of eighteen frozen strings recording why a marked transaction did not do what it appeared to attempt.
Relic: An artifact whose carrier was spent with no eligible successor. Terminal. Keeps its id and rings forever.
Reorg: A chain reorganisation. Handled by rolling state back to the fork point and replaying.
Reveal: The second mint transaction. Spends the commit by the script path and carries the SEED marker.
Ring: The permanent record of one completed stretch: start height, end height, depth, value carried, and where the artifact went next.
Salt: 16 random bytes, chosen at commit time, repeated in the SEED payload. Never reuse one.
SEED: Marker opcode 0x01. Creates an artifact. Payload is salt(16) | flags(1) | carrier_vout(1).
Shatter: The endpoint listing recently closed rings, newest first.
spec_sha256: The hash of the specification a deployment is bound to. Published through status. Quote it instead of a version label.
State root: SHA256("PTNA/state" || canonical snapshot encoding). Two implementations agree when their roots match at the same height.
Stretch: One continuous period during which a carrier stays unspent. A stretch becomes a ring when it ends.
Successor: The output an artifact follows when its carrier is spent. Chosen by a valid KEEP entry, or by the default rule.
Tier: One of eight named bands on depth: Raw, Sheen, Cast, Verdigris, Umber, Bronze, Oxide, Elder.
Window: The 4032 block period during which founding commits are accepted. Opens once.
Wire order: A transaction id in internal byte order, the reverse of what a block explorer displays. Used inside the artifact id derivation.

Bitcoin terms used here

None of these are PATINA inventions. They are listed because a PATINA page uses them somewhere that the ordinary meaning is not quite enough, usually around the reveal or around an accidental spend.

BIP-322: The standard for signing a message with a Bitcoin key, including Taproot addresses. Used for attestations.
BIP-341: The Taproot specification. Defines tapleaf hashing and script path spends, which the commit output uses.
Coin control: Choosing which outputs a wallet spends, and locking outputs so it cannot spend them. The main defence against an accidental reset.
CPFP: Child pays for parent. Spending an output of a slow transaction to raise the effective fee. Safe for a PATINA artifact only when the child spends an output that is not the carrier.
OP_RETURN: An output that is provably unspendable and carries data. Every PATINA marker is one.
P2TR: Pay to Taproot. The output type used for the commit.
RBF: Replace by fee. Replacing an unconfirmed transaction with a higher fee version. Changes the txid, which matters when the transaction is your reveal.
Script path spend: Spending a Taproot output by revealing a script from its tree, rather than with the key path. The reveal must do this.
x-only public key: A 32 byte public key encoding used by Taproot, with the y coordinate implied.