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Appendix A: Glossary of Terms

  • Anti-Money Laundering (AML)
    Refers to a set of policies and practices to ensure that financial institutions and other regulated entities prevent, detect, and report financial crime, especially money laundering activities.

  • Blockchain
    A decentralized, distributed digital ledger that records transactions across many computers in a secure and immutable manner.

  • Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)
    An organization that is governed by rules encoded as computer programs and operates without a centralized leadership structure.

  • Decentralized Identifiers (DID)
    Digital identifiers designed for verifiable identification of subjects in decentralized environments.

  • Electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC)
    An electronic process by which private and public institutions verify a customer’s Personal Identifiable Information (PII) to comply with anti-money laundering and other regulations. A common implementation of eKYC is facial recognition through smartphone and computer cameras.

  • Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)
    A virtual machine that executes smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain, providing a runtime environment for executing bytecode.

  • Ethereum Mainnet
    The production “main network” of Ethereum.

  • JSC Mainnet
    The production “main network” of Japan Smart Chain.

  • Know Your Customer (KYC)
    A process by which entities verify their customer’s Personal Identifiable Information (PII) to comply with anti-money laundering (AML) and other regulations.

  • Layer 1 (L1)
    The base blockchain network, such as Ethereum or Bitcoin, handles transaction settlement and maintains the core infrastructure.

  • Layer 2 (L2)
    A secondary protocol built on top of a Layer 1 blockchain to improve scalability and transaction throughput.

  • Mizuhiki Suite (formerly known as “Mizuhiki Protocol”)
    JSC's proprietary protocol that introduces an user-controlled identification toolkit for enhancing user convenience, safety, and network security.

  • Mizuhiki Attestors
    This is the JSC equivalent of “Certificate Authorities” (CA). In the World Wide Web paradigm, CAs act as trusted third parties—trusted both by the subject (owner) of a digital certificate and by the party relying upon that certificate. Mizuhiki Attestors implement the Mizuhiki ID tooling from Mizuhiki Suite.

  • Mizuhiki Controller A registered JPKI Service Provider, and a JSCF-approved entity authorised to issue Mizuhiki DIDs and “Mizuhiki Verified” soulbound tokens.

  • Personal Identifiable Information (PII)
    Refers to personally identifiable information such as name, date of birth, email address, or biometric data.

  • Proof of Stake (PoS)
    A consensus mechanism used by some blockchain networks to validate transactions and create new blocks, where validators stake their cryptocurrency holdings to participate in the consensus process.

  • Smart Contract
    Digital contracts/instruction sets stored on the blockchain that are automatically executed when predetermined terms and conditions are met.

  • Soulbound Token (SBT) A non-fungible token that is non-transferable, but may be revokable by either the recipient of the SBT or the issuer. JSC currently implements the ERC-5484 standard (Consensual Soulbound Tokens).

  • Stablecoin
    A cryptocurrency designed to minimize price volatility, often by being pegged to a stable asset like the US dollar or a commodity.

  • Staker
    An entity that stakes JSC tokens into the JSC network.

  • Sybil Attack
    A type of attack in decentralized networks where a single entity creates multiple identities to gain a disproportionate influence on the network.

  • Testnet
    A “test network” which simulates the behavior of the respective chain’s mainnet. Testnets are used by developers and trial customers to test the processes and mechanisms of the mainnet without real-world financial repercussions.

  • Validator Client Operator
    Validator Client Operators (“Operators”) represent the backbone of the JSC network, typically consisting of large Japanese companies and established enterprises that are entrusted with the task of operating validator clients alongside maintaining network infrastructure. Operators maintain physical or cloud-based infrastructure, consensus processes, and contribute to network governance decisions.

  • Validator Stack The combination of blockchain node hardware and software infrastructure, onshore in Japan, that is collectively responsible for implementing and securing the JSC blockchain by collecting transactions, building them into blocks, and propagating those blocks to all the participants of the network. Validator Stacks consist of a consensus client, execution client and validator client.

  • Verifiable Credential (VC)
    Digital credentials that can be verified in a decentralized environment, often using decentralized identifiers (DIDs) for identification.

  • Verifiable Presentation (VP)
    A subset or cryptographically abstracted derivation of a Verifiable Credential, with the purpose of disclosing the minimum amount of information required to perform a regulated or rule-based activity.

  • Verifiable Data Registry (VDR)
    A Verifiable Data Registry (also known as a Trusted Issuer Registry) manages Verifiable Credential data (not to be confused with Personal Identifiable Information) on Japan Smart Chain. The VDR is tamper-evident and represents a correct record of Verifiable Credentials issued by Mizuhiki Attestors.

  • Zero-Knowledge (ZK), Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP)
    Refers to a modern cryptographic method allowing one party to prove to another party that a statement is true without revealing any additional information.