Glossary
Account
A selected wallet account has its own on-chain balances and saved state. Several wallet accounts can exist on one device. An authenticated VOUT service account is a separate concept: it is the identity under which the Lightning service keeps its ledger balance. Accounts and imports covers the wallet side.
Anchor
The Bitcoin transaction evidence that binds an RGB state transition to a spent seal. Wallets must check the relevant Bitcoin history as well as the RGB proof. In Lightning, an anchor output is a different use of the word: an output designed to help pay fees for a commitment transaction. An RGB commitment and a Lightning fee anchor must not be treated as interchangeable.
Available balance
An amount the wallet or service currently allows you to spend. A total can include amounts that are pending, held for another operation, or otherwise unavailable. Balances and fees explains why the displayed total and spendable amount can differ.
Base unit and precision
An asset’s smallest accounting unit and the number of decimal places used to display it. With precision 2, 100 base units display as 1.00. A ticker does not tell you an asset’s precision.
BOLT11
The invoice format used for Bitcoin Lightning payment requests. An invoice carries information needed to request a payment, including its network and payment conditions. Accepting a BTC BOLT11 invoice does not establish support for an RGB payment. The BOLT11 specification defines the format.
Carrier
A Bitcoin output used to hold an RGB seal or allocation. Its sats remain Bitcoin in the wallet, but the output’s RGB role can restrict how it may be spent. Preparing a carrier may incur a Bitcoin transaction fee; the sats retained in the output are not themselves that fee.
Client-side validation
The wallets involved validate the asset’s contract and relevant state transitions. Bitcoin supplies the commitment history and double-spend constraints; it does not publish a complete RGB account ledger. See RGB on Bitcoin.
Commitment transaction
A Lightning transaction representing a channel state and the rules for spending its outputs. RGB channel support needs to preserve asset allocations in that state and in the relevant recovery spends. A stale commitment can trigger penalties under the channel’s rules.
Consignment
The proof package a recipient needs to validate an RGB transfer. It includes relevant contract and transition data. Transporting that package is one part of payment completion, not proof that the receiver accepted it.
Contract ID
The identity of an RGB contract. Names, tickers, and logos can be reused by unrelated issuers. Compare Contract IDs when deciding whether two entries represent the same asset.
Custody
Control over the keys or service records needed to move funds. VOUT’s on-chain wallet keeps keys on the user’s device. VOUT holds balances inside its Lightning service and operates the node that pays external invoices.
Full-state backup
An encrypted archive of a selected VOUT wallet account and network, including the wallet state needed for supported RGB recovery. It complements recovery material. It does not act as an archive of every account or every VOUT service. See Back up and restore.
HTLC
A hash time locked contract, used by Lightning to make a payment conditional on a secret or a timeout. RGB-aware recovery must account for the asset allocation as well as the Bitcoin output when an HTLC reaches the chain.
Liquidity
The capacity to move a payment in the required direction through a channel or route. A service balance is not a measurement of external channel liquidity. A payment can fail for lack of a route even when the payer has enough balance.
Pending
A saved operation or amount that has not reached the conditions for completion. Its exact meaning depends on the payment path. It is not a request to pay again. When a payment is pending explains what to inspect.
Receiver acknowledgement
A response from the recipient’s payment flow after it checks the transfer. VOUT’s on-chain RGB sender combines the relevant acknowledgement with chain evidence in its settlement process. An HTTP success response from a proof-delivery service is a different event.
Regtest
A Bitcoin test environment where developers control block production. It is useful for reproducing transaction and failure sequences. Results from that environment do not establish behavior under Mainnet network conditions.
Seal
A single-use link between RGB ownership and a Bitcoin output. Spending the relevant output closes the seal under the protocol’s rules. RGB proofs establish which state transition that closure commits to.
Testnet4
A public Bitcoin test network. Its chain and coins are separate from Mainnet. VOUT also separates wallet and service state by network.
UTXO
An unspent transaction output. A Bitcoin transaction consumes existing outputs and creates new ones. An output can also have an RGB role, so a wallet must consider more than its BTC amount when choosing what to spend.