Glossary
Every term, plainly.
Terms you’ll see across the site, defined without jargon. If one is missing, email ashish.regmi@zkward.com.
ZK-STARK
A zero-knowledge proof system that lets one party prove a computation was performed correctly without revealing the private inputs. "Scalable Transparent ARgument of Knowledge." ZKward uses STARKs to attest every hedge decision on-chain — the proof is public, the position details are private.
Goldilocks field
The prime field with modulus p = 2⁶⁴ − 2³² + 1 = 18,446,744,069,414,584,321. Used by ZKward, Polygon zkEVM, and Plonky2 because 64-bit arithmetic is native on modern CPUs. Native-width fields give fast Number Theoretic Transforms (NTTs), which is how STARK provers stay practical.
FRI (Fast Reed-Solomon IOP of Proximity)
The polynomial commitment scheme inside a STARK. Given a claim that a polynomial has low degree, FRI produces a short proof that anyone can verify in O(log n) time. ZKward uses 80 FRI queries plus 20 bits of proof-of-work grinding, giving 180-bit soundness. Cited: Ben-Sasson–Bentov–Horesh–Riabzev, ePrint 2018/828.
Prediction market
A market where people bet on the outcome of a future event. The market price reflects the crowd's probability estimate. Polymarket, Kalshi, and Manifold are the main crypto-adjacent venues. Polymarket processed $20B/month in early 2026 — the signal is finally liquid enough to trade at retail size.
Hedge
A trade designed to offset the risk of another position. If ZKward holds $10K of BTC spot and a signal says "BTC drops soon," the hedge opens a SHORT BTC perpetual — losses on spot are cancelled by gains on the short. ZKward's hedge ratio is 50% base, scaled up to 100% for very small pools where the perp minimums matter more.
Perpetual (perp)
A futures contract with no expiry date. Traders pay/receive "funding" every 8 hours to keep the perp price close to the spot price. ZKward executes hedges on BlueFin perpetuals on SUI. Funding sign is one of the signals fed to the aggregator.
Autonomous vault
A smart contract holding user deposits where allocation decisions are made by code (or AI), not by a human manager. ZKward is autonomous: seven agents read signals every 5 minutes, decide, execute, and write a proof. No human clicks a button before capital moves.
Zero-knowledge proof
A cryptographic proof that a statement is true without revealing why. Example: proving "I know a password that unlocks this file" without showing the password. In ZKward, the statement is "this hedge follows all vault rules" and the private inputs are the exact size, entry price, and side.
Post-quantum
A cryptographic system that a large quantum computer cannot break. RSA and ECDSA are NOT post-quantum — Shor's algorithm breaks both in polynomial time on a sufficiently large quantum machine. STARKs are post-quantum because they use only hash functions (SHA-256) and prime-field arithmetic, both quantum-resistant.
Non-custodial
A design where the user, not the protocol operator, controls the private keys that authorize withdrawals. In ZKward, the pool is a Move object owned by the contract; withdrawal is permissionless — you sign a transaction and the funds return to your wallet without operator approval.
AdminCap / FeeManagerCap / OracleCap
SUI Move objects that grant specific permissions. AdminCap can pause the contract; FeeManagerCap collects fees; OracleCap attests NAV. ZKward splits these so the fee path cannot be seized by an admin-key compromise. AdminCap is migrating to a multisig (MSafe) in v0.4.0.
TVL (Total Value Locked)
The total value of assets deposited in a DeFi protocol. ZKward's TVL is capped at $10,000 by the Move contract during the operational-proof phase. Cap-lifting requires a governance action — code cannot bypass the on-chain limit.
Drawdown
The peak-to-trough decline of a portfolio's value. If the pool hit $9,000 and fell to $7,650, drawdown is 15%. ZKward's autonomy defense system triggers at specific drawdown thresholds — profit-lock clamping starts at 5%, zero-risk mode at 20%.
MSafe multisig
A multi-signature wallet on the SUI network. Requires N of M signatures to authorize a transaction. ZKward's FeeManagerCap is held in MSafe today; AdminCap moves there in v0.4.0 after the OracleCap split.
Cron (scheduled job)
A scheduled task that runs at fixed intervals. ZKward runs 14 crons — most every 5 minutes — for signal aggregation, hedge execution, reconciliation, and health checks. Every cron uses claim-based idempotency: two invocations at the same time cannot double-execute.
Signal fusion
Combining multiple data sources into one directional estimate. ZKward's aggregator blends ten sources: Polymarket, Delphi, Crypto.com price, BlueFin funding, Binance funding + long/short, Bybit funding + OI, Kalshi ATM strike, Deribit vol, and multi-asset alignment. Each source has a per-asset weight; the fused output feeds hedge sizing.