Glossary

The following terms define the cryptographic and operational components of ZENDEX:

Term	Cryptographic / Operational Definition
ZK Proof	A mathematical proof demonstrating that a state transition is valid without revealing the private inputs used to compute it.
UltraPlonk	An advanced ZK proof system built on Plonk that supports custom gates and lookup tables without requiring a per-circuit trusted setup.
Noir	A domain-specific language developed by Aztec for writing zero-knowledge circuits compiled down to Barretenberg proof keys.
Barretenberg	The backend C++ proving library used to construct and verify UltraPlonk zero-knowledge proofs.
Poseidon Hash	A cryptographic hash function optimized for low constraint counts within ZK circuit environments.
Commitment	An opaque cryptographic hash representing owned assets: $C = \text{Poseidon}(\text{asset\_id}, \text{amount}, \text{Poseidon}(\text{blinding}, \text{pk}_x, \text{pk}_y))$.
Nullifier	A unique single-use cryptographic value derived from a commitment to mark it as spent without revealing its identity: $N = \text{Poseidon}(\text{Poseidon}(\text{blinding}), \text{pk}_x, \text{pk}_y)$.
Incremental Merkle Tree	An append-only tree data structure storing active asset commitments. Managed on-chain by TreeOperator.
Epoch	A specific state index of the Merkle tree that bounds the validity window of inclusion proofs.
Spot Commitment	A private record stored in the tree representing an unexecuted limit order in the order book module.
TreeOperator	The non-upgradeable contract responsible for appending commitments and maintaining root history.
Boost Manager	The upgradeable contract calculating yield multipliers for users staking $ZKZ governance tokens.
Basis Points (bps)	Unit of measure representing hundredths of a percent ($1\% = 100\text{ bps}$).