Glossary

Avalanche L1

A sovereign Layer-1 blockchain built on Avalanche’s consensus infrastructure. Each L1 has its own validator set, gas token, and execution environment. Snowside is an Avalanche L1.

Defined in BIP-301. A mechanism where Bitcoin miners secure a sidechain by including compact block header commitments in their coinbase transactions — without running the sidechain itself. “Blind” means miners do not validate or understand the sidechain’s internals.

BIP-300 / BIP-301

Bitcoin Improvement Proposals for Drivechains (BIP-300, hashrate escrows) and Blind Merged Mining (BIP-301). Together they enable Bitcoin-secured sidechains. Paul Sztorc’s eCash hard-fork activates these proposals.

Chain ID

A unique numeric identifier for an EVM chain. Snowside’s Chain ID is 73.

Consensus

The mechanism by which validators agree on the next block. Snowside uses Avalanche’s Snowman consensus — a metastable, subsampling-based protocol with deterministic finality.

Deterministic Finality

Once a block is accepted by the validator set, it is final and cannot be reverted. Contrasted with probabilistic finality (Bitcoin, Ethereum PoW) where blocks can always be orphaned by a longer chain.

Drivechain

A Bitcoin sidechain design by Paul Sztorc where Bitcoin miners custody the pegged funds via hashrate escrows (BIP-300). Users move BTC between Bitcoin and the sidechain via special withdrawal transactions that miners must approve.

eCash

Paul Sztorc’s specification for an electronic cash system built as a Bitcoin sidechain. Snowside is built to host the eCash implementation.

EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine)

The execution environment for smart contracts on Ethereum-compatible chains. Snowside runs a full EVM — all Ethereum tools (Foundry, Hardhat, Remix, ethers.js) work without modification.

EthSide

Paul Sztorc’s previous EVM sidechain, now retired. Discontinued because standalone chain management was too time-consuming for a single maintainer. Snowside is the successor — fixing EthSide’s operational problems with NodeRunr automation and Avalanche infrastructure.

Gas

The fee paid for transaction execution on an EVM chain. On Snowside, gas is paid in BTC — not a new token.

ICM (Interchain Messaging)

Avalanche’s native protocol for communication between subnets and the primary network. Snowside uses ICM to bridge USDC from the C-Chain trust-minimizingly.

NodeRunr

An open-source daemon created by 0xShomari that automates Avalanche L1 node deployment, monitoring, and updates. Won a retro9000 grant from the Avalanche Foundation. Repository: https://github.com/abitsuite/noderunr

Precompile

A custom smart contract built into the EVM at the consensus level. Snowside uses precompiles for eCash-specific logic, configured via NodeRunr’s precompile concierge feature.

Snowman

The linear-chain variant of the Avalanche Consensus Protocol. Used by Snowside validators. Provides sub-second deterministic finality.

Sovereign Validator Set

A validator set that is independent of other chains. Snowside has its own validators — they do not share with or depend on C-Chain or any other subnet.

Teleporter

The ICM contract that locks assets on the source chain and sends a message to the destination chain to mint equivalent assets. Used for USDC bridging between C-Chain and Snowside.

USDC

A USD-pegged stablecoin issued by Circle. On Snowside, USDC is bridged from Avalanche’s C-Chain via ICM — no wrapped representation, native settlement.

Snowside Treasury

The entity that captures the Treasury portion of Contract Fees from opted-in contracts. Distributes to the Snowside Foundation (10% retained), Settlement Proposers (5%), and Validators (85%, proportional to bonded BTC).

Snowside Foundation

The governing body that manages the Snowside Treasury. Retains 10% of gross Contract Fee capture to fund ecosystem development, operational costs, and the fallback settlement proposer.

Contract Fee

An optional, opt-in fee on EVM contract calls. May be denominated in BTC or USDC. Split between Contract Owner (50% to 80% over 18-month vesting) and the Snowside Treasury.

Fallback Settlement Proposer

A settlement proposer operated by the Snowside Foundation that submits BMM commitments only when no open-market proposer has submitted within approximately 10 minutes.