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Key concepts

This page defines the concepts referenced across operator, wallet, and builder docs.

Cycle, block, LSU​

  • Cycle: the consensus time unit.
  • Block: the explorer-friendly term for a cycle that produced a ledger update.
  • LSU (Ledger State Update): the applied state transition for a cycle.

Important: some cycles legitimately produce no LSU, so catalyst_getBlockByNumber(<cycle>) can return null.

Accounts, keys, identifiers​

  • Protocol account: identified by a 32-byte public key (pubkey32), hex-encoded as 0x<64 hex>.
  • EVM address: 20-byte hex address (address20), 0x<40 hex>.

In several places, Catalyst derives the EVM address from a protocol key:

  • evm_sender = last20(pubkey32)

Canonical reference: catalyst-sdk/README.md (“Deterministic contract addresses”).

Transactions (CTX2)​

Catalyst tooling uses CTX2 transactions submitted via:

  • catalyst_sendRawTransaction

This is not Ethereum eth_sendRawTransaction.

Canonical references:

  • catalyst-sdk/README.md (CTX2 + method name)
  • catalyst-node-rust/crates/catalyst-rpc/src/lib.rs (catalyst_sendRawTransaction)

Typical transaction flow​

  • Fetch signing domain: catalyst_getTxDomain
  • Build + sign tx (SDK or CLI)
  • Submit: catalyst_sendRawTransaction
  • Poll: catalyst_getTransactionReceipt
  • For contracts, verify code: catalyst_getCode

See RPC: transaction lifecycle for end-to-end examples.

Tokenomics (v1 baseline)​

  • Fair launch: 0 KAT at genesis.
  • Fixed issuance: 1 KAT per successful cycle (target ~20s).
  • Unit scale: 1 KAT = 1_000_000_000 atoms (block_reward_atoms = 1_000_000_000).
  • Fee routing: 70% burn, 30% reward pool, 0% treasury.
  • Reward split baseline: producer set gets larger share; eligible waiting workers also receive rewards.
  • Fee credits: only for eligible waiting workers, non-transferable, and never a replacement for mandatory transaction fees.

See Overview: tokenomics for parameters, rationale, verification, and who qualifies for rewards (registered workers + eligibility—not “sync only”).