Glossary

Terms and definitions related to Ax Protocol.

Terms and Definitions

Term	Definition
Guardian	One of 19 validators in Wormhole's Guardian Network.
Guardian Network	Wormhole's decentralized oracle network, consisting of 19 validators (Guardians). The current list of Guardians can be viewed here.
Guardian Spy	A Guardian node that only observes and forwards network traffic to help scale VAA distribution. This service does not validate any VAAs.
LayerZero Endpoint	The smart contract by which all LayerZero messages are emitted and verified. LayerZero deploys this contract to every chain they want to support.
Message-Passing Protocol	A protocol that facilitates sending arbitrary data from one blockchain to another blockchain (i.e., LayerZero or Wormhole).
Relayer	The off-chain service that processes and delivers cross-chain messages.
Spy Listener	The off-chain service that listens to a Guardian Spy node for Ax Protocol-specific VAAs via a gRPC stream.
VAA	Verifiable Action Approvals (VAAs) are the core messaging primitive in Wormhole. You can think of them as packets of xData that are emitted any time an xDapp contract interacts with Wormhole's Core Bridge Contract. The VAAs are signed by the Guardians and need 13/19 signatures to be considered authentic.
Wormhole Core Bridge	The smart contract by which all Wormhole messages are emitted and verified. Wormhole deploys this contract to every chain they want to support.