Fluree

A decentralized data management platform, a database which works like an application, operating as a sidechain of the Cardano network.

Fluree’s goal is to ensure that data be FAIR

Findable
Accessible
Interoperable
Reuseable

Data stored on this sidechain is timestamped, giving it immutability, and viewers can “time travel” through the data, tracing versions of a piece of data back to its original iteration.

It is not possible to store large amounts of metadata on-chain with Cardano, therefore connecting an immutable sidechain to the equally immutable Cardano blockchain allows for this provable, data-centric side chain to scale.

Developers use Fluree’s APIs to store and access their data on the chain. Logins are verified with public and private key systems and data is sharable based on the user’s credentials.

Industry

Developer Tools

Javascript

Tags

API

Data Bridge

Data Storage

Sidechain

Blockchain Data

Author

builtoncardano

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Glossary

On-Chain

These are all the on-chain NFTs, and on-chain NFT collections, that currently exist on Cardano. Many people consider on-chain NFTs to be better, or more special, than off-chain NFTs.

In regards to the on-chain vs off-chain NFT argument, the image represented by an off-chain NFT is found by following a link, typically stored on the IPFS, from the NFTs metadata. This can be changed by the person who uploaded it. The image represented by an on-chain NFT is coded into the metadata and is, therefore, immutably coded into the blockchain's history. This is usually, but not always, in the form a language that your browser understands, allowing your browser to interpret that information and display the NFT.

Metadata

Metadata is an element of a Cardano transaction that can be inputed by the user or automatically generated. It is stored on the blockchain with the transaction that it was sent with. This means that, just like the transactions themselves, metadata is immutable, i.e. unchangeable, and stored forever on the Cardano blockchain.

Anyone can add metadata into a transaction and that metadata is then stored on the blockchain. Many wallets allow you to add custom metadata to a transaction.

Metadata can only be made up of characters i.e. numbers, letters and punctuation, and cannot be a file type, i.e. you cannot unload files like PDFs or MP3s to the blockchain. The size of the metadata you can add to a transactions is limited to 16KB, and a character is, typically, 1 Byte, so that means you can add up to 1600 characters as metadata with any transaction.

Metadata can be used for many purposes the most common is to give some form of context to the transaction. Metadata has been used to store supply chain data, to send arbitrary message to be stored on the blockchain, and to store the hash of a document (allowing the blockchain to be used for proof-of-existence). People have used metadata, on the testnet, to immortalize the Cardano whitepaper, by writing it onto the blockchain as transactions across multiple transactions.

Many block explorers allow users to view and search transaction metadata. Remember, anything you add as metadata to a transaction will always be publicly available on the blockchain.

API

API stands for Application Programming Interface.

An API is an intermediary or go-between that allows computers or computer programs to talk to each other and pass information back and forth. APIs act as the messengers that take the request from the computer or computer program to the source that can provide the answer to that request, retrieves the answer, and then bringing it back to the computer or program that initiated the request.

In the blockchain space APIs are mainly used to query the blockchain. This is to say, that an API can be used to abstract specific data points from the blockchain so that a computer or program can use those data points to inform its user or its actions.

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