Midnight SignalCardano · Midnight · Signals

Home Explain It

Explain It

Explain app risk.

Operator Summary: Use these terms after a trust review raises a question. They explain wallets, DeFi, builder activity, recent changes, and protocol risk in plain English.

Lookup

Wallet

An app that lets users store keys, sign transactions, and interact with blockchain apps.

Lookup

Self-Custody

Holding your own keys instead of trusting an exchange or custodian.

Lookup

Swap

Trading one token for another through a wallet, DEX, or aggregator.

Lookup

Network Fee

A transaction cost paid to use a blockchain network.

Lookup

APR

Annual percentage rate. A simple yearly rate that usually does not include compounding.

Lookup

APY

Annual percentage yield. A yearly rate that includes compounding assumptions.

Lookup

TVL

Total value locked. The amount of capital deposited in a protocol.

Lookup

Builder Activity

Evidence that a project or team is still active, such as mapped repositories, tracked updates, releases, or curated registry coverage.

Lookup

Recent Changes

Source-backed ecosystem events that can affect trust, risk, attention, or whether an app deserves a closer review.

Lookup

Staking

Locking or delegating tokens to support a network or protocol in exchange for rewards.

Lookup

Collateral

Assets pledged to borrow against in a lending protocol.

Lookup

Liquidation

When collateral is sold or seized because a borrow position became too risky.

Contextual Learning

Trust Watch terms

Terms update based on the page you are viewing. Linked terms can open this panel directly.

Market Basics

Liquidity

How easy it is to trade without slippage.

Liquidity describes how easily an asset can be bought or sold without moving the price too much. Higher liquidity usually means cleaner execution and lower slippage risk.

Trust Watch

Trust Watch

Apps evaluated with trust evidence.

The app intelligence surface for wallets, DeFi apps, lending platforms, privacy tools, and infrastructure. It combines trust state, risk notes, builder activity, recent changes, and live evidence so users can decide what deserves review before connecting.

Trust Record

An app confidence dossier.

A Trust Record brings together what an app does, whether it deserves review before connecting, trust state, confidence, freshness, builder activity, recent changes, governance or CIP context, risk notes, and live evidence.

Review Before Connecting

A caution posture before wallet use.

Review before connecting means Midnight Signal has enough evidence to inspect the app, but not enough to treat it as low-risk. It is a decision cue, not a guarantee or endorsement.

Community Evidence

User-submitted review signals.

Community evidence includes structured user reports about app usage, issues, rebrands, shutdowns, exploits, link changes, or source updates. It can raise review attention, but it does not make an app trusted or unsafe without source confirmation.

Source Confirmation

Evidence checked against a source.

Source confirmation means a community report or trust signal has supporting evidence such as an official update, security report, repository activity, documentation change, or credible news source. Midnight Signal treats unconfirmed reports as review signals, not verdicts.

Lifecycle Status

Whether an app is active, rebranded, or discontinued.

Lifecycle status tells users whether a Trust Record represents an active app, a rebranded app, a paused product, a discontinued service, or an incident-review record. It helps avoid stale registry entries looking current.

Incident Review

A trust record with reported security or loss evidence.

Incident review means Midnight Signal has source-linked reports of a security, exploit, loss, wind-down, or operational issue. It should raise caution before connecting, but the evidence still needs to be read in context.

Trust Entity Database

The monitored app source of truth.

The Trust Entity Database is the Supabase-backed registry for apps and protocols. It tracks current names, former names, lifecycle status, incident status, sources, source-confirmed events, and monitoring freshness. The static registry is only seed or fallback data.

Trust Score

A confidence read for apps and protocols.

A score that summarizes trust evidence such as maturity, ecosystem presence, risk flags, available data, security signals, and product category context. It is not an endorsement or guarantee.

Builder Activity

Evidence that a team is shipping.

Builder activity looks for source-backed signs that a project or team is still active, such as mapped repositories, releases, tracked updates, or curated registry evidence. It is a trust input, not a guarantee of low risk.

Recent Changes

Source-backed movement since the last brief.

Recent changes are stored ecosystem events that can affect attention, trust, governance, or builder momentum. In Trust Watch, they help explain whether an app or protocol deserves a closer review.

Governance / CIP Context

Standards and coordination evidence.

Governance and CIP context can show whether a project, feature, or recent build aligns with a recognized Cardano process or standard. It is supporting evidence, not proof that an app is low risk.

Organization Trust Entity

A monitored organization record, not an app safety verdict.

An organization Trust Entity tracks ecosystem organizations, their roles, response context, and related app history. It should help explain coordination changes without turning organization records into app-level scam warnings.

Wallets

Wallet

An app for holding and using crypto.

A wallet lets users hold assets, connect to dApps, sign transactions, and sometimes swap tokens. Wallet choice matters because it controls the user experience and key-management risk.

Self-Custody

You control the keys.

Self-custody means the user controls the private keys or recovery phrase. It gives more control, but also more responsibility if keys are lost or exposed.

Seed Phrase

The recovery words for a wallet.

A seed phrase is a set of recovery words that can restore wallet access. Anyone with the phrase can usually control the wallet, so it should never be shared or typed into untrusted sites.

Fees

Costs paid to use a network or app.

Fees can include network transaction fees, swap fees, routing fees, lending fees, or protocol fees. Good app pages should make fee sources clear before the user acts.

DeFi

Swap

Trading one token for another.

A swap exchanges one crypto asset for another, usually through a decentralized exchange, wallet route, or aggregator. Users should watch fees, slippage, liquidity, and token legitimacy.

DeFi

Financial apps built on blockchains.

DeFi means decentralized finance: apps for swapping, lending, borrowing, staking, liquidity provision, and yield strategies that operate through smart contracts.

APR

Annual rate without compounding.

APR estimates yearly return or cost without assuming rewards are reinvested. It is useful for simple comparisons, but it can understate or differ from compounded returns.

APY

Annual rate with compounding.

APY estimates yearly return when rewards compound. It can look higher than APR, so users should understand the assumptions behind the number.

TVL

Total value locked.

TVL estimates how much value is deposited in a protocol. It can indicate adoption and liquidity, but it can also change quickly and should not be treated as proof of low risk.

Staking

Participating in network or protocol rewards.

Staking generally means locking or delegating assets to help secure a network or participate in a protocol, often in exchange for rewards. Risks vary by chain and app.

Lending

Collateral

Assets backing a loan.

Collateral is value posted to borrow against. If collateral falls too much, a position can be liquidated, which is why collateral ratios matter in lending apps.

Liquidation

Forced closing of an undercollateralized position.

Liquidation happens when a borrowing position no longer has enough collateral. The protocol can sell or seize collateral to repay debt, often with a penalty.

Privacy

ZK Proof

Proving something without revealing everything.

A zero-knowledge proof lets one party prove a statement is true without revealing all of the underlying data. It is one of the core ideas behind many privacy-preserving blockchain systems.

Selective Disclosure

Revealing only the data that is needed.

Selective disclosure means sharing specific information while keeping other details private. It is important for identity, compliance, and privacy-aware applications.

Governance

Governance Role Change

A change in ecosystem coordination duties.

A governance role change is tracked as coordination context. It can matter for ecosystem confidence, but it is not the same as a protocol failure or app-level scam warning.