A
ACE (Access Control Encryption)
Aptos Labs' protocol for encrypting data and letting a Move smart contract decide who can decrypt it. Uses IBE (Identity-Based Encryption) with a threshold committee of workers. The ContractID is any Move #[view] function returning bool. When the function returns true, the committee releases key shares for decryption.
AIP-120
Aptos Improvement Proposal 120. Built by Sital Kedia while at Aptos Labs. Replaced Econia's AVL tree orderbook index with BigOrderedMap (B+ tree). Delivered: O(1) flat gas for all orderbook operations (vs O(log n) unpredictable gas from AVL rebalancing), 57% reduction in bytecode size, and added TWAP, Dead Man's Switch, and Pre-cancel primitives.
AIP-125 (Event-driven Transactions) Aptos Improvement Proposal 125. The native automation layer on Aptos. Enables time/price/signal-triggered transactions that execute automatically without human intervention. Used by the Indicator Marketplace for bot execution: when an onchain indicator fires, AIP-125 triggers the Decibel perps order atomically.
AIP-143 (Confidential Assets) Aptos Improvement Proposal 143. Adds Twisted ElGamal homomorphic encryption for token balances and transfer amounts. Sender and receiver wallet addresses remain publicly visible, but only amounts are hidden. Pending governance approval as of April 2026. TypeScript SDK live.
ANHS (Aptos Name Hosting Service)
The TLD authority layer built on top of ANS. Companies pay 1000 APT to register a TLD (.whop, .poly, .decibel). ANHS holds the parent .apt domain and delegates subdomain creation. APT burn on all registrations, renewals, and secondary market trades.
ANS (Aptos Name Service)
Aptos's existing name service. Provides .apt names with native wallet resolution in Petra, Backpack, and other ANS-compatible wallets. ANHS mints .apt subdomains on ANS atomically with .whop names.
Archon Aptos's Multi-Leader Primary-Proxy consensus architecture. Delivers 10ms block times and 30ms inclusion confirmations. CEX-level responsiveness. Important distinction: Archon is about speed, not fair ordering. The encrypted mempool provides MEV protection, and Archon provides speed.
Attribution Earnings Earnings attributed as commissions on specific transactions using CA, with the ability to pay different commission rates to different community tiers in a single atomic transaction.
Auto-Deleveraging (ADL) Decibel's mechanism for handling extreme market conditions when the insurance fund is exhausted. The system automatically reduces the most profitable open positions to cover losses. ADL logic is fully onchain. Known issue: off-by-one error in edge cases at the insurance fund boundary (non-critical finding, does not affect normal operations).
B
BigOrderedMap
The B+ tree data structure introduced in AIP-120, replacing Econia's AVL tree. Provides O(1) flat gas for leaf splits (vs AVL's O(log n) unpredictable rebalancing cost). The foundation of Decibel's matching engine and the Whop spot CLOB.
Block-STM Aptos's optimistic concurrent execution engine. Runs all transactions speculatively in parallel, detects conflicts during a validation pass, and re-executes conflicting transactions. Enables true intra-market parallelism: multiple market makers can update the same market in the same block concurrently.
Block-STM v2 Upgraded version scaling to 256 cores with 8x parallel execution capacity. The current production version on Aptos mainnet.
BSA (Bank Secrecy Act) US anti-money-laundering law. Requires financial institutions to file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) for transactions above $10,000/day. In Whop's Zone 1 (Confidential Assets), the auditor key provides the BSA-compliant oversight mechanism.
Budget coin
The UTT UTXO that tracks a user's remaining monthly anonymity budget. Like payment coins, it's a Pedersen commitment in the Merkle tree. Every private transaction reduces the budget coin's balance. The ZK circuit enforces budget_new = budget_old - amount >= 0. The budget cap is the primary AML compliance mechanism for Zone 2.
C
CA (Confidential Assets) Short for AIP-143 Confidential Assets. Hides token amounts and balances using Twisted ElGamal homomorphic encryption, while keeping sender/receiver addresses visible. Zone 1 of the Whop privacy architecture.
Confidential Payment Splits Multi-party revenue distribution using CA in a single atomic transaction. Each party sees their share, nobody sees anyone else's. Used for Content Rewards attribution (50/25/20/5 split) and tiered vault commissions.
Content Rewards Whop Appstore app for programmatic clipper payouts. Brands and trading communities attach it to their Whop page and put out clipping campaigns. Clippers earn based on how viral their clips get. The current version [contentrewards.com] runs as a Whop Appstore app. The v2 [contentrewards.xyz] adds Shelby storage and Aptos transactions for real time onchain clipping payouts in USDT. For Whop, the idea is to get traders and trading communities posting clips of their best trading moments through Content Rewards campaigns. Attribution split: 50% creator, 25% community, 20% indicator referenced, 5% Whop. 10x multiplier for views that convert to subscriptions.
ContractID (ACE)
In ACE, the identifier of the Move #[view] function that determines decryption permission. The ContractID encodes: the Aptos module address, the function name, and the argument structure. The function returns true if the requester has permission. Workers release key shares only on true.
Copy trading A Whop product where followers automatically mirror a signal caller's trades in real time. Per-second CA payment while copying. Aptos onchain randomness randomizes execution order to prevent the exit liquidity attack. UTT hides both trader's and follower's positions.
Crankless CLOB A Central Limit Order Book where order matching, book updates, and asset settlement all happen in a single atomic transaction, no separate "crank" operation needed to process the queue. Econia was one of only three crankless CLOBs ever built. The Whop spot CLOB design continues this.
D
DASMAC The company Alex Kahn founded immediately after Econia shut down, before revealing Dropset. The bridge between Econia's closure and Dropset's development. Limited public documentation.
Dead Man's Switch A Decibel orderbook feature (added with AIP-120) that automatically cancels a market maker's order ladder if they fail to refresh within a configured time window. Prevents stale quotes from executing at incorrect prices after a connectivity failure.
Decibel The fully onchain perpetuals exchange on Aptos. Built by Sital Kedia and team. $1.27B cumulative volume, $43M TVL, 40x leverage, 15+ markets. Fully onchain risk engine (ADL, mark price, funding rate). OtterSec audited. Uses permissionless crank. Known sandwich attack vulnerability.
Churn Cycle The economic loop Whop's trading category is currently in: lower retention → increased churn → CAC exceeds LTV → external investment required → lose complete control. Driven by trust failure from unverifiable trading products.
Dodis-Yampolskiy PRF
The pseudorandom function used to derive UTT nullifiers: nl = sn^(1/sk). Chosen for its algebraic properties that enable efficient ZK proof construction via a Σ-Protocol and Fiat-Shamir transformation. Provides the "binding" property: only the coin owner can compute the correct nullifier.
Dropset Alex Kahn's new onchain CLOB on Solana, revealed March 31, 2026. Core innovation: drop-and-set primitive (atomic batch ladder replace). Engineering: SBPF assembly, RB-trees, single canonical PDA, CLRS-spec-to-Lean formal verification. 100% open-source, pre-mainnet beta.
E
Econia Alex Kahn's original crankless onchain CLOB on Aptos. Backed by Dragonfly Capital (Kadin led the investment) in March 2023. One of only three crankless CLOBs ever built globally. Shut down due to unpredictable AVL gas costs and lack of distribution. AIP-120 later solved the gas problem.
Encrypted mempool A proposed Aptos feature (announced October 2025, pending governance as of April 2026) that encrypts transaction contents before block inclusion. Validators cannot see order contents before executing them, preventing front-running via mempool observation. Separate from Archon (which provides speed, not fairness).
Event-driven Transactions The full description of what AIP-125 provides: a native automation layer where onchain events (indicator crossover, price threshold, Pyth price update) trigger transactions automatically. Used by the Indicator Marketplace for fully automated bot execution without human intervention.
Exit liquidity attack
A copy trading exploit where a signal caller goes long, publishes the call, lets followers buy (driving the price up), then exits into the follower demand. Followers are used as exit liquidity. Prevented on Whop by randomizing copy execution order using 0x1::randomness.
F
Fiat-Shamir transformation A technique that converts an interactive ZK proof (where a prover and verifier exchange messages) into a non-interactive proof (where the prover generates the entire proof alone, using a hash function to simulate the verifier's random challenges). Used in UTT's ZK circuit.
FeedPayment
The Move module that serves as the ACE ContractID for Whop Feed article access. FeedPayment(reader, article_id, paragraph_index): bool returns true if the reader has an active CA stream with the creator or has made a one-time payment for that specific paragraph.
Frontier Merkle tree
A space-efficient Merkle tree variant used in UTT. Only the "frontier" (minimal set of nodes needed to extend the tree) is maintained onchain. Provides O(log n) storage, about 1024 bytes forever, regardless of tree size. All historical roots remain valid for ZK proof generation.
G
Groth16 A ZK-SNARK proof system used in UTT's spend circuit. Operates on the BN254 (alt-bn128) elliptic curve. Produces constant-size proofs (192 bytes) regardless of circuit complexity. Verification is efficient (~2ms onchain). Already a native Move VM function in Aptos (added for AIP-143).
Growth Cycle The economic loop that onchain verification enables: verifiable results → brand image improves → CAC decreases, LTV increases → monetizing value creation exceeds value previously extracted → self-sustainable growth. The inverse of the churn cycle.
H
On-chain Indexer
The GraphQL indexer that joins all onchain events to .whop names in real time. Provides the data infrastructure for Explorer profiles, leaderboard queries, and QVAC natural language queries.
I
IBE (Identity-Based Encryption)
A public-key encryption scheme where the public key is any arbitrary string (a phone number, email address, .whop name). The private key is derived from the master IBE secret and the identity string by a trusted key authority. Used in both UTT (send-to-identity) and ACE (threshold decryption).
Indicator Marketplace Already-built infrastructure on Aptos testnet for onchain indicator deployment. PineScript → Move transpiler, Monte Carlo backtester, bonding curve AMM, AIP-125 bot execution. 14 API routes, 12 frontend components, 25+ indicators. Creators earn per profitable signal fired.
IRS (Internal Revenue Service) US tax authority. The $600/year reporting threshold for income from trading activities is addressed by UTT's monthly anonymity budget cap in Zone 2.
K
Chart Replay Auto-screen recording of every trade session to Shelby CDN. Triggered immediately on Spot orderbook or Decibel perps order settlement. Standard clips always free and public. Premium extended replays ACE-encrypted. Every chart replay permanently linked to the corresponding PnL card.
Kadin Former Dragonfly Capital partner who led the Econia investment in March 2023. Now Head of Strategy at Whop. The bridge between Dragonfly's original Aptos CLOB thesis and the Whop opportunity. His 2023 public quote: "We are proud to support transparent open markets."
L
M
MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) Value that can be extracted by reordering, inserting, or censoring transactions within a block. Examples: front-running (seeing a large buy and buying ahead of it), sandwich attacks (surrounding a swap with a buy before and a sell after). Encrypted mempool (pending governance) prevents MEV on Whop order flow.
Multi-party PSP problem The payment processor chargeback issue Whop faces in its trading category. High dispute rates from defrauded buyers generate chargebacks that threaten Whop's merchant relationships with Stripe and similar processors. Onchain payments via APT/USDT are irreversible by design, no chargeback mechanism exists.
N
Nullifier
In UTT, the proof-of-spend for a coin: nl = sn^(1/sk). Computed by the coin owner using their secret key sk and the coin's secret serial number sn. Deterministic (same coin always produces the same nullifier, enabling double-spend detection) and unlinkable (third parties cannot connect a nullifier to a coin without knowing sk and sn).
P
Pedersen commitment
A cryptographic commitment scheme that hides a value while binding the committer to it. In UTT, C = Pedersen(pid, sn, v) commits to the coin's pseudonymous ID, serial number, and value. The commitment is computationally binding (cannot be changed after commitment) and computationally hiding (reveals nothing about the committed values).
PnL card A verifiable trading record consisting of three components: UTT nullifier (cryptographic onchain timestamp), Reclaim zkTLS proof (dollar PnL from actual exchange account), and chart replay clip (screen recording of execution). Public display: asset, direction, entry time, verified PnL, attribution chain. Private: wallet address, position size, counterparty.
Pointcheval-Sanders (PS) signature
A blind signature scheme used in UTT's minting process. The threshold mint authority signs (pid, sn, v) with a PS signature without learning the full coin details (blind minting). The signature is later used inside the ZK circuit to prove the coin was legitimately issued without revealing the signature to the verifier.
Pre-cancel A Decibel orderbook primitive (added with AIP-120) for queuing order cancellations in advance. A market maker can submit "cancel this order at block height X" before the cancellation moment arrives, enabling pre-programmed ladder management without requiring the maker to be online at the exact cancellation time.
Privacy Selection Recommendation Engine The Whop UX layer that automatically selects the appropriate privacy zone (0, 1, or 2) for each transaction. Products are tagged at listing with a recommended zone. The system checks the buyer's budget, recommends a zone, and the buyer confirms or overrides. Removes the burden of understanding cryptographic zones from non-technical users.
ProofOfPermission (ACE) A signed proof that a specific user has onchain permission to decrypt content at a specific time. Generated by the ACE SDK from the user's Aptos signature and the onchain permission state. Workers verify the proof before releasing their IBE key shares.
Q
QVAC The AI-powered natural language query layer over the full Whop on-chain + Shelby identity graph. Answers questions like "show me all signal callers with Sharpe above 1.5 active for 90 days" by querying structured onchain data. QVAC training: Terminal usage data feeds model improvement over time.
QuoteIntent
The market-maker design pattern for the Whop spot CLOB. Two-step operation: (1) submit-intent writes only to the maker's own address, no shared book writes. (2) execute-own-intent does atomic cancel + replace against the shared BigOrderedMap. Reduces Block-STM write conflicts vs Decibel's bulk orders (which write directly to shared state).
R
rAPT BFT Aptos's Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus mechanism. Designed for high TPS and resilience under adversarial network conditions. Combined with Zaptos (the parallel pipelined architecture) for sub-second finality.
Reclaim zkTLS Zero-knowledge proof of HTTPS sessions. Proves facts about a web session (PnL, win rate, volume) against any exchange with HTTPS (Binance, Coinbase, Interactive Brokers) without revealing the raw data. Permanently attached to every PnL card. Source of truth for all verified statistics on Whop Explorer.
Revenue Sharing
Multi-party payment where revenue splits pay out to multiple .whop names in a single atomic CA transaction, without revealing split percentages or individual amounts to external observers.
S
Sealevel Solana's static parallelism model. Transactions declare all accounts they'll touch upfront. Any two transactions declaring the same writable account serialize. Forces all orders on a CLOB to serialize through the shared market account. True intra-market parallelism is impossible.
Shelby Decentralized CDN serving as Whop's storage layer. Stores chart replays, Feed articles, Monte Carlo backtest simulation datasets, AND the historical OHLCV candle archive used for indicator backtesting. Neutral storage, no access control logic. ACE handles decryption permissions. Tamper-proof onchain read logs feed Content Rewards attribution.
Signal group A Whop community where a trader publishes trade calls to subscribers. On Whop: calls are preceded by UTT-timestamped trade execution (proving prior entry), optionally with ACE time-locked pre-commitment (proving the call content was written before entry). Chart replay mandatory on all calls.
Σ-Protocol (Sigma Protocol)
A three-message interactive ZK proof protocol used as a building block in UTT's nullifier construction. Enables proving nl = sn^(1/sk) without revealing sk or sn. Combined with Fiat-Shamir transformation to produce a non-interactive proof.
T
Tom Dragonfly Capital General Partner who signed the original Econia investment check. The institutional memory of Dragonfly's Aptos CLOB thesis.
TWAP (Time-Weighted Average Price) A Decibel orderbook primitive (added with AIP-120) for automated order execution spread over a time window. Allows large positions to be built without market impact by splitting execution across many blocks.
Twisted ElGamal
The homomorphic encryption scheme used in CA (AIP-143). Enables balance updates to be computed on encrypted values without decryption: Enc(balance + amount) = Enc(balance) + Enc(amount). Range proofs (Bulletproofs) verify the encrypted balance remains non-negative.
U
UTT (UnTraceable Transactions) The unreleased Aptos privacy layer designed by Alin Tomescu et al. UTXO-based (no per-user onchain state). Hides wallet address, transfer amount, and full trade graph simultaneously. Monthly anonymity budget cap provides AML compliance. Bank of Israel pilot deployment. One governance vote away from deployment on Aptos. See: Zone 2.
V
Vault (Community Vault) A Whop product where a community pools capital behind a trading strategy (indicator or signal caller). All stake amounts are UTT-private. Executes on Decibel perps. Revenue distributes instantly via CA to contributors proportionally.
W
WPN-Kled A concept for micropayment compensation of user attention and data contributions. "Data labeling micropayments with privacy". Paying users proportionally for the time and attention they contribute to the platform. Related to potential QVAC training data compensation. Not yet specced as a product.
Whop Explorer
The discovery, verification, and reputation layer for Whop. Search .whop names → full ZK-verified identity. Leaderboards (signal callers, indicators, vaults). QVAC natural language queries. Chart replay library. Backtest vs live Sharpe comparison. Every number has a ZK proof.
Whop Feed The metered content publication system. Headlines are free. Article bodies are ACE-encrypted at 5¢/paragraph. Signal calls auto-convert to Feed posts with free teaser + paid playbook tier. Incentivizes news companies and creators to monetize through per-paragraph consumption rather than advertising.
Whop Terminal Live monitoring dashboard. "Bloomberg for internet markets." Per-second CA stream subscriptions for each data stream. Urgency pricing for breaking events. Shelby historical OHLCV candles for indicator backtesting. QVAC models for live analysis. QVAC Training feeds on Terminal usage.
Whop The primary product described in this documentation. A proprietary spot orderbook and trading platform on Aptos, built on top of Whop, the world's largest internet market. Cryptographic verification of all performance claims. The infrastructure that converts Whop's trading category from a churn cycle to a growth cycle.
Z
Zaptos The parallel pipelined architecture for Aptos consensus. Built on rAPT BFT. Pipelines multiple consensus stages (proposal, voting, commit) concurrently rather than sequentially. Delivers sub-second finality and predictable low latency.
Zone 0 (Public Payments) Default Whop payment zone. Known sender, recipient, and amount. Sub-second finality, 30k TPS. All transactions unless buyer/seller opts into privacy.
Zone 1 (Confidential Assets) The CA-based privacy zone. Known sender and receiver addresses. Hidden amounts and balances via Twisted ElGamal. BSA $10K/day compliance via auditor key. Used for: copy trading fees, terminal subscriptions, vault distributions, Decibel margin posting, Feed reads.
Zone 2 (Invisible Assets / UTT) The UTT-based privacy zone. Hidden sender, receiver, and amount. Full trade graph erased. IRS $600/year compliance via monthly anonymity budget cap (ZK circuit enforced). Used for: large spot positions, vault capital pooling, signal caller entry proof, institutional privacy.