Glossary

Canonical definitions for the six key concepts are in SPECIFICATION.md §2.1. The entries below use the short-form §2 Terminology wording for quick reference.

Key Concepts

• LOOP (Local Optimization with Overflow Protocol): Open, federated protocol standard for tracking material and product flows between autonomous municipal nodes. See §2.1 for the full definition.
• MaterialDNA: Globally unique identifier for any material item or batch. See §2.1 for the full definition.
• ProductDNA: Globally unique identifier for a product or product batch, referencing constituent MaterialDNA entries. See §2.1 for the full definition.
• LoopCoin (LC): Local digital currency with expiry properties. See §2.1 for the full definition.
• LoopSignal: Community-expressed preference percentage for material categories. See §2.1 for the full definition.
• LoopCost: Total cost including base price, export/import penalties, and distance. See §2.1 for the full definition.

Protocol Terms

• Node: An autonomous LOOP implementation, typically operated by a municipality.
• Federation: Network of interconnected LOOP nodes.
• Settlement: Process of confirming material transfer and payment.
• Inter-Node Settlement: Cross-node clearing of LoopCoin transfers.
• Penalty: Additional cost applied when materials cross node boundaries.
• Overflow: Routing mechanism when local demand is insufficient.
• Node Registry: Published list of peer nodes and their endpoints/capabilities.
• Signal Proposal: Proposed change to LoopSignal values for a node.
• LoopVote: Recorded voting results for one or more proposals.

City Operations Terms

• Node Operator: The municipality, cooperative, or authorised entity responsible for running and governing a LOOP node. Accountable for data governance, security configuration, and federation decisions.
• Audit Trail: The immutable sequence of material registration, offer, match, and transfer events recorded by a node. Used for EPR reporting and traceability evidence.
• Federation: The peer-to-peer mechanism by which LOOP nodes discover each other and exchange material-flow metadata across boundaries without central control.
• Data Residency: The property that a city's material and product records remain stored within its own node infrastructure. Federation exchanges agreed anonymised metadata only, not raw records.
• Governance: The RFC-based process by which protocol changes, new schema modules, and policy decisions are proposed, reviewed, and adopted by the LOOP community.