Glossary

Address

This is your wallet's public address. It is composed of a bunch of alphanumeric characters and it is derived from your private key.

APR

Annual Percentage Rate is the rate of interest applied on an amount per year. APR tells you how much interest you’ll receive at the end of the year. In terms of loans, APR will tell you how much interest accrues to the amount you borrowed over a year.

APY

Annual Percentage Yield is the actual rate of return earned on an investment, considering the compound interest.

ASA

The Algorand protocol supports the creation of on-chain assets that benefit from the same security, compatibility, speed, and ease of use as ALGO. The official name for these assets on the Algorand blockchain is Algorand Standard Assets (ASA).

Algorand Standard Assets can represent stablecoins, loyalty points, system credits, and in-game points just to name a few examples. ASAs can also represent single, unique assets like a deed for a house, collectible items, unique parts on a supply chain, etc. There is also optional functionality to place transfer restrictions on an asset that helps support securities, compliance, and certification use cases.

Learn more about ASAs here.

dApp

A dApp is a decentralized application whose code runs on a peer-to-peer network like blockchains instead of centralized servers.

Escrow account

An Escrow Account is an account that will hold the collateral of a user's loan until a withdrawal or a reduction of collateral occurs.

Liquidation

In decentralized lending protocols, users can open a loan without third-party interactions. Users simply need to deposit crypto-assets and use them as collateral to open a loan. Due to market volatility, the value of a borrower's collateral may increase or decrease, and if the ratio between a borrower's collateral and that user's borrowing amount reaches a warning level, the borrower will be liquidated. In the event of liquidation, a user will lose some or all of the collateral.

Liquidator

The liquidators are typically automated software (bots) that buy the discounted liquidated collateral at the expense of the borrower.

Opt-in

Before an account can receive a specific asset, it must opt-in to receive it. An opt-in transaction places an asset holding of 0 into the account and increases its minimum balance by 100,000 microAlgos. An opt-in transaction is simply an asset transfer with an amount of 0, both to and from the account opting-in.

Rekeying

Rekeying is a powerful protocol feature which enables an Algorand account holder to maintain a static public address while dynamically rotating the authoritative private spending key(s). Think of it like changing the locks to your home.

Transaction ID

A transaction ID is a string of letters and numbers that identifies a specific transaction on the blockchain.

xALGO

xALGO is a liquid staking token on the Algorand blockchain provided by Folks Finance. It represents staked ALGO and allows users to earn Algorand Consensus Rewards while maintaining the liquidity of their assets. By staking ALGO through Folks Finance, users receive xALGO tokens, which accrue value over time as they earn rewards. These tokens can be traded, used as collateral, or borrowed against within the DeFi ecosystem, offering flexibility and continuous yield generation. The value of xALGO increases relative to ALGO as it collects rewards, and it can be redeemed for ALGO at any time.

xGov

xGov (short for Expert Governor) is a selected group of decentralized decision makers who demonstrate their commitment to the Algorand community and possess a deep understanding of the blockchain. xGovs shall be tasked with determining the distribution of certain grant funds (amongst other things) via decentralized proposal generation and voting.