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. Imagine it is like your IBAN where you can receive cryptocurrencies.

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, collectable items, unique parts on a supply chain, etc. There is also optional functionality to place transfer restrictions on an asset that help support securities, compliance, and certification use cases.

Learn more about ASAs here.

Collateral

The user must lock all or part of a deposited asset to obtain a loan. The collateral committed to obtaining the loan will be locked in an escrow account. If the user partially repays the loan, they may redeem the correspondent part of the collateral; if they fully repay it, the whole collateral will be unlocked. The value of collateral assets may fluctuate rapidly due to market volatility. In order to avoid a liquidation operation, the user can add collateral to the open escrow account related to the loan position, keeping the loan position safe from the liquidation.

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.

gALGO

gALGO (Governance ALGO) is a wrapped version of ALGO, minted by Folks Finance and that allows users to participate in Algorand Foundation Governance without renouncing their liquidity. In other words, it is the Folks Finance Algorand Governance token and it is minted, at a one-to-one rate with the committed original ALGO in the Folks Finance platform. Therefore, users who minted gALGO during any relevant Governance commitment period are eligible to participate in the Algorand Foundation Governance and any Folks Finance proposals related to it. Users can use their gALGO freely in the ecosystem: for example as collateral on Folks Finance, to interact with DEXs, to purchase NFTs, and so on.

fTokens

The Folks Finance Deposit Token: fToken, is the asset distributed to users following a deposit for each asset (i.e. fALGO, fUSDC) and represents that user's ownership. fTokens are instrumental to the system's operations and are minted by the protocol itself. It is possible to use the fToken to withdraw the deposit or use it as collateral to obtain a loan. The fToken is designed to help calculate the interest accrual on the deposited asset.

frToken

The folks rewards token: frToken, is the asset distributed to users for performing qualified operations on the Folks Finance protocol. frToken is instrumental to the system's operations and are minted by the protocol itself. They are distributed when users repay their loans' interests or provide liquidity through Lock & Earn. These tokens should be traded with the rewards token through the Rewards Aggregator.

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 borrow 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.

Liquidation Margin

Due to market volatility, collateral values will change. The Liquidation Margin helps users control their debt position status and avoid liquidations. It varies between 0-100% and the closer the value is to zero the closer the liquidation.

Learn more about Liquidation Margin here.

Liquidator

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

Opt-in

All of the tokens supported by the Folks Finance protocol are ASAs (Algorand Standard Assets). Thus, the opt-in operation is required before acquiring them. The Opt-in procedure has to be performed once per token if the asset has not previously been held in the wallet. Folks Finance will warn users if the opt-in procedure has not been performed, and support them through the opt-in process. Once all of the requirements are fulfilled, users are ready to interact with the protocol.