Concepts

System directory

Follow the system from settlement rules to loss propagation.

The atlas is organized as a dependency path, not an alphabetical encyclopedia. Establish the execution substrate and the asset or claim, then study the primitives that transform a position and the products, controls, and risks that package the result.

Concepts

71

Sections

9

Reading depths

3

Choose a route

• Guided learning pathsRead in a sequenced beginner, practitioner, or engineer path.
• Interactive concept mapSearch, filter, and trace canonical relationships.
• Browse the directoryChoose a system section and its first concepts.

01

Substrate and raw materials

Establish what can authorize state changes, when settlement can be trusted, and whether a token is an asset or a layered claim.

1. 016 concepts

   Foundations

   Learn how blockchain state, authorization, execution, settlement, and cross-chain verification support programmable finance.

   Explore this section

   Start with

   • Money and assetsBlockchain
   • GovernanceWallets and keys
   • Money and assetsTransactions and gas
2. 028 concepts

   Money and assets

   Learn what has value, what each token records, and which dependencies sit behind an on-chain balance.

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   Start with

   • Money and assetsAsset
   • Money and assetsClaim
   • Money and assetsToken

02

Financial transformations

Follow reusable operations that exchange assets, extend credit, create contingent exposure, or bond capital to protocol duties.

1. 0310 concepts

   Trading

   Follow how assets move through venues, swaps, liquidity, pricing rules, arbitrage, and market-making risk.

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   Start with

   • TradingDecentralized exchange
   • TradingLiquidity pool
   • TradingLiquidity provider
2. 048 concepts

   Lending

   Trace supplied capital, borrower debt, collateral, interest, liquidation, and loss through a programmable credit system.

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   Start with

   • LendingCollateral
   • LendingLending pool
   • LendingLoan-to-value
3. 057 concepts

   Derivatives

   Trace price-linked claims, margin, funding, settlement, and loss without confusing exposure with ownership of the referenced asset.

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   Start with

   • DerivativesPerpetual future
   • DerivativesDerivatives margin
   • DerivativesFunding rate
4. 066 concepts

   Staking

   Trace bonded assets, validator duties, reward payers, penalties, transferable claims, and added restaking obligations through proof-of-stake systems.

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   Start with

   • StakingProof of stake
   • StakingValidator
   • StakingSlashing

03

Packaging, controls, and failure paths

Inspect how products combine primitive positions and how information, authority, accounting, and risk propagate through the result.

1. 078 concepts

   Products and vaults

   Trace how strategies combine financial primitives and how vaults, funds, shares, NAV, and fees package the resulting assets, claims, returns, controls, and risks.

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   Start with

   • Products and vaultsFee
   • Products and vaultsNet asset value
   • Products and vaultsStrategy
2. 088 concepts

   Supporting systems

   Learn how information, control, incentives, shared resources, protection, and cross-chain verification support every DeFi layer.

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   Start with

   • RiskMarket information
   • GovernanceMultisignature control
   • GovernanceGovernance
3. 0910 concepts

   Risk

   Trace how software, data, liquidity, solvency, control, bridges, integrations, accounting, upgrades, and transaction ordering can propagate loss through DeFi claims.

   Explore this section

   Start with

   • RiskAccounting risk
   • RiskBridge risk
   • RiskGovernance risk

Reading boundary

A label is only the beginning of the analysis.

Each concept page separates assets from claims, identifies the return payer and loss bearer, states assumptions, and exposes the relevant security properties. Use the glossary for terminology and the map when a dependency path matters more than the directory order.