Interactive concept map

Explore 70 validated concepts and 169 canonical relationships as one programmable financial system. Search by terminology or economic role, narrow the graph, inspect prerequisites, and trace how capital, claims, returns, and risk move.

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Static concept index

Every concept and canonical relationship

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Money and assets10 concepts · Circle

1. Asset

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   An asset is an economic resource or enforceable right that someone controls and expects to preserve, exchange, or use for value.

   No outgoing canonical relationships.

2. Asset versus claim

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   The asset-versus-claim distinction asks whether a token is the resource itself or a right whose value depends on another asset or obligor.

   • Depends on Asset
   • Depends on Claim
   • Depends on Token

3. Blockchain

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A blockchain is a replicated ledger and state-transition system whose participants use a consensus protocol to agree on an ordered history.

   No outgoing canonical relationships.

4. Claim

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A claim is a right held by one party to receive assets, income, redemption, control, or another specified benefit from a system or obligor.

   • Depends on Asset

5. Claim token

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A claim token records a transferable or account-bound entitlement to assets, income, redemption, governance, or another protocol-defined benefit.

   • Depends on Asset versus claim
   • Depends on Token
   • Creates claim on Asset

6. Real-world asset

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A real-world asset in DeFi is a token or position linked to an off-chain asset, payment stream, legal right, or regulated financial instrument.

   • Depends on Asset versus claim
   • Depends on Token

7. Stablecoin

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A stablecoin is a token designed to track a reference value, usually a currency, through reserves, collateral, redemption, or market incentives.

   • Depends on Asset versus claim
   • Depends on Token

8. Token

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A token is a programmable ledger entry that represents units a blockchain system can track and transfer.

   • Depends on Asset
   • Depends on Claim

9. Transactions and gas

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A transaction is an authorized request to change blockchain state, and gas meters the computation and storage resources that executing it consumes.

   • Depends on Blockchain
   • Depends on Wallets and keys

10. Wrapped asset

    beginner · practitioner · engineer

    A wrapped asset is a token representation designed to make another asset usable through a different token interface, contract, or blockchain.

    • Depends on Asset versus claim
    • Depends on Token
    • Creates claim on Asset
    • May fail through Bridge risk

Trading9 concepts · Opposed arrows

1. Arbitrage

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Arbitrage trades related markets when their executable prices differ enough to cover fees, gas, latency, financing, and execution risk.

   • Depends on Decentralized exchange
   • Depends on Price impact
   • Trades through Decentralized exchange

2. Automated market maker

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   An automated market maker is a trading mechanism that accepts or rejects exchanges according to a programmed rule over market state and liquidity.

   • Depends on Decentralized exchange
   • Depends on Liquidity pool
   • Prices with Liquidity pool

3. Decentralized exchange

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A decentralized exchange is a protocol that coordinates token trades through blockchain transactions rather than a single custodial exchange ledger.

   • Depends on Asset versus claim
   • Depends on Token

4. Impermanent loss

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Impermanent loss is the value difference between an AMM liquidity position and a stated hold benchmark after relative asset prices change.

   • Depends on Arbitrage
   • Depends on Automated market maker
   • Depends on Liquidity provider

5. Liquidity pool

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A liquidity pool holds assets under shared accounting and trading rules so participants can exchange against available reserves.

   • Depends on Asset versus claim
   • Depends on Token

6. Liquidity provider

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A liquidity provider commits assets to a market-making system and receives a position whose value changes with inventory, fees, prices, and accounting rules.

   • Depends on Asset versus claim
   • Depends on Liquidity pool
   • Generates return from Liquidity pool

7. Price impact

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Price impact is the change in a venue's quoted or marginal price caused by the trade itself relative to the venue's available depth.

   • Depends on Automated market maker
   • Depends on Swap

8. Slippage

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Slippage is the difference between a reference or expected trade price and the price at which the trade actually settles.

   • Depends on Swap

9. Swap

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A swap exchanges a specified amount of one asset for another under a quoted route, price rule, fee, and settlement condition.

   • Depends on Decentralized exchange
   • Depends on Token
   • Trades through Decentralized exchange
   • May fail through MEV risk

Lending8 concepts · Split balance

1. Bad debt

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Bad debt is borrower debt that remains after recoverable collateral and ordinary repayment sources are insufficient or unavailable.

   • Depends on Lending pool
   • Depends on Lending liquidation

2. Collateral

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Collateral is an asset or claim pledged under rules that let a creditor restrict, seize, or sell it when an obligation becomes unsafe or unpaid.

   • Depends on Asset
   • Depends on Asset versus claim

3. Flash loan

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A flash loan gives a contract temporary control of assets that must be returned with any fee before the same transaction can succeed.

   • Depends on Lending pool
   • Depends on Swap

4. Health factor

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A health factor is a protocol-defined ratio or score that summarizes how much liquidation-adjusted collateral supports a borrower's debt.

   • Depends on Loan-to-value

5. Lending pool

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A lending pool aggregates supplied assets, issues supplier claims, and makes available liquidity borrowable under interest and risk rules.

   • Depends on Asset versus claim
   • Depends on Claim token
   • Creates claim on Asset
   • Uses as collateral Collateral
   • May fail through Bad debt
   • May fail through Liquidity risk
   • May fail through Oracle risk
   • May fail through Solvency risk

6. Lending liquidation

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Lending liquidation repays or assumes unsafe debt and transfers or sells collateral under protocol rules to restore solvency or limit further loss.

   • Depends on Decentralized exchange
   • Depends on Health factor
   • Liquidates through Decentralized exchange

7. Loan-to-value

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Loan-to-value is the ratio of debt value to collateral value under a stated price, eligibility, and aggregation model.

   • Depends on Collateral
   • Depends on Lending pool

8. Utilization and interest rates

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Utilization compares borrowed liquidity with supplied liquidity, while a rate model maps pool state and parameters to borrower and supplier interest.

   • Depends on Lending pool

Derivatives7 concepts · Diamond

1. Derivatives liquidation

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Derivatives liquidation reduces, closes, or transfers positions when account equity no longer satisfies maintenance-margin rules.

   • Depends on Decentralized exchange
   • Depends on Derivatives margin
   • Liquidates through Decentralized exchange

2. Funding rate

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A funding rate determines periodic transfers between long and short perpetual positions under a venue-specific price-alignment or skew rule.

   • Depends on Perpetual future

3. Hedging

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Hedging adds an offsetting position intended to reduce a specified risk while introducing basis, cost, execution, counterparty, and management risks.

   • Depends on Option
   • Depends on Perpetual future
   • Depends on Swap

4. Derivatives margin

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Derivatives margin is collateral assigned to support open positions, absorb losses, and satisfy initial and maintenance requirements.

   • Depends on Collateral
   • Depends on Perpetual future

5. Option

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   An option gives its holder a contingent payoff or exercise right linked to an underlying price, strike, direction, size, and expiry.

   • Depends on Asset versus claim
   • Depends on Decentralized exchange

6. Perpetual future

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A perpetual future is a margined derivative that gives long or short price exposure without transferring the underlying asset or having a fixed expiry.

   • Depends on Asset versus claim
   • Depends on Decentralized exchange

7. Synthetic asset

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A synthetic asset is a claim or token designed to reproduce selected price exposure or payoff without giving ownership of the referenced asset.

   • Depends on Asset versus claim
   • Depends on Token
   • Prices with Asset

Staking6 concepts · Stacked bars

1. Liquid staking

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Liquid staking pools or delegates staked assets and issues a transferable claim whose value reflects the protocol's controlled stake, rewards, fees, and losses.

   • Depends on Claim token
   • Depends on Staking return
   • Packages Staking return
   • May fail through Slashing

2. Proof of stake

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Proof of stake selects and disciplines consensus participants using assets placed at risk under a network's validation rules.

   • Depends on Asset

3. Restaking

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Restaking subjects staked or staking-derived assets to additional service commitments in exchange for possible payments and additional loss conditions.

   • Depends on Slashing
   • Depends on Validator
   • May fail through Slashing

4. Slashing

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Slashing destroys or confiscates stake and can force validator exit when provable behavior violates a proof-of-stake network's severe-fault rules.

   • Depends on Validator

5. Staking return

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Staking return compensates validation and capital-at-risk through protocol issuance, transaction fees, service payments, or incentives minus costs and losses.

   • Depends on Validator
   • Generates return from Proof of stake
   • May fail through Slashing

6. Validator

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A validator is a bonded consensus participant that performs protocol duties with signing keys while stake and rewards remain subject to network rules.

   • Depends on Proof of stake
   • May fail through Slashing

Products and vaults8 concepts · Container outline

1. ERC-4626 tokenized vault

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   ERC-4626 standardizes an ERC-20 share interface for vaults that accept one underlying ERC-20 asset, while leaving strategy, valuation, controls, and safety to each implementation.

   • Depends on Vault
   • Depends on Vault share
   • Packages Vault

2. Fee

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A fee transfers assets, shares, or economic value from users or a product to a named recipient under an explicit charging base, rate, time rule, and settlement method.

   • Depends on Asset versus claim

3. Fund

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A fund is a pooled investment product defined by an objective, eligible assets, management and control rules, valuation, fees, redemptions, and profit-and-loss allocation.

   • Depends on Fee
   • Depends on Net asset value
   • Depends on Strategy
   • Packages Strategy

4. Net asset value

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Net asset value is the value of a product's recognized assets minus its recognized liabilities at a stated valuation time and in a stated reporting unit.

   • Depends on Asset versus claim

5. Strategy

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A strategy is an ordered set of financial operations, controls, and rebalancing rules intended to produce a stated outcome from underlying assets and primitives.

   • Depends on Asset versus claim

6. Vault

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A vault is an on-chain asset container that accepts or controls assets, applies accounting and access rules, and may deploy capital through one or more strategies.

   • Depends on Fee
   • Depends on Net asset value
   • Depends on Strategy
   • Creates claim on Vault share
   • Packages Strategy
   • May fail through Accounting risk
   • May fail through Governance risk
   • May fail through Integration risk
   • May fail through Smart-contract risk
   • May fail through Upgrade risk

7. Vault share

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A vault share is a proportional claim whose asset value depends on the vault's recognized net assets, eligible share supply, fees, rounding, and redemption rules.

   • Depends on Claim token
   • Depends on Net asset value
   • Prices with Net asset value
   • May fail through Vault

8. Yield strategy

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A yield strategy deploys assets through one or more financial primitives to seek named cash flows or asset growth while accepting explicit costs and loss paths.

   • Depends on Strategy
   • Generates return from Lending pool
   • Generates return from Liquidity provider
   • Generates return from Staking return

Governance7 concepts · Hexagon

1. Governance

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Governance is the set of decision and execution rules that determines who can change protocol parameters, code, assets, fees, treasury use, or emergency state.

   • Depends on Multisignature control
   • Depends on Smart contract
   • May fail through Governance risk

2. Incentive

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   An incentive is a payment, fee rule, discount, penalty, or token allocation designed to make a participant choose behavior the system needs.

   • Depends on Tokenomics

3. Multisignature control

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Multisignature control requires a configured threshold of authorized signers to approve an account action before that action can execute.

   • Depends on Smart contract
   • Depends on Wallets and keys
   • May fail through Governance risk
   • May fail through Smart-contract risk

4. Smart contract

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A smart contract is deployed code and persistent state that applies deterministic rules when a blockchain transaction or another contract calls it.

   • Depends on Blockchain
   • Depends on Transactions and gas
   • May fail through Smart-contract risk

5. Tokenomics

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Tokenomics describes how a token's issuance, distribution, supply changes, utility, control rights, and sinks shape economic behavior over time.

   • Depends on Governance
   • Depends on Token
   • Governed by Governance
   • May fail through Governance risk

6. Protocol treasury

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A protocol treasury is a governed pool of assets used for operations, development, incentives, risk backstops, grants, or other collective purposes.

   • Depends on Governance
   • Depends on Multisignature control
   • Governed by Governance
   • May fail through Governance risk
   • May fail through Smart-contract risk

7. Wallets and keys

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A wallet helps a person or system manage accounts and authorize actions, while cryptographic keys provide the signing authority behind those actions.

   • Depends on Blockchain

Risk15 concepts · Warning cross

1. Accounting risk

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Accounting risk is the possibility that balances, shares, debts, fees, profits, losses, or valuations no longer represent the system's actual assets and obligations.

   • Depends on Net asset value

2. Bridge

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   A bridge carries messages or asset representations between blockchains by verifying a source-chain event and authorizing a corresponding destination-chain action.

   • Depends on Blockchain
   • Depends on Settlement and finality
   • Depends on Smart contract
   • May fail through Bridge risk

3. Bridge risk

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Bridge risk is the possibility that cross-chain messages or asset representations become unauthorized, duplicated, delayed, censored, or no longer backed.

   • Depends on Wrapped asset

4. Governance risk

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Governance risk is the possibility that decision rights, privileged roles, voting, delegation, or emergency powers change a protocol against users' expected rules.

   No outgoing canonical relationships.

5. DeFi insurance and cover

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   DeFi insurance or cover exchanges a premium for a conditional payout claim tied to specified loss events, exclusions, limits, assessment, and available capital.

   • Depends on Asset versus claim
   • Depends on Governance
   • Governed by Governance
   • May fail through Governance risk
   • May fail through Solvency risk

6. Integration risk

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Integration risk is the possibility that individually functioning components interact through incompatible assumptions, interfaces, units, callbacks, or lifecycle rules.

   • Depends on Strategy

7. Liquidity risk

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Liquidity risk is the possibility that an asset or claim cannot be traded, redeemed, borrowed, or withdrawn in the needed size and time without unacceptable loss.

   • Depends on Liquidity pool

8. Market information

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   Market information is the set of prices, volumes, rates, liquidity observations, timestamps, and reference data used to value or control financial positions.

   • Depends on Blockchain

9. MEV risk

   beginner · practitioner · engineer

   MEV risk is the possibility that transaction inclusion, exclusion, or ordering transfers value away from users or changes whether their intended state transition succeeds.

   • Depends on Arbitrage
   • Depends on Swap

10. Oracle

    beginner · practitioner · engineer

    An oracle turns selected off-chain or cross-system observations into an on-chain value that smart contracts can read under explicit update and trust rules.

    • Depends on Market information
    • Depends on Smart contract
    • Prices with Market information
    • May fail through Oracle risk

11. Oracle risk

    beginner · practitioner · engineer

    Oracle risk is the possibility that a protocol acts on a price or external fact that is stale, manipulated, mis-scaled, unavailable, or inappropriate for that decision.

    • Depends on Collateral
    • Depends on Net asset value

12. Settlement and finality

    beginner · practitioner · engineer

    Settlement records a state change, while finality describes the confidence that the accepted history will not later be replaced under the network's consensus rules.

    • Depends on Blockchain
    • Depends on Transactions and gas

13. Smart-contract risk

    beginner · practitioner · engineer

    Smart-contract risk is the possibility that deployed code, configuration, or execution behavior violates the financial rules users rely on.

    No outgoing canonical relationships.

14. Solvency risk

    beginner · practitioner · engineer

    Solvency risk is the possibility that a system's realizable assets and loss-absorbing resources are insufficient to satisfy its recognized liabilities and claims.

    • Depends on Bad debt
    • Depends on Claim

15. Upgrade risk

    beginner · practitioner · engineer

    Upgrade risk is the possibility that changing contract logic, storage, configuration, or dependencies corrupts state or changes users' financial rules.

    • Depends on Smart-contract risk