Glossary

Key terms and definitions used throughout the Amish Protocol documentation.

A

AmishHub The factory and coordination contract deployed on each chain. Deploys market contracts, routes token transfers, and manages permissions. Users approve the hub once for all market interactions.

APR (Annual Percentage Rate) The annualized interest rate on a loan. Expressed in basis points in the protocol (700 bps = 7%). Borrowers pay APR; lenders earn it.

B

Basis points (bps) A unit equal to 0.01%. 100 basis points = 1%. Used throughout the protocol for precision in rates, LTV, and health calculations. 7500 bps = 75%.

Borrow intent A signed message expressing willingness to borrow. Specifies collateral offered, principal wanted, LTV requirements, maximum APR, and loan duration.

C

Collateral Assets locked by the borrower to secure a loan. Held by the CollateralManager contract. Can be liquidated if the position becomes unhealthy.

CollateralManager Contract that holds borrower collateral for a specific market. Executes collateral deposits via Merkle proofs and accepts direct top-ups.

CREATE2 Ethereum opcode enabling deterministic contract deployment. Address is computed from deployer, salt, and bytecode. Amish uses CREATE2 to ensure identical addresses for the same market across all chains.

D

Debt token An ERC-20 token (IssuedDebt) representing a lender's claim on loan repayment. Transferable and redeemable for underlying principal plus interest.

DebtIssuer Contract that issues debt tokens for matched loans and executes principal transfers. One per market per chain.

Default Loan status when the borrower fails to repay before expiration. Results in full collateral seizure regardless of collateral value.

E

EIP-1167 Ethereum standard for minimal proxy contracts. Amish uses EIP-1167 to deploy market contracts cheaply while sharing implementation logic.

Epoch A batch period for protocol operations. Each epoch has Merkle roots for transfers, market state, and liquidations. Epochs advance sequentially; state changes commit in batches.

Execution fee Optional fee included in transfer intents, paid to whoever submits the transaction. Enables gasless UX where third parties execute transfers for a reward.

F

Facts Registry Contract storing verified facts about remote chain state. Storage proofs are verified once and recorded; protocol contracts query the registry.

Finality The point at which a blockchain transaction becomes irreversible. Different chains have different finality times. Amish waits for finality before generating storage proofs.

H

Health factor / Health score Measure of position safety. Calculated as (collateral value * 10000) / total debt. Higher is safer. Expressed in basis points: 15000 = 150% collateralization.

HDP (Herodotus Data Processor) A two-stage framework for verifiable computation from on-chain data. Stage one fetches on-chain data with proofs and validates against authenticated block hashes. Stage two executes user-defined logic as Cairo modules and produces a ZK proof attesting to correctness of both inputs and computation. Used for pricing assets without oracle coverage and for variable interest rate computation. See HDP developer docs.

Herodotus Infrastructure provider for storage proofs and HDP. Generates cryptographic proofs that specific values exist in blockchain storage at specific blocks. Provides historical block hash accumulator (MMR) for proofs against historical state.

I

ImmutableDebtRecord Struct containing all immutable loan parameters: debt ID, owed token, collateral chain, collateral token, liquidation threshold, interest strategy, expiration, creditor address, and original amount.

Intent A signed message expressing willingness to borrow or lend under specified conditions. Does not lock capital. Becomes binding only when matched and executed on-chain.

IssuedDebt The ERC-20 contract representing a single loan's debt tokens. Created per loan via the DebtIssuer. Handles repayments, redemptions, and liquidations.

L

Lend intent A signed message expressing willingness to lend. Specifies principal offered, collateral accepted, maximum LTV, minimum APR, and loan duration.

Liquidation Process of seizing borrower collateral to repay debt when a position becomes unhealthy. Triggered by health factor falling below threshold or loan expiration.

Liquidation bonus Premium paid to liquidators for executing liquidations. Typically 5% (500 bps). Comes from borrower collateral.

Liquidation threshold The LTV level at which liquidation triggers. Stored in ImmutableDebtRecord. A threshold of 8500 bps means liquidation occurs when LTV reaches 85%.

LTV (Loan-to-Value) Ratio of borrowed principal to collateral value. Expressed in basis points. Higher LTV means more leverage but less safety buffer before liquidation.

M

Market A specific collateral-principal pair with associated contracts. Each market has its own CollateralManager and DebtIssuer. Market ID is computed from collateral, principal chain, principal token, and interest rate strategy.

Match When a borrow intent and lend intent have overlapping terms. Creates an executable loan order.

Merkle proof Cryptographic proof that a specific piece of data is included in a Merkle tree. Amish uses Merkle proofs to verify transfers and state without storing full data on-chain.

Merkle root The single hash at the top of a Merkle tree representing all data in the tree. Protocol commits roots on-chain; individual items are verified against roots.

Minimal proxy A small contract (45 bytes) that delegates all calls to a shared implementation. Saves gas on deployment. See EIP-1167.

Multisig Wallet requiring multiple signatures for transactions. Amish governance uses a multisig with varying thresholds for different actions.

N

Nullification Process marking a transfer or liquidation as executed to prevent replay. Uses a mapping of nullification keys (combining epoch ID and item ID).

O

Order A specific collateral-principal pair generated from an intent. Each intent may generate multiple orders (cartesian product of collaterals and principals). Orders track fill state independently.

P

Partial fill When an order matches for less than its full amount. Remaining amount stays available for additional matches. Enables large intents to match with multiple counterparties.

Partial liquidation Liquidating enough collateral to restore position health without closing the entire loan. Only some collateral is seized; remaining position continues.

Payout address Address where the borrower receives principal. Can differ from the wallet creating the intent.

Price per token The redemption value of one debt token. Starts at 1:1 with principal. Increases as repayments accumulate. Calculated as (accrued amount * 1e18) / total supply.

Principal The asset borrowed (from borrower perspective) or lent (from lender perspective). The amount owed excluding interest.

R

Redemption Burning debt tokens to receive proportional share of accrued funds. Available at any time at current price per token.

Repayment Borrower paying back principal plus interest. Increases the accrued amount in the IssuedDebt contract.

RootsManager Abstract contract managing epoch-based Merkle roots. Inherited by CollateralManager and DebtIssuer. Handles epoch advancement and state transition verification.

S

Storage proof Cryptographic proof that a specific value exists at a specific location in blockchain storage. Verified against block headers without trusting intermediaries.

T

Timelock Delay between proposing and executing governance actions. Provides time for community review. Different actions have different timelock durations.

Top-up Adding collateral to an existing position to improve health factor. Direct operation through CollateralManager without Merkle proof requirement.

TransferExecutionIntent Struct encoding a pending transfer: token, from address, to address, amount, fee token, and fee amount. Included in Merkle trees for batched execution.

U

UUPS (Universal Upgradeable Proxy Standard) Pattern for upgradeable contracts where upgrade logic lives in implementation, not proxy. Used by Amish for contract upgrades.

Utilization Percentage of deposited capital actively earning yield. Pool-based protocols typically achieve 30-60% utilization. Amish achieves 100% utilization on matched positions.

V

Variable rate strategy Optional interest rate strategy where rates adjust during the loan based on market conditions. Implemented via HDP: on-chain data is fetched and verified, computation runs off-chain, and a ZK proof attests to correctness. Variable rates can reference external benchmarks, track utilization, or correlate to DEX pool slippage. Fixed rates are the default.

W

Withdrawal liquidity Capital pools must reserve for potential withdrawals. Pool-based protocols sacrifice efficiency to maintain withdrawal liquidity. Amish eliminates this by matching capital directly.