Glossary

DePool is a smart contract that allows you to combine stakes from different network participants into investment pools, to form blocks by validators. In Depools architecture, this smart contract is used to: receive stakes from participants, distribute stakes to validators, and distribute reward stakes back to participants.

DePool Helper is a smart contract that stores the address of the current DePool contract and works with the Timer contract.

DePool Proxy is a smart contract deployed in the masterchain that delivers messages between DePool and Elector.

An Elector is a system-level smart contract deployed in the masterchain from the zero state. It periodically selects a validator.

Investment round - the period of time between a Participant investing a stake in DePool and receiving it back (with or without interest).

Locked stake - Any address can make a lock stake, in which it locks its funds in DePool for a defined period, but rewards from this stake will be paid to another target participant (beneficiary). At the end of a period, the Lock Stake should be returned to the address which locked it.

Ordinary stake is the most basic type of stake. It and the rewards from it belong to the wallet that made it.

A Participant is a smart contract that invests in DePool.

Stake - tokens that the participant locks in Depool in order to return them with interest.

Staking efficiency & Unused stake - If a participant has a significant number of competitors in the election, with a much smaller stake, a part of that participant's stake is "cut-off" and does not participate in the round. The percentage of the share used by the DePool is called Staking Efficiency, and the "cut-off" share is called the Unused stake.

Timer is a smart contract that can periodically invoke other smart contracts.

Validator is a program that runs a blockchain node. Each DePool works with only one node, which must be a DePool member.

Vesting stake - Any address can make a vesting stake and define a target participant address (beneficiary) who will own this stake. But not the whole stake is available to the beneficiary at once. Instead, it is split into logical parts and the next part of stake becomes available to the participant only when next vesting period is ended. At the completion step of every round, DePool decides how many vesting parts should be unlocked and subtracted from the vesting stake and become available to the owner since the last unlocking. These funds are added to the beneficiary's ordinary stake