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Glossary
A glossary of terms related to Visor and Cryptocurrency. Please let our administrators know if there are undefined terms you'd like to be included here.

## Alpha (α)

Alpha (α) is a term used in investing to describe an investment strategy's ability to beat the market or its "edge." Alpha is thus also often referred to as “excess return”. Alpha is used in finance as a measure of performance, indicating when a strategy, trader, or portfolio manager has managed to beat the market return over some period.
Providing liquidity to Visor’s liquidity pools is not “guaranteed” alpha. It is simply one strategy available in the cryptocurrency market and can be used as an alpha source, a hedge, or to protect against volatility.

## Analytics

Analytics are the tools (visual representations, data, filters), that allow a user to analyze their position. Analytics are critical for LPs due to the complicated nature of providing liquidity.
Visor is working with several partners to continue to develop sophisticated analytical tools that provide the user with everything they’d like to know about their position.

## Arbitrum

Arbitrum is an ethereum layer-2 solution focused on optimistic rollups created by Offchain Labs inc. Arbitrum processes the suspicious transactions off-chain and only sends the suspicious part within a transaction back to the EVM. It is noted for not having to use its own blockchain and ETH as its native token. One disadvantage of Optimistic Rollups is that transactions can be held and challenged for a week. The purpose of this is to avoid fraud, but as a result, it can take up to seven days to move funds off the chain.
Visor is currently building liquidity pools for Arbitrum.

## Audit

An audit is a formal review of the code and smart contract architecture by a professional third party. The purpose of these audits is to reduce the chance of catastrophic failure, theft, or other problems.
Visor is committed to several audits of its protocol with a variety of standards and parameters.

## Annual Percentage Rate (APR)

Annual percentage rate (APR) is a way of measuring the return on investment. APR does not take into account the compounding of interest within a specific year.
$APR = [(Periodic rate) x (Number of periods in a year)]$

## Annual Percentage Yield (APY)

Annual percentage yield (APY) is a way of measuring the return on investment. Unlike APR, APY does take into account the compounding interest within a specific year.
$APY = [(1 + Periodic Rate)Number of periods in a year] – 1$

## Automated Market Maker (AMM)

Automated market makers (AMMs) allow the trading of digital assets in a permissionless and automatic way by using liquidity pools rather than a traditional market of buyers and sellers. AMM users supply liquidity pools with crypto tokens, whose prices are determined by a constant mathematical formula. Uniswap, Sushiswap, and Pankcakeswap are examples of AMMs.
Visor seeks to assist in the technological function of an AMM.

## Beta (β)

Beta (β) is a measure of the volatility—or systematic risk—of a security or portfolio compared to the market as a whole. Cryptocurrencies have large amounts of Beta.
One of the main challenges for Visor’s is extracting lucrative concentrated trading fees while avoiding volatility and impermanent loss.

## Beta (testing)

Beta refers to a DApp or interactive feature being in a testing mode. Caution must be exercised while using a beta version of a protocol. Usually, limits are put in to prevent the user from exposing themselves to unnecessary risks.
Visor has had a lengthy beta on its liquidity pools and staking until more audits are conducted to ensure user safety.

## Concentrated Liquidity

Concentrated liquidity is a form of liquidity designed to increase capital efficiency. Concentrated liquidity allows liquidity providers the ability to set a relatively small range for their liquidity. This allows the liquidity to be applied more efficiently, resulting in higher fees for the LP. This also can expose them to higher losses as well. Applying concentrated liquidity is a difficult and challenging endeavor for trained professionals.
One of Visor’s goals is to provide concentrated liquidity pools to professional and non-professional LPs, as well as protocols who seek management.

## Cryptocurrency

A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a collection of binary data designed to work as a digital asset wherein individual coin ownership records are stored in a ledger which is a computerized database using strong cryptography to secure transaction records, to control the creation of additional coins, and to verify the transfer of coin ownership Cryptocurrency is a misnomer, as not all cryptocurrencies are intended to function as a medium of exchange or a traditional currency.
Visor is a protocol that works with cryptocurrencies and has its own cryptocurrency: VISR.

## Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)

A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is an organization represented by rules encoded as a computer program that is transparent, controlled by the organization members, and not influenced by a central government. A DAO's financial transaction record and program rules are maintained on a blockchain. The precise legal status of this type of business organization is unclear.
Visor currently does not have a DAO contract but has plans to implement one in the future.

## Decentralized Application (DApp)

A decentralized application (DApp,dApp, Dapp, or dapp) is a computer application that runs on a decentralized computing system.DApps have been popularized by distributed ledger technologies (DLT) such as the Ethereum blockchain, where DApps are often referred to as smart contracts.
Visor at its core, DApp.

## Decentralized Exchange (DEX)

Decentralized exchanges (DEXs) are a type of exchange that allows for direct peer-to-peer transactions to take place online securely and without the need for an intermediary. Uniswap, built upon the Ethereum blockchain, has the most trading volume of any DEX.
Visor seeks to assist in the technological function of a DEX.

## Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

Decentralized finance (DeFi) is an open and global financial system that emerged in the late 2010s. Decentralized finance seeks to rectify problems related to centralization and over-reliance on trusted third parties (middlemen) in legacy financial systems. Using blockchain technology (an immutable public ledger), DeFI seeks to reinvent many essential financial services and products. These include banking, trading, loans, credit ratings, investing, monetary policy, fiscal policy, and much more.
Visor contributes to the DeFi ecosystem by providing a direct pathway for liquidity providers to interact and profit off of the world's largest decentralized exchange while providing a necessary function for its existence.

## Delta (γ)

Delta (γ) is the change in the value of your position with a change in the price of the underlying asset. This position’s delta tells you how much value your position loses as the price moves.
Delta is a critical component to providing liquidity on Visor, as changes in asset prices affect the overall value of your position.

## ERC-20 Token

The ERC-20 token is a standard tradable token on the Ethereum blockchain. The token’s rules and model are standardized so they are exchangeable on the chain. Most wallets that can hold Ethereum can also hold ERC-20 tokens.
The VISR token is an ERC-20 token.

## ERC-721 Token

The ERC721 token is a standard non-fungible token (NFT) on the Ethereum blockchain. The token’s rules and model are standardized so they are exchangeable on the chain. Most wallets that can hold ethereum can also hold ERC-721 tokens.
The Visor NFT Smart Vault is an ERC-721 token.

## Ethereum

Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether (ETH or Ξ) is the native cryptocurrency of the platform.
Visor is built on Ethereum.

## Fees

Fees are collected for providing liquidity on many platforms.
A critical part of Visor tokenomics is that a percentage of the fees from providing liquidity are distributed to the VISR token holders.

## Gamma (δ)

Gamma (δ) is the measurement of how your delta changes as the price of the underlying changes. For an LP position gamma is always negative, as any movement from the current price makes your exposure to further price changes higher.
Visor’s liquidity management seeks to eliminate Gamma entirely by using innovative strategies.

## Governance

Governance describes how a protocol operates and makes decisions.
The Visor team currently has most of the control on financial and operational matters of the protocol.

## Gamma (Organization)

Gamma is an organization created by Visor that will fund the research and implementation of ‘Active Liquidity Provider’ strategies.
Through Gamma, Visor will have the proper data science and financial modeling resources necessary to implement the most attractive Active LP strategies available to vault owners.

## Hypervisor

A hypervisor is a Visor-compatible smart contract that interacts with Visor’s vaults and its assets. Each of these Hypervisors read the amounts of each asset in each Visor vault and payout to each vault accordingly. The hypervisor is the smart contract that recognizes your NFT smart vault.
Hypervisors are a core component of Visor’s system.

## Impermanent Loss (IL)

Impermanent loss (IL) happens when you provide liquidity to a liquidity pool, and the price of your deposited assets changes compared to when you deposited them. The bigger this change is, the more you are exposed to impermanent loss. In this case, the loss means less dollar value at the time of withdrawal than at the time of deposit. Pools that contain assets that remain in a relatively small price range will be less exposed to impermanent loss. Stablecoins or different wrapped versions of a coin, for example, will stay in a relatively contained price range. These pools will generate fewer fees, though.
Visor is a protocol designed to provide a variety of different liquidity pools for liquidity providers that use a strategy to extract the most fees while also mitigating the risk of impermanent loss.
Keepers, by Chainlink, is a decentralized service that allows development teams and DAOs to delegate regular smart contract maintenance tasks to a Chainlink’s existing network of professional DevOps.
In the case of Visor’s Supervisor layer, Chainlink Keepers will automate certain on-chain functions pertaining to liquidity management strategies on Uniswap v3, such as rebalancing LP positions when certain predefined thresholds are crossed.

## Layer-2

Layer-2 is a collective term for solutions designed to help scale your application by handling transactions off the Ethereum Mainnet (layer 1) while taking advantage of the robust decentralized security model of Mainnet. Transaction speed suffers when the network is busy, making the user experience poor for certain types of DApps. And as the network gets busier, gas prices increase as transaction senders aim to outbid each other. This can make using Ethereum very expensive. Layer 2 solutions required their own liquidity sources.
Visor is building Layer 2 liquidity pools.

## Liquidity (crypto)

Liquidity (in this context) is the ability to trade an asset without affecting the asset’s price. On DEXs, higher liquidity usually results in lower volatility.
The fundamental purpose of Visor is to facilitate liquidity and collect fees.

## Liquidity Management / Provisioning

Liquidity management or liquidity provisioning are terms that describe how a liquidity provider manages its funds. It is a term closely tied to strategy.
Visor’s services include liquidity management for protocols.

## Liquidity Mining (LM)

Liquidity mining is a kind of yield farming in which users of a decentralized finance (DeFi) product earn an additional token on top of the regularly expected yield just for putting assets into a liquidity pool.
Visor is exploring additional rewards for liquidity providers on top of the exchange fees awarded.

## Liquidity Pool (LP)

A liquidity pool is a collection of funds locked in a smart contract. Liquidity pools are used to facilitate decentralized trading, lending, and more functions. Liquidity pools are the backbone of many decentralized exchanges (DEX), such as Uniswap. Liquidity pools generate fees for liquidity providers depending on how much is traded (volume). Liquidity pools are usually tied to pairs of tradable assets.
Visor has a variety of liquidity pools with different assets, strategies, and platforms.

## Liquidity Provider (LP)

A liquidity provider (LP) is an individual, organization, or construct that provides liquidity to liquidity pools on trading, lending, or other platforms.
By adding funds to Visor’s pools, you are, in effect, a liquidity provider.

## NFT Smart Vault (Vault)

An NFT smart vault is a user-controlled contract vault that holds assets, allowing safe exposure to DeFi protocols without relinquishing custody. Visor NFTs are minted to allow a user-controlled contract vault that holds assets, allowing safe exposure to DeFi protocols without relinquishing custody.
Visor NFTs are also upgradeable through the special “factory” contract.

## Non-Fungible Token (NFT)

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a special class of tokens that has individual and unique properties. Each NFT is unique from the others, can only have one owner, and cannot be duplicated. NFTs can be used to represent ownership of unique items. They let us tokenize things like art, collectibles, real estate, and much more.
Visor uses NFTs to establish account ownership and tie users’ funds to a specific wallet it is minted in.

## Optimism

Optimism is an ethereum layer-2 solution focused on optimistic rollups created by Optimism PBC, inc, Optimism sends the entire suspicious transaction again through the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). It is noted for not having to use its own blockchain, and ETH is its native token. One disadvantage of Optimistic Rollups is that transactions can be held and challenged for a week. The purpose of this is to avoid fraud, but as a result, it can take up to seven days to move funds off the chain.
Visor is planning on building liquidity pools for Optimism

## Pairs

Pairs refer to a pair of assets tied together in a liquidity pool. Liquidity for the VISR token is stored in a VISR-ETH pool. VISR is traded against ETH and vice-versa. Any other digital asset that is traded for VISR is converted into ETH first.
Visor’s liquidity pools are identified first by the pair they are constructed out of.

## Pool2

Pool2 refers to yield farming pools that require exposure to the governance or protocol’s token being farmed, which directly bootstraps liquidity.
Visor does not count Pool2 funds as a part of its posted TVL. Those numbers are separate.

## Smart Contract

A smart contract is a computer program or a transaction protocol that is intended to automatically execute, control, or document legally relevant events and actions according to the terms of a contract or an agreement. The objectives of smart contracts are the reduction of need in trusted intermediaries, arbitrations, and enforcement costs, fraud losses, as well as the reduction of malicious and accidental exceptions.
Visor uses a variety of smart contracts in its protocol.

## Snapshot

Snapshot is an off-chain, gasless, multi-governance client with easy to verify and hard to contest results. On Snapshot, you can create a proposal and voting is free.
Visor uses Snapshot for proposals.

## Strategy (Visor)

Strategy, in this case, refers to the algorithmic approach to balancing liquidity pools.
Visor has several strategies for rebalancing, moving, and changing the range of funds in liquidity pools.

## Staking

Staking is an activity where a user locks or holds his funds in a cryptocurrency wallet to participate in the protocol. It can mean other things to other projects, such as being a validator, enabling voting, providing liquidity, and more.
In Visor, those who stake their VISR tokens are rewarded with fees from liquidity providers.

## Staking Token (vVISR)

A staking token is a special token that represents the user's funds in a staking pool. Instead of staking a token and issuing awards to each wallet staking (thousands of transactions), the fixed number of staking tokens grows in value, not in quantity.. This functionality was developed to reduce transaction costs and provide users with more frequent staking rewards. Visor uses a staking token (vVISR) in its staking system.
By staking VISR, your vVISR balance will not change, but each vVISR will grow in value as fees are awarded. When unstaking, you would wind up with a larger balance of VISR.

## Sustainable Grants

Sustainable grants are a concept introduced with Visor Phantom. These special grants provide a mechanism for protocols to create grant funding through acquiring yield by providing liquidity. This is a solution to many problems with cryptocurrency grants that are generally funded by selling the provided token. Instead of selling (which can negatively affect the price), an allocation is used for collecting fees by putting it in a liquidity pool, and the original allocation can be returned to the grant administrator.
Visor pioneered sustainable grants and hopes to pilot them as part of Visor Phantom.

## Supervisor

A Supervisor, defined, is a hypervisor contract with a controller. These controllers allow for updating/changing certain defined variables in the Hypervisor contract for the purpose of managing assets and implementing strategies.
An example of this application in Visor would be a supervisor that chooses to periodically re-invest and change price ranges of a liquidity position on Uniswap v3.

## Sushi Trident

Sushi Trident is the proposed protocol for Sushi, a decentralized Exchange, that allows for the use of concentrated liquidity.
Visor plans on building its protocol on Sushi Trident when it is made public.

## Total Value Locked (TVL)

Total value locked (TVL) is the total amount of funds in all the combined pools in a platform. TVL is a good indicator of the usage and interest in a platform. Higher TVL will attract larger investors, provide more stability, and generally grow a platform.
Visor has a posted TVL that is the total value of all the funds in its liquidity pools.

## Treasury

Treasury refers to an allocation of tokens or currency that a protocol uses to conduct operations, pay expenses, and deal with all financial matters. A large challenge in cryptocurrency is the security and sustainability of the treasury.
Visor has a protected treasury that it uses for all financial matters related to the protocol.

## Token Vesting

Token vesting is the process and schedule of locking and releasing tokens to certain individuals. Token vesting usually targets team members, venture capital, early investors, influences, and others who receive a large allocation of the token supply in exchange for work, connections, expertise, or risk.
Visor has a token vesting scheme for VISR for both its team members and the venture capital firms the invested in it.

## Uniswap v3

Uniswap v3 is the latest iteration of Uniswap, a decentralized exchange protocol. Uniswap is the largest AMM/DEX in the world by use. Version 3 (v3) utilizes concentrated liquidity, which created the entire problem of liquidity management for individuals and protocols.
Visor seeks to build concentrated liquidity pools on Uniswap v3.

## User Interface (UI)

A user interface is the physical portal users use to interact with decentralized applications on desktop computers and mobile devices.
Visor is constantly upgrading the UI to provide a superior experience for users and protocols.

## Venture Capital (VC)

Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which have demonstrated high growth (in terms of a number of employees, annual revenue, the scale of operations, etc). Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake.
Visor has been invested in by several large and reputable VC firms.

## Visor Phantom

Visor Phantom is the enterprise management DApp that Visor offers to other protocols. By using Visor Phantom, a protocol can provide liquidity through their own private LP using concentrated liquidity. Phantom includes many important liquidity management tools, including locking, fee allocation, co-managed pools, sustainable grant access, and more.
Visor Phantom is one of the premier products on Visor, and is a critical component to the protocol's overall success.

## VISR

VISR is the native ERC-20 token of the Visor Finance Protocol. Visor has given the VISR token a unique set of attributes within the system that gives it value.
The VISR token can be upgraded to do more in the future.

## Whitepaper

A white paper is a report or guide that informs readers concisely about a complex issue and presents the issuing body's philosophy on the matter. It is meant to help readers understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision.
Visor, like many other protocols in cryptocurrency, drafted a whitepaper to explain the basic mechanisms of its protocol.

## Yield Farming

Yield farming, also known as yield or liquidity harvesting, is the act of providing liquidity to a liquidity pool. However, this definition can be expanded to staking, liquidity mining, and other special arrangements and products.
Staking Visor and using Visor’s liquidity pools is a form of yield farming.