Asset Notation

THORChain uses a CHAIN.ASSET notation for all assets. TICKER and ID are added where required. The asset full notation is pictured.

L1 Asset Notation

There are three kinds of assets within THORChain:

  1. Layer 1 Assets - CHAIN.ASSET
  2. Synthetic Assets - CHAIN/Asset
  3. Trade Assets - CHAIN~ASSET
  4. Derived Assets - THOR.ASSET

Examples

AssetNotation
BitcoinBTC.BTC (Native BTC)
BitcoinBTC/BTC (Synthetic BTC)
BitcoinTHOR.BTC (Derived BTC)
BitcoinBTC~BTC (Trade BTC)
EthereumETH.ETH
USDTETH.USDT-0xdac17f958d2ee523a2206206994597c13d831ec7
RUNE (NATIVE)THOR.RUNE

Layer 1 Assets

  • Layer 1 (L1) chains are always denoted as CHAIN.ASSET, e.g. BTC.BTC.
  • As two tokens can live on different blockchains, the chain can be used to distinguish them. Example: USDC is on the Ethereum Chain and Avalanche Chain and is denoted as ETH.USDC and AVAX.USDC respectively; note the contract address (ticker) was removed for simplicity.
  • Tickers are added to denote assets and are required in the full name. For EVM based Chains, the ticker is the ERC20 Contract address, e.g. ETH.USDC-0XA0B86991C6218B36C1D19D4A2E9EB0CE3606EB48. This ensures the asset is specific to the contract address. The pools listshows assets using the full notation.

Danger

THOR.RUNE is the only RUNE asset in use. All other RUNE assets on other chains are no longer in use and have no value within THORChain.

Synthetic Assets

  • Synthetic Assets are denoted as CHAIN/ASSET instead of CHAIN.ASSET, e.g. Synthetic BTC is BTC/BTC and Synthetic USDT is ETH/USDT. While Synthetic assets live on the THORChain blockchain, they retain their CHAIN identifier.
  • Synthetic Assets can only be created from THORChain-supported L1 assets and are only denoted as CHAIN/ASSET, no ticker or ID is required.
  • Chain differentiation is also used for Synthetics, e.g. ETH/USDC and AVAX/USDC are different Synthetic assets created and redeemable on different chains.

Trade Assets

  • Trade Assets are held within a Trade Account and are created from Layer1 assets, denoted as CHAIN~ASSET. The Bitcoin trading asset is BTC~BTC.
  • Unlike synths which are minted as coins in the Cosmos bank module, trade asset balances are recorded in a custom keeper and cannot be transfer from one native address to another.

Derived Assets

  • Derived Assets, currently specific to Lending, are denoted as THOR.ASSET. E.g. THOR.BTC is Derived Bitcoin.
  • All Derived Assets live on the THORChain blockchain and do not have a Chain identifier.
  • Currently, Derived Assets are used internally within THORChain only.