A party only has control over balances in the "general" account for each asset. Parties are identified by Vega public keys. Each party that makes a deposit on one of the asset bridges, currently only Ethereum ERC20 bridge will have a general account for the relevant asset created. In order to submit orders a non-zero general account balance is needed; Vega will transfer appropriate amount to the margin account for the party and the market.
Any party can submit a withdrawal transaction to withdraw assets from the general account to a specified address on another chain, currently only Ethereum ERC20 bridge.
Any party can set up a transfer from their general account to other Vega accounts as described by the transfer spec.
Note that a party can also associate the governance / staking asset via the Vega staking bridge contract but this number is not an account balance because it cannot be used as collateral for trading and it cannot be transferred.
- Mark-to-market settlement account per market: this is used for collecting and distributing mark-to-market settlement cashflows and is zero at the end of each mark-to-market settlement run.
- Margin accounts for each party with open orders or positions on any market.
- Bond account for any party that's an LP on any market.
- Global insurance pool (1 per asset)
- Insurance pool account for any market.
- Liquidity fee pool for any market.
- Infrastructure fee pool for any asset.
- Reward accounts which exist for each Vega asset (settlement asset) and per every reward metric per every Vega asset (reward asset). There is an additional global rewards account used for supplementary (on top of infrastructure fee split) validator rewards.
One key difference with staking accounts is that the collateral is not held in an asset bridge, but in the staking bridge. The balance is changed by events on Ethereum, rather than actions taken on the Vega chain.
Note that both the network treasury and the global rewards account use the same 0 address. Account type is used to differentiate where the funds should go into when making a transfer. The deposits made to the 0 account get credited to the global rewards account.
Accounts are used on Vega to maintain a record of the amount of collateral that is deposited and deployed by participants in the market.
Various actions that occur in the protocol will prompt the creation and/or deletion of accounts. Double entry accounting is maintained at all points.
All accounts must:
- have an initial value of zero for whichever asset it maintains
- only change balance as a response to a valid transfer request that adheres to double entry accounting standards.
- only be created and deleted by transfer requests. Deletion account transfer requests must specify which account should receive any outstanding funds in the account that's being deleted.
Creation/Deletion:
The first time an entity deposits an asset into Vega's collateral smart contract, an asset account is created for that party on Vega and credited with the equivalent amount.
This account:
- is where the trading profits for all markets that have settlement in that asset will be eventually distributed back to (this occurs when the protocol releases collateral from a margin account)
- is where the protocol searches for collateral if the trader has entered a collateral search zone.
- is used by all Vega markets with that settlement asset.
- will have it's balance increased or decreased when a party deposits or withdraws that asset from Vega.
The core protocol does not require these general asset accounts if they have a balance of zero.
Margin accounts are used by the protocol to maintain margin requirements and collect and distribute mark to market settlement. Each party only needs a margin account created for a market they've ever put an order on.
Moreover, margin accounts are conceptually connected to open positions and given there no such thing as a zero open position a margin account may therefore be transient (i.e. there would be no such thing as a margin account that has a balance of zero).
Creation/Deletion:
When a trader places an order on a market and they do not have a margin account for that market, a margin accounts is created for the trader for each settlement asset of that market. This may be due to either:
- it's the first time a trader has placed an order or;
- they've previously had a margin account but it was deleted for the reason listed below.
When a trader no longer has collateral requirements for a market (because they don't have open positions or active orders), these accounts no longer have utility in the core protocol and may be deleted. Accounts may also be deleted for other reasons (e.g. a system account at the conclusion of a set of closeouts).
If there is a positive balance in an account that is being deleted, that balance should be transferred to the account specified in the transfer request (which for margin accounts will typically be the insurance pool of the market).
Bond accounts are opened when a party opens a Liquidity Provision order. The bond is held by the network to ensure that the Liquidity Provider meets their SLA obligations. 0044-LIME - LP Mechanics contains more detail on bond management.
Every market will have at least one insurance pool account that holds collateral that can be used to cover losses in case of unreasonable market events.
Creation/Deletion:
When a market launches, an insurance pool account is created for that market for each settlement asset. This account is used by the protocol during the collection of margin requirements and the collection of mark to market settlement.
When a market is finalised / closed remaining funds are transferred into the global insurance pool using the same settlement asset. This occurs using ledger entries to preserve double entry accounting records within the collateral engine.
There is a general insurance pool for every asset which has been used by at least one market which was closed and had positive balance in its insurance pool.
Creation/Deletion:
When a market gets closed and positive balance remains in its insurance pool then part of the that balance gets moved to the global insurance pool for the asset which market used as its settlement asset. If the insurance pool for that asset doesn't exist yet then it gets created on the fly at the point of that transfer.
Currently these accounts never get deleted.
Network treasury holds assets which can only be moved to another account via the governance initiated transfer. Funds are moved into the network treasury using (external) deposits or (internal) transfers. If the network treasury doesn't exist for an asset supported for deposits and/or transfers then it gets created on the fly at the point of that transfer.
Additional accounts (one per each supported asset) associated with distribution of trading fees (infrastructure fees, maker fees, liquidity provision fees) exist. Please refer to the fees and LP specs for more details.
In Vega governance is controlled by a governance token which is nominated and staked, and is held in a smart contract on Ethereum. As the assets are held off-chain, a party's staking balance is treated differently to the account types above.
- Like margin accounts, a party cannot transfer or place orders with the balance in staking accounts
Note that it is possible to have markets in the governance asset, in which case all of the accounts detailed above will still apply. Staking accounts only relate to the balance of the governance asset that has been staked.
A special account type used for distribution of rewards based on validator ranking metric. Funds are moved into the global rewards account using (external) deposits or (internal) transfers. Please refer to the subsection of the rewards spec for details around distribution of funds from that account.
Additional accounts associated with distribution and vesting of other rewards exist, please refer to the relevant spec files for more details.
- Double entry accounting is maintained at all points i.e. every transfer event has a source account and destination account and the balance of the source account before the transfer equals to the balance of source account minus the transfer amount after the transfer and balance of the destination account before the transfer plus the transfer amount equals to the balance of the destination account after the transfer. (0013-ACCT-001). For product spot: (0013-ACCT-024)
- Only transfer requests move money between accounts. (0013-ACCT-002). For product spot: (0013-ACCT-025)
- Every party that deposits an asset on Vega will have an asset account created for that asset. (0013-ACCT-003)
- Only one general asset account exists per party per asset. (0013-ACCT-004)
- When a party deposits collateral onto Vega, the asset account will increase in balance by the same amount. (0013-ACCT-005)
- When a party withdraws collateral onto Vega, the asset account for that asset will decrease in balance by the same amount. (0013-ACCT-006)
- Fees earned from liquidity provision are paid in to this account. (0013-ACCT-011)
- Every party that submits an order on a market will have a margin account for that market created. (0013-ACCT-007)
- Each party should only have one margin account per market. (0013-ACCT-008)
- Cannot have a non-zero balance on a margin account where there's no position / position size = 0 and no active orders. (0013-ACCT-009)
- Cannot transfer into or out of a margin account where there's no position / position size = 0 and no active orders. (0013-ACCT-010)
- Every party that submits an order on a Spot market will have a holding account created for the relevant market asset pair. (0013-ACCT-030)
- Each party should only have two holding accounts per market: one for the the base_asset and one for the quote_asset. (0013-ACCT-031)
- A bond account holds collateral to maintain collateral for Liquidity Providers. (0013-ACCT-023)
- Each party that has placed a Liquidity Provision order will have one bond account per market they have provided liquidity to (0013-ACCT-018)
- Fees earned from liquidity provision are not paid in to this bond account - they are paid in to the margin account for this trader (0013-ACCT-019)
- When a market opens for trading, there is an insurance account that is able to be used by that market for every settlement asset of that market. (0013-ACCT-020)
- Only protocol-initiated aka internal transfer requests move money in or out of the insurance account. User initiated transfer requests cannot be used to move funds in or out of insurance pool. (0013-ACCT-021)
- When a market terminates and settles (the final settlement cashflow happens), the insurance pool account has its outstanding balance transferred to the global insurance pool account for the appropriate asset (if it doesn't exist create it), other insurance pools using the same asset will not get the outstanding funds. (0013-ACCT-033)
One key difference with staking accounts is that the collateral is not held in an asset bridge, but in the staking bridge. The balance is changed by events on Ethereum, rather than actions taken on the Vega chain. For more information on staking and stake delegation see Simple staking and delegation.
- Every party that deposits staked asset on Vega will have a stake linking created for that asset. (0013-ACCT-012)
- Only one staked asset balance exists per party per asset. (0013-ACCT-013)
- Multiple stake linkings can exist per party per asset. (0013-ACCT-014)
- The balance can only be delegated to Validators (0013-ACCT-015)
- The balance cannot be traded, or used as margin, or transferred, or withdrawn (0013-ACCT-016)
- Delegated stake remains in the trader's staking account (0013-ACCT-017)
- It is possible to transfer funds from a Vega general account to the network treasury account by specifying the
0address and appropriate account type. (0013-ACCT-026)
- It is possible to deposit funds from Ethereum directly into the global rewards account by specifying the
0Vega address. (0013-ACCT-027) - It is possible to transfer funds from a Vega general account to the global rewards account by specifying the
0address and appropriate account type. (0013-ACCT-028)