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Zapper app integration concepts for you to be aware of

As the DeFi and dApp ecosystem are nascent, we at Zapper often found ourselves developing our own terminology to refer to various pieces of app integrations. This page is meant to capture a lot of those ideas in one place, for you to reference as needed when coding your integration.

What is an app?​

"App" is the term we use to refer to a decentralized protocol. This is synonymous with the term dApp, protocol and defi app.

These 3 terms refer to the various types of defi positions a user can own.

  • Base token: these are the tokens that run defi, and all other positions are comprised of them. Examples would be the AAVE governance token, CRV for Curve or USDC stable coin. A user retains possession of these tokens to represent ownership, and base tokens generally have liquid trading markets.
  • App token: these are tokens that represent more complex positions with a given app, such as a liquidity pool's LP tokens, or a token that represents a staked position, such as xSUSHI. The user retains posession of these tokens to represent their position, but the tokens generally have an illiquid trading market.
  • Non-tokenized position: these are investments where, when the user enters the position, they relingquish ownership of the app token or base token, depositing them into a smart contract. A ledger or registry (usually on-chain) then tracks their ownership. The most common example are farms, vaults or staked balances, where the user deposits their tokens into a contract, and must withdraw their tokens in the future. Non-tokenized positions are usually non-transferrable

Other commonly used terms relating to Zapper integrations​

  • Adapter: code that does the following: 1) Collects data on an app by calling some endpoints or making some blockchain calls and 2) computes certain values, such as a user's balance or TVL, and other relevant data of an app and returns it
  • Token fetcher: an adapter that builds a group of tokens belonging to an app
  • Contract position fetcher: an adapter that builds a group of contract positions belonging to an app
  • Balance fetcher: an adapter that retrieves a wallet’s balances of tokens and contract positions belonging to an app