Glossary

Your annualised return over a trailing window. α counts only the alpha you earned, τ adds what the alpha did against TAO, $ adds what TAO did against the dollar. The position tables show τ and $ as the window's own return, not annualised.

The asymmetry is deliberate: a linear gain stays readable on a young position, while a compounded loss cannot print below −100%, which is the real floor. The starting point is not simply the first day you held something: it is the first day you held at least 1% of your peak alpha for that window, which is what stops a dust prefix from printing an astronomical return, and it is why "days observed" can be shorter than the window you picked. The three dimensions answer three different questions and diverge on purpose: a positive α with a negative τ means you earned tokens while their price fell. Empty cells have several causes, not one: an alpha return above 1000% blanks all three (the guard against emission-funded and faucet wallets, with the absolute change shown instead), a wallet holding only root, basket shares or free TAO has no α dimension portfolio-wide, so that one alone stays empty in the Returns card while the Staked TAO row still fills its own α cell (root α is τ, and the root line is the stake with its claimable rewards), and a window with no qualifying starting day is empty throughout. A position, and the α of the whole portfolio, observed under 7 days get no annualised rate, and on a 30-day window the app flags a sample shorter than 15 observed days.

What the basket has done with the dividends your root stake earned since your last claim: those shares at their value today against their value when paid. Not annualized.

It isolates what Root APY (your position) leaves out by pricing each dividend when paid: positive when the alpha the basket holds gained against TAO since, negative when it lost. Shown as soon as there are dividends to compare, with no 7-day minimum, and a dash when the API's history does not reach back to your last claim. Shares you bought are not in it; Total APY (your position) counts them.

In the Root Staking dialog, per validator: what claiming its basket would move to your root stake right now, what that claim costs, and what it leaves once paid. Total claimable, at the foot of the dialog, adds up every basket's Claimable.

Claimable can differ from the Value of the Basket shares table either way: the preview first credits the queued dividends, then leaves the dust slices in the basket for its other holders (the info mark estimates them); without a preview it is that Value. Under the chain's claim minimum (0.0005 τ by default) a claim takes nothing and still pays its fee, so the row's Claim is disabled and Worth claiming is minus the fee; a negative figure means the claim costs more than it returns, for now. The chain takes each fee up front from your free TAO, one transaction and one signature per basket. Claim all skips the baskets under the minimum and those holding bought shares, which are redeemed on their own row since a claim would sell the purchase too, while Total claimable counts every basket and is the amount on the button that opens the dialog. Until the node quotes the fee, the dialog shows 0.008251 τ, the flat fee measured at runtime 468.

Two ways of deciding what a token cost you. WAC averages every purchase into one blended price. FIFO matches each sale against your oldest purchases. Then two ways of putting that in dollars: "throughout" records the dollar value at every trade, "then" computes the result in TAO and converts it at today's rate.

WAC is smoother and easier to read; FIFO is what most tax regimes expect. Likewise "throughout" is the rigorous accounting answer and the only one that adds up over time, while "then" reprices your whole history at today's rate. Never read a difference between two dates in "then" mode: a week in which you did not trade at all can show a dollar gain or loss purely from the TAO/USD move, sometimes with the opposite sign to your TAO result. Where the toggles apply is narrower than it looks: the four flavours are all served, but only the PnL dialog lets you switch between them. The holdings table is fixed on WAC in TAO, and the CSV export always writes FIFO with the throughout dollars, whatever you had selected.

The two ways the portfolio can value your alpha, picked in Settings under Portfolio value. Market price counts every token at its pool's current price, as if size did not matter; If sold now estimates what selling everything right now would pay, so a large position gets a lower price.

The gap is the cost of your own size: it widens with the position and with how thin the pool is. One sale per wallet and subnet is what a full exit would pay, and the rule the stored balance history follows, so the chart's live point continues it; a single hotkey's α sold alone would fetch more per alpha than its share of the joint sale. It is not the swap page's quote, which also takes the pool's fee and follows its weights, so a real sale lands slightly apart, usually lower. The choice moves the Total Balance, every row, share and slice, the chart with its 1D, 7D and 30D changes, and the Σ total on the swap card; Market price is the default, and beside its Total the If sold now figure shows once the gap passes 5% (basket shares aside, which keep their own value in both). Where Settings does not offer the choice, the page reads at market price while the chart and its changes read if sold now. Chart points stored before the market price was recorded keep their sale value, so a market-price line steps where those records begin.

Your whole position in one validator's basket, root rewards included, against what you paid for the shares you bought into it since your last claim of it: the Net column of the Basket shares table.

Without purchases nothing was paid, so the net is the root rewards alone and carries no percentage. Root rewards cost nothing, so on a position that mixes them with purchases the net reads well above the Gain or loss of the purchases alone. A claim or a redemption takes the whole position, so paid restarts at zero after one. Empty while the cost of the purchases cannot be read.

Realized is the profit or loss you have actually booked by closing positions. Unrealized is what you are up or down on what you still hold.

Unrealized marks your alpha at the hourly closing price, with no fee and no slippage, so it reads higher than the exit-value pricing used for validator and account totals: it answers "what is it worth", not "what would I get". Swapping or moving alpha to another subnet goes through both pools, so it books the gain or loss on the subnet you leave and the destination position starts at what the swap paid for it; moving alpha between two of your hotkeys inside one subnet realizes nothing and carries its cost across; a burn realizes the full loss. Sending stake to another wallet books a real disposal at the market price inside Realized, and receiving it opens a fresh position at the price on arrival rather than inheriting the sender's basis. Both figures come in a WAC and a FIFO flavour (see Cost basis) and in two USD flavours. Realized 24h is the change since the previous daily snapshot rather than a rolling 24 hours, so it steps once a day; the baseline is anchored to the snapshot date, so a late sync shifts the window instead of breaking it, and the payload names the date it started from. Unrealized 24h is a different animal: a live trailing window, what you hold right now × (price now − price 24 hours ago), recomputed on every request with no cost basis involved, so it moves with the market all day and exists from the first day you hold something.

What your own root stake with one validator was paid since your last claim of its basket, per year: the dividends at their value when paid, against the stake you actually held. It is your rate, not the validator's, which the Root Staking dialog shows as Validator APY (see Root staking APY).

A dash until your stake has been held 7 days since your last claim, while the basket has fewer than two readings since then, and when the API's history does not reach back to that claim (a stake held since before the history starts, until a claim restarts the window, or a basket that restarted). Readings are hourly, daily before the hourly ones begin, so the rate moves once an hour. Stake added or removed counts only for the time it was held, which is why the rate can differ from Validator APY, measured on 1 τ staked through the validator's own window. Never negative: a dividend is a payment, and what the basket made of it since is the Basket move (your position).

Alpha or TAO you moved to or received from another wallet, valued at the price when it moved. Shown for context, never added on top of your totals.

A transfer of alpha out is already counted inside Realized as a disposal at market price, which is why adding these on top would double-count. Root carries no PnL, so root stake moved between wallets counts with the TAO, like cash. On the receiving side the alpha arrives with a fresh cost basis at the market price of the day rather than the sender's basis, so moving stake between two wallets you both own resets your entry price. Moving alpha between your own hotkeys or subnets is a different operation and is not counted here at all.

What your whole position with one validator made since your last claim of its basket, per year: the dividends and the shares you bought, both at their value today, less what the purchases cost, against the root stake and the τ of purchases you held over that time.

A dash until the stake, or the oldest purchase since your last claim, has been held 7 days, and when the API's history does not reach back to that claim. Valued at today's prices, it can be negative, unlike Root APY (your position). Without purchases it prices the same dividends as Root APY (your position), at their value today instead of when paid, so the gap between the two comes from the Basket move (your position).

What a row of the Transfers table was worth in dollars when it moved: its τ, or on an alpha transfer the τ the chain recorded for the move, at the TAO price of that hour.

A value at the time, not today: Value now, a column of the Transactions table, prices the τ at the current rate instead. A dash when the row carries no τ or no price covers its hour. On an α transfer it states what the α was worth when it moved, not what it is worth now. These are the transfers one by one; the PnL dialog keeps their all-time totals (see Stake transfers (in / out)).

What a position is worth in TAO under the valuation the page uses, and how much of the Total Balance it represents.

Live balances and pool reserves come straight from the chain, so the portfolio never lags behind your wallet. Switching the valuation changes every value, and therefore every share, at once. Under If sold now each hotkey row carries its part of the wallet's one sale on that subnet, so the rows of a subnet add up to it. The basket shares (root rewards and any shares you bought) take a row of their own, one line per basket, at your owed shares × that basket's realizable NAV whichever valuation the page uses: they leave through a claim, never through a swap, which is why the Staked TAO row counts the stake alone. The chart's Rewards / Basket button draws that series alone. The If sold now column always shows the sale value, whatever the page's valuation.

Your shares of one validator's basket, as the Basket shares table and the Your position card of a validator page state them: what they are worth, how much of it is root rewards, what the shares you bought cost, and the gain or loss on those purchases alone. Share of basket is the part of the whole basket they make up.

Read from the chain, not from the API's snapshots, when the page loads and after each claim; dividends the basket has queued and not credited yet are in neither the shares nor the NAV. This value is what the Basket shares row in Balances adds up, before the dust slices a claim skips, so the Root Staking dialog's Claimable can differ (see Claimable / Claim fee / Worth claiming). Root rewards cost nothing and stay out of Gain or loss, which judges the purchases alone at the same NAV: a fresh purchase reads as a small loss at once, since the τ it pays buys the basket's holdings through their pools and adds less than that to the NAV. A claim or a redemption takes the whole position, bought shares included, so Paid restarts at zero after one. Root rewards, Paid and Gain or loss stay empty while the cost of the purchases cannot be read, and on a validator page until the API has read your latest purchase or redemption there, so a purchase it has not counted never reads as root rewards. The table hides baskets worth under $10 until Show dust.