Components

Alchemist - Alchemists act as the smart contract hub to generate yield and yield advances. They share many similarities to collateralized lending platforms, such as MakerDAO and AAVE. The currently accepted collateral types are ETH, DAI, USDC, USDT, and FRAX, as well as their respective yield-bearing tokens for each strategy. Users take loans in the form of synthetic alAssets: alETH can be borrowed against ETH-denominated yield token deposits, and alUSD can be borrowed against DAI, USDC, USDT, and FRAX-denominated yield token deposits. Alchemix takes 10% of all generated yield as a service fee. This service fee is sent to the DAO treasury.

Transmuter - Alchemix incentivizes liquidity pools for the synthetic alAssets so that users can swap their synthetic assets for the underlying asset immediately upon receipt. If the liquidity pool exchange rate value of the synthetic asset is significantly below the value of the underlying, the Transmuter is a price stability module that allows users to stake their synthetic alAssets to have them be converted into their corresponding base asset on a 1:1 basis over time. Whenever an Alchemist performs a harvest, or whenever a user repays their debt with a base asset or self-liquidates, those tokens are sent to a Transmuter buffer contract. Those tokens are then gradually released to be redeemed by their corresponding Transmuter acoording to a time-based formula. For this reason, the Transmuter is considered a backstop to the redeemability of synthetic alAssets, and not the preferred route for users to swap their synthetic alAssets. Liquidity for instant swaps of alAssets can be found on Curve Finance, as well as other decentralized exchanges / AMMs.

alAssets - alAssets are the synthetic debt assets that represent a user's future yield. Users must be able to sell alAssets in order to be able to utilize them for on-chain and real-world purchases. Users may wish to buy alAssets to repay a loan early, or to convert to the underlying over time via the Transmuter. For these reasons, alAssets are typically expected to have a market price at some discount from the underlying (e.g., 1 alETH will typically be worth less than 1 ETH). This discount can be viewed as the cost for depositors to access future yield early. The Transmuter, Elixir AMO, and DAO Treasury all work to minimize the discount for each alAsset through governance defined frameworks.

Elixir AMO -The Transmuter has a set amount of alAssets that are allowed to be converted to the underlying collateral. This creates the potential for a surplus of assets in the Transmuter. When these surpluses occur, they are used to provide liquidity for their corresponding alAssets. This is done thourgh the DAO-controlled Elixir AMO. The Elixir deposits to the liquidity pools increase the price of the alAsset and earn yield. This liquidity can be withdrawn single-sided as alAssets in order to mimic the effect of the Transmuter.

Alchemix DAO - The governance of Alchemix Finance is managed by the DAO with the liquid governance token, ALCX.

ALCX Token - The Alchemix governance token (ALCX) initial supply and emissions are split among the developers, the DAO itself, and the community.