Skip to main content

Concepts

Beginner

Accounts: Principals and subaccounts

ICP token accounts use principals and their associated subaccount to generate an AccountIdentifier value to identify the account owner.

ICRC-1 token accounts use an Account value that corresponds to the pair (principal, subaccount), where a principal can have multiple accounts, and each subaccount of a principal is identified by a 32-byte string.

Principals

Every token account is owned by a single principal. Principals are unique identifiers used to identify both users and canisters on ICP.

Subaccounts

Each principal can have multiple accounts identified by a 32-byte string called a subaccount. Subaccounts are used for organizing funds within a single principal for optimized management and transparency. Subaccounts can be used to distinguish between personal funds and business funds, or separate funds for one project from another.

ICP tokens

The ICP token is the network's native token used for various utility and governance functions, such as:

  • Converting tokens into cycles.

  • Rewarding node providers for contributing resources to the network.

  • Rewarding neurons for staking ICP into a neuron and voting on governance proposals.