# Components

# Terminology

Balancer is an umbrella term that represents a diverse ecosystem of independent components, tools, and contributors.

Balancer Protocol is the set of smart contracts that lives on the blockchain and facilitates all of the interactions of swapping, liquidity provisioning, pool creation, and more.

Balancer Dapp is an open source frontend application that users can use to easily interact with the underlying smart contracts.

# Ecosystem Participants

Balancer Labs is the original entity that developed the protocol and now focuses entirely on open source smart contract development.

Orb Collective is an independent entity created by a team of former Balancer Labs and Balancer DAO contributors. Orb is an experienced and passionate team of professionals who are dedicated to propelling Balancer’s growth. Orb Collective’s mission is simple: to scale global utilization of the Balancer Protocol.

Balancer Foundation provides the DAO with an additional mechanism for executing work, furthering Balancer’s decentralization goals, and building resilience across the Balancer Ecosystem.

Balancer OpCo a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Balancer Foundation. It is an integral element of the Balancer Foundation corporate structure supporting the BalancerDAO, and is intended to serve two primary functions: Administrative & Operational and Frontend Dev & Engineering Workstream.

Balancer DAO is the decentralized autonomous organization which encompasses the Balancer community. An architecture of Sub-DAOs has been voted into practice by a governance vote. The major actors in the community may be appointed or removed from any positions they hold in the sub-DAOs.