# Time-Locked Accounts

> What are time-locked accounts and how to use them.

Canonical URL: https://docs.minaprotocol.com/mina-protocol/time-locked-accounts

A time-locked account disallows payments that would reduce the balance below a minimum, which depends on the block height.

To create a  time-lock, you must provide the configuration when creating a new account. This can happen only in the genesis ledger at the beginning of a network. In this section, we'll explore the mechanism behind time-locks and see how to interact with time-locked accounts.

:::tip

  For the current release, values for time-locked accounts were assigned based on the order in which you signed up.

:::

## Understanding time-locks

A time-lock consists of the following fields `initial_minimum_balance`, `cliff` time, a `vesting_period` time, and a `vesting_increment`.

You can still use an account if it has a time-lock, as long as the account holds enough funds. The amount of funds that are time-locked starts off as `initial_minimum_balance` at the beginning of the network. Once the network reaches a block height equal to the `cliff`, the time-locked amount begins to decrease by the `vesting_increment` amount every `vesting_period`.

For a more technical explanaition of this process, please see [RFC-0025](https://github.com/MinaProtocol/mina/blob/master/rfcs/0025-time-locked-accounts.md) which has a more in-depth overview.

### Liquid Balance Details:

If you'd like to expose liquid balances for vesting accounts at some particular time period it is governed by the following function (Note: this computes the locked portion of an account):

```
(*
 *  uint32 global_slot -- the "clock" it starts at 0 at the genesis block and ticks up every 90 seconds.
 *  uint32 cliff_time -- the slot where the cliff is (similar to startup equity vesting)
 *  uint32 cliff_amount -- the amount that unlocks at the cliff
 *  amount vesting_increment -- unlock this amount every "period"
 *  uint32 vesting_period -- the period that we increment the unlocked amount
 *  balance initial_minimum_balance -- the total locked amount until the cliff
 *)
let min_balance_at_slot ~global_slot ~cliff_time ~cliff_amount ~vesting_period
    ~vesting_increment ~initial_minimum_balance =
  let open Unsigned in
  if Global_slot.(global_slot < cliff_time) then initial_minimum_balance
  else
    match Balance.(initial_minimum_balance - cliff_amount) with
    | None ->
        Balance.zero
    | Some min_balance_past_cliff -> (
        (* take advantage of fact that global slots are uint32's *)
        let num_periods =
          UInt32.(
            Infix.((global_slot - cliff_time) / vesting_period)
            |> to_int64 |> UInt64.of_int64)
        in
        let vesting_decrement =
          UInt64.Infix.(num_periods * Amount.to_uint64 vesting_increment)
          |> Amount.of_uint64
        in
        match Balance.(min_balance_past_cliff - vesting_decrement) with
        | None ->
            Balance.zero
        | Some amt ->
            amt )

```

## Creating a time-locked account

As of the current release, the only way to create a time-locked account is with the genesis ledger. In future releases we may add commands to `mina client` and the GraphQL API that will allow you to create a new time-locked account.