Fees & Revenue
The Factory has four fee stages. Together they route value to the Protocol, the creator (or their staking vault), the wallet that graduates the token, and the LPs.
The full picture
Stage 1 - Creation fee
A flat ETH fee paid the moment a token is deployed.
- Who pays: the creator, inside the deploy transaction.
- Who receives: the Protocol.
- When: once, at deploy time.
Stage 2 - Trading fee on the bonding curve
Every buy and sell on the bonding curve pays a 1.5% fee on the ETH leg.
The split depends on whether the buyer has a referrer attached. Numbers are framed against the Protocol fee for clarity:
| Case | Direct referrer | Indirect referrer | Protocol |
|---|---|---|---|
| No referrer | - | - | 100% of the fee |
| Direct only | 10% of the Protocol fee | - | 90% |
| Direct + indirect | 10% of the Protocol fee | 10% of direct (1% of the Protocol fee) | ~89% |
In words: a direct referrer takes a 10% slice of what would have gone to the Protocol, and an indirect referrer (the direct referrer's own referrer) takes another 10% of that slice. The remainder always stays with the Protocol. The trader pays the same 1.5% either way - referrals do not increase the cost of trading.
Referrer balances accrue in WETH on a per-token basis and are claimed by the referrer when they want to. Each token can have its own minimum-claim threshold to keep dust manageable. See Referrals for the full flow.
Stage 3 - Graduation fees
Triggered once, in the transaction that pushes the token past max supply. Fees are deducted from the curve's accumulated WETH before liquidity is seeded.
| Slice | Rate | Recipient |
|---|---|---|
| Protocol fee | 0% (skipped today) | Protocol |
| Creator fee | 5% | Fee Receiver - creator wallet, alternative recipient, or staking vault |
| Refund fee | 0.1% | The wallet that triggered graduation |
| Remainder | ~94.9% | Seed liquidity |
The refund fee is what makes graduating a token directly profitable. Bots and AI strategies (Graduation Sniper) lean on this to push tokens through the finish line as soon as it's in range.
Stage 4 - Post-LP plugin fees
After graduation, swaps happen on the Algebra V4 AMM. Three streams of fees flow back into the system:
LP position fees
The LP NFTs themselves accrue swap fees, on both sides of the curve, across both the custom pool and the POL pool. The protocol owner (or its authorised worker) sweeps these via Harvester.
- Split: 100% to Protocol.
Plugin WETH fee
A swap-fee stream collected on the WETH side of the custom pool by Cypher's fee plugin.
- Split: 25% to Protocol, 75% to the Fee Receiver.
Plugin Coin fee
A swap-fee stream collected on the token side of the custom pool. This is where a per-token Staking Vault, if one was deployed, earns its yield.
- With a Staking Vault: the community fee share goes to the vault, the remainder to the Fee Receiver.
- Without a Staking Vault: 25% to Protocol, 75% to the Fee Receiver - same shape as the WETH side.
The community share is set at token creation and is immutable for the life of the token.
Who pays what, summarised
| Actor | Pays | Receives |
|---|---|---|
| Creator | Creation fee at deploy, trading fee on optional pre-buy | 5% of graduation TVL, plus their share of post-LP plugin fees |
| Trader (no referrer) | 1.5% on each trade | - |
| Trader (with referrer) | Same 1.5% (the referrer's slice comes out of the Protocol's cut) | - |
| Direct referrer | - | 10% of the Protocol fee on every trade the referee makes |
| Indirect referrer | - | 10% of the direct referrer's slice |
| Graduating wallet | Gas | 0.1% refund of graduation TVL |
| Staker | Nothing (deposits the token) | Community share of coin-side LP fees |
| Protocol | - | Creation fees, LP position fees, the Protocol slice of plugin fees, the Protocol slice of curve fees |