Fees.
Two charges on every trade, computed on the same amount and taken together.
The trading fee is 1%, on every trade. 0.3% of the trade goes to the platform and 0.7% is the launch's slice. The slice goes whole to one recipient, chosen by whoever launches: the creator, the star the token is about, its holders, or liquidity. One of the four, not a split. On a star's own token the slice is hers.
The extra is set by whoever launches, up to 9%, on top of the fee. It divides between the same four on shares fixed at launch, and what its rounding leaves over joins the slice, so nothing is ever left with nobody.
Neither charge is a percentage of what the other left behind. They are computed on the same amount and taken together, and each divides on its own, so nobody is paid twice out of one charge.
Out of every 100 spent
| Launch | Platform | Creator | Holders | Star | Liquidity | Buyer pays |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No extraFee's 0.7% to the creator · extra 0% | 0.30 | 0.70 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 1% |
| A typical launchFee's 0.7% to the creator · extra 4%: the creator 60%, the star 40% of it | 0.30 | 3.10 | 0.00 | 1.60 | 0.00 | 5% |
| A share for holdersFee's 0.7% to the creator · extra 5%: the creator 40%, the star 30%, holders 30% of it | 0.30 | 2.70 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 0.00 | 6% |
| Everything to the communityFee's 0.7% to holders · extra 2%: holders 100% of it | 0.30 | 0.00 | 2.70 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 3% |
| Everything to the starFee's 0.7% to the star · extra 5%: the star 100% of it | 0.30 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 5.70 | 0.00 | 6% |
| Everything to LPFee's 0.7% to liquidity · extra 2%: liquidity 100% of it | 0.30 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 2.70 | 3% |
| The maximumFee's 0.7% to the creator · extra 9%: the creator 50%, the star 25%, holders 25% of it | 0.30 | 5.20 | 2.25 | 2.25 | 0.00 | 10% |
Amounts are in whatever the launch is priced in, which is the token of the star it is about. Her own token is the one priced in ETH. Every column includes its party's part of the 1% fee when the slice is theirs. What goes to liquidity is nobody's. The charge is taken in the currency the swap did not name, so on a buy each party's cut arrives in the launch's own token rather than in ETH or in hers. Computed, not typed: the figures come from the site's copy of the contract's arithmetic.
Buying with ETH
A launch about a star is priced in the star token for that handle, so paying in ETH is two trades in one transaction: the router buys the star token with the ETH, then spends it on the launch. Each trade pays its own charges on what goes into it, and a star token's is the 1% trading fee alone: 0.3% to the platform and the whole 0.7% slice to the star. It carries no extra of its own.
| Trade | Platform | Creator | Holders | Star | Charges |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ETH for the star tokenCharged on the 100 ETH | 0.300 | 0.000 | 0.000 | 0.700 | 1.000 |
| Star token for the launchCharged on what the first trade bought, valued at the 99 ETH it cost | 0.297 | 3.069 | 0.000 | 1.584 | 4.950 |
| Both trades | 0.597 | 3.069 | 0.000 | 2.284 | 5.950 |
100 ETH spent on a launch about a star with a 4% extra, 60% of it to the creator and the rest to her, the slice to the creator: 5.95% of the ETH in all. Price impact is left out, so the second trade is valued at what its star tokens cost. Selling for ETH is the same two trades the other way, each charged on what it pays out.
The opening tax
For the first seconds after a launch opens, a buy in its pool pays a third charge. It is set at 99% and capped below it, so what a buy actually pays at the open is 98% of what it spends: the cap leaves room for the other two charges and a hundredth of a percent of the trade. From there it halves fourteen times across 5 seconds. Blocks carry whole seconds, so in practice it steps down once a second. The cap is what makes it 98 and not 99: the three charges together never take more than 99% of a trade.
| Seconds after the launch | No extra | 9% extra |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 98% | 89% |
| 1 | 24.75% | 24.75% |
| 2 | 3.09% | 3.09% |
| 3 | 0.38% | 0.38% |
| 4 | 0.04% | 0.04% |
| 5 and later | 0% | 0% |
Where it goes: all of it to the platform. The hook holds it apart from the trading fee and files it apart, as penalty, so none of it reaches the launch's slice, its star, its holders or its liquidity. It is a penalty on a sniper, not income for the launch, and paying a creator for being sniped would be a reason to be sniped.
It applies to buys, never to a sell, and it is over for good once the window closes. Whoever launched the token and their fee recipient are exempt, and so are up to 32 wallets the creator lists at launch. A buy through the router is assessed on the wallet that receives the tokens, not on the router; a buy that arrives through anything else is assessed on whoever called, which is what makes the window cost a sniper what it is meant to.
When a launch is the first about a handle, it opens the star's pool in the same transaction, and those same wallets are exempt there too. A buy in ETH crosses both pools, so an exemption that covered only one leg would still charge the creator the opening penalty on their own launch.
Where the charge is taken
Every launch trades in a Uniswap v4 pool from its first block, and the whatevr hook charges every swap there: the trading fee in force when the token launched, 1% by default, plus the launch's own extra, both with the platform's share of the fee the launch was created with, so a later change of that share never applies to it.
The charge comes out of the side of the swap whose amount was not fixed. The router fixes what goes in, so the charge is taken from what comes back: a buy in a pool is charged in the launch token, and a sell in what the launch is priced in. A swap sent another way that fixes the amount coming out is charged on what goes in instead.
Nothing is converted. The platform, the creator, the holders and the star are credited in the currency the charge was taken in, so part of what they are owed arrives in the launch token itself. What is liquidity's stays in the pool, as positions the hook owns and cannot remove.
A star's own token
Each star has one token, which the factory creates the first time anyone launches about them, and it is priced in ETH. It has no creator, and it carries no extra of its own, which is a constant in the contract rather than a setting: nobody can turn one on later. A trade in it pays the 1% trading fee and nothing else: the platform takes 0.3% of the trade and the whole 0.7% slice is the star's. The factory fixes the slice on her when it creates the token, so whatever a launch about her sends her, her own token always does.
Until the star claims, that share waits in their name like any other. Because there is no creator for it to pass to, it waits through both claim windows, 270 days by default, before the platform can take it.
What goes to liquidity
A launch may point its fee slice, a share of its extra, or both at liquidity. The LP share waits in the hook and is placed as liquidity beside the price, which nobody, whatevr included, can remove. It is not a burn: the supply stays what it was at launch, and what it holds is in the pool, never gone. The LP share waits in the hook and becomes bands of liquidity beside the price, placed by anyone who calls for it, and there is no function that takes them out. It is not part of the sale range, so it never moves the bar on a token page: only a trade does.
Why a high extra is visible
A launch with a 9% extra costs a buyer 10% of every trade, and a launch about a star adds the star token's charges when it is bought with ETH. That is a real cost and it makes a token visibly worse to trade, which is fine as long as it is visible: the buy widget shows the charges on each leg of a trade before anything is signed.