Referrals and Fees#

What Seesaw charges you to trade, who gets that money, and how referrals work — in plain English. If you're a developer building against the fee system, the technical reference is at docs/sdk/referral-and-creator-fees.

What the fee actually costs you#

Seesaw charges a fee only on trades that fill immediately against the order book (called a taker fee). If your order rests on the book and someone else matches against it, you pay nothing.

The fee depends on the price of the fill. Trades at coin-flip prices pay the most; trades at very confident prices pay almost nothing.

The formula:

fee_bps(price) = min(fee_cap_bps, decay_rate_bps × (10000 − price) / 10000)

With the current defaults — fee_cap_bps = 200 (2%), decay_rate_bps = 600 — the fee in basis points at a given fill price is:

The cap applies at prices ≤ 6666 bps (≈ 66.67%) — any trade at that confidence or lower pays the flat 2% cap. Above that, the fee decays linearly toward zero.

Fees always round up. Payouts always round down. A few USDT of rounding dust per market goes to the creator at teardown.

The app shows the exact fee in the order preview before you sign.

Where the fee goes#

Every taker fee splits three ways automatically — no manual steps, no delays:

On a $2.00 fee (e.g. a $100 trade at 60% confidence):

• $1.00 → protocol treasury
• $0.20 → market creator
• $0.80 → your referrer (or protocol if you have none)

You pay the same total either way. Having a referrer just redirects the 40% slice from the protocol to the person who introduced you.

What's a referrer?#

A referrer is someone who invited you to Seesaw. They earn 40% of every taker fee you pay — automatically, forever (well, for 365 days per trade, then you can re-pick).

Set your referrer once by either:

• Tapping a referral link (e.g. https://seesaw.markets/r/<wallet>) and connecting your wallet, or
• Going to Settings → Referrer and pasting a wallet address.

After you set it, it's locked for 365 days. Nobody can change it on your behalf, and you can't accidentally change it later. You also can't set yourself as your own referrer — the protocol blocks that.

If you don't set a referrer, the 40% slice flows to the protocol treasury along with the 50%.

How to refer other people#

Anyone can refer. No signup, no minimum.

1. Open the Referrals tab.
2. Copy your personal referral link.
3. Share it — DM, social post, group chat, wherever.
4. When someone new opens your link and connects their wallet, the protocol records you as their referrer.
5. From that moment on, 40% of every taker fee they pay flows to your Referrer Earnings account.

Where your referral earnings show up#

In the Referrals tab:

• Earnings to date — total accumulated since you started referring.
• Claimable now — what you can withdraw right now.
• People you've referred — wallets that picked you.

Tap Claim to send the accumulated stablecoin to your wallet in one transaction. There's no minimum, but claiming costs a tiny bit of SOL.

Some real numbers#

Say you refer 10 friends who each trade $1,000 per day:

Actual earnings depend on how much your referrals trade and at what prices.

Fee parameter bounds#

Fee settings are admin-tunable but bounded on-chain:

Changes are prospective only — they affect future fills, never past trades or resting orders. The app always shows the current fee in the order preview before you sign.

Common questions#

Do I lose my referrer if I switch wallets? The referrer is tied to the wallet that set it. A new wallet starts fresh.

Can a referrer see my individual trades? They see aggregate earnings from you, not individual positions. On-chain history is public (your wallet address and transaction record), but that's true for any Solana wallet.

Can the market creator and referrer be the same person? Yes — you collect both slices independently if you created the market and also referred the traders in it.

When do fees land for referrers to claim? Immediately on each fill — accrued in real time to your earnings account. You don't have to wait for the market to resolve.

Why is the fee higher at coin-flip prices? The fee curve design rationale is explained in Treasury and Fee Split.

Next steps#

• Creating Your Own Market — the 10% creator fee is your most direct way to earn if you don't trade actively
• Placing Orders — order book details and the fee preview in the order form
• Risks — fee parameter changes and other things to know
• How funds flow through the protocol

Technical reference#