Protocol revenue and buyback and burn
StartupOS earns a share of trading fees, plus a one-off fee when a bonding curve token graduates. Separately, tokens in a Uniswap V4 pool that have a burn share use it to buy themselves back and burn the tokens. This page covers both.
What StartupOS earns
| Source | Platform share |
|---|---|
| Launching a token | Nothing. Launching is free apart from gas |
| Trades on Standard tokens | 0.3% of each trade |
| Trades on Auto-Burn tokens | 0.4% of each trade |
| Trades on Tax-Free tokens | Nothing |
| Graduation of a curve token on an ETH market | 0.01 ETH, once |
| Graduation of a curve token paired with another token | 2% of the raise, once |
| Fees from a graduated token's Uniswap V3 pool | The platform share, on Standard and Auto-Burn |
A graduating token pays one of those two graduation fees, never both, and a matching share of the tokens held back for the pool goes to the treasury with it, so the pool opens at the curve's closing price. StartupOS takes no part of the holder tax, and Instant tokens have no graduation fee.
How it reaches the treasury
- Curve trades pay the treasury on every trade.
- Graduation fees go to the treasury when a curve token graduates.
- Trades in a Uniswap V4 pool, on Instant tokens and graduated curve tokens, build up a platform balance in the pool's hook. Anyone can send it on to the treasury, and it cannot go anywhere else.
- Uniswap V3 pools of curve tokens that graduated there pay the treasury each time someone presses Run Collect & Burn.
The treasury address is on Network and addresses. The Fees & burns page, linked in the site footer, lists platform earnings as they happen. For the full split, see Fees and burns.
Buyback and burn
Every Instant token, and every curve token once it graduates into Uniswap V4, can fund its own buyback and burn. Its budget comes from two places:
- the burn share of the trade fee, on Auto-Burn tokens
- half of the holder tax, on tokens that chose Rewards and burn (see Holder rewards and the weekly lottery)
StartupOS uses that budget to buy the token in its own pool and burn what it buys, so the total supply really falls. A token's budget is spent only on that token, and StartupOS cannot withdraw it.
Where this runs. Buybacks run on mainnet for every token launched since October 18, 2026, and on testnet. A mainnet token launched before then keeps its budget, held for it, but its buybacks have not started yet.
Limits on every buyback
| Limit | Setting |
|---|---|
| Size | At most 0.01 ETH per buyback, on ETH pairs |
| Price | Pays at most 1% above the recently recorded pool price |
| Price record | Taken 5 to 60 minutes before the buy |
| Spacing | At least 5 minutes between buybacks on the same token |
| Partial fills | Refused if less than half the intended size would fill |
| Launch | Never buys during a token's anti-sniping window |
These limits keep each buyback small and hard to exploit. StartupOS can tune the price, price record and spacing limits only inside hard limits written into the contract. For example, a buyback can never pay more than 5% above the recorded price. The size limit has no such ceiling in the contract. See Risk disclosures.
Buybacks happen automatically, at irregular times, and only once a token's budget is worth well more than the gas a buyback costs. On tokens paired with a currency other than ETH, buybacks begin once StartupOS sets a spending limit for that currency, and the budget keeps building until then.
Curve tokens in a Uniswap V3 pool
A curve token launched on mainnet before October 18, 2026 graduates into a Uniswap V3 pool. There, Auto-Burn tokens buy back and burn during every collection: the burn share of the token side is burned, and the burn share of the pair-currency side buys more of the token to burn. A Tax-Free token in a V3 pool spends its whole pool fee this way.
The Burns page, linked in the site footer, labels each burn by its source, including buybacks.
Before you rely on it
Buybacks are small and capped by design. Judge a token on its own market, and read Risk disclosures before you trade.