Skip to main content
Ascend has a simple fee system. Everyone starts at 0.040% taker and 0% maker. Stake $ASCEND to get up to 40% off your taker fee. You do not need to hold anything to trade. The base rate is available to every account from day one. Stakers get progressively cheaper taker fees, all the way down to 0.024%. Makers pay 0% at every tier.

0.000%

Makers pay nothing, at every tier

0.040% → 0.024%

Takers pay up to 40% less based on staked $ASCEND

100%

Of taker fees go back to $ASCEND stakers

​
Staking Tiers

The discount only applies to taker fees. Makers pay 0% at every tier.

​
How Your Tier Is Set

1

Stake $ASCEND

Your tier is based on the amount of $ASCEND you have staked. Staking is liquid: your tokens stay in your Cardano wallet, nothing is locked, and you can unstake any time.
2

Hit a threshold, unlock a tier

Cross a threshold and your tier moves up. Fall below one and your tier moves down. The tier that applies is the highest threshold you currently meet.
3

Your tier updates once a day

Your tier is set once per day at 00:00 UTC based on your staked balance at that moment. Staking or unstaking mid-day does not change your rate until the next update.
4

No stake is fine too

You can trade at the Base rate without staking anything. There is no application, no form, and no minimum. Staking only makes your taker fee cheaper.

​
Maker vs Taker

Every trade has two sides. One person was waiting on the book. The other person came in and took their offer. That is what decides which fee you pay.
You were the one waiting. You put an order on the book, and someone else came and matched it.
  • You placed a limit order at a price that did not cross the current spread
  • Your order sat on the book
  • Someone else’s order matched yours
Example (BTC-USD): The best ask is $50,000. You place a limit order to LONG 1,000 USD at $49,000. Your order waits on the bid side. Twenty minutes later, someone sends a SHORT market order and fills you at $49,000.Fee: 0.00 USD, at every tier.
Whether you are a maker or taker is decided when your order fills, not by the type of order you picked. A limit order that crosses the spread still counts as a taker. If you want to be sure you get the maker rate, place limit orders behind the spread and let the market come to you.

​
How Fees Are Charged

Fees are based on the size of the trade that filled:
This is the same trade size used for funding. A few things to keep in mind:
  • Fees are based on trade size, not on your margin. A 500 USD position at 10x leverage is a 5,000 USD trade, and the fee is worked out on 5,000.
  • One fill, one fee. If your order fills across three price levels, that is still one fee, based on the total size.
  • Placing and canceling orders is free. You only pay when your order actually fills.
  • Opening and closing are two separate trades. A full round trip means two fees.
  • Your tier is locked in for the day. The fee you pay is your tier from the last daily update.

​
Examples

Same trade, same size, 20% cheaper. The only reason is your staked $ASCEND.
At the top tier, you pay 40% less than base on every taker fill.
Makers pay nothing at every tier, so this number never changes.
On BTC-USD, you place a limit order to LONG 1,000 USD at $50,000. The best ask is $50,000, but only 400 USD is available at that price.
  • 400 USD fills right away against the ask → taker
  • 600 USD waits on the book at $50,000 and fills later → maker
Fees are based on trade size, so using leverage makes your fee bigger compared to the margin you put up.

​
Round-Trip Cost

Your total cost to open and close depends on how each side fills. Here is a 10,000 USD position at the Base tier: If you are patient and use limit orders on both sides, you pay no trading fees at any tier. Funding still applies to open positions.

​
Other Costs (Not Trading Fees)

Trading fees are not the only thing that affects your price. These other costs are not fees paid to the protocol:
The gap between the best bid and the best ask is the cost of trading right away. If the spread is 1% and you market in and market out, you lose 1% to the book. That is 25 times more than the Base taker fee.Busy markets have small spreads. Quiet markets have big ones. See CLOB & Matching.
Big orders eat through the book. They fill at more than one price, and each price is a bit worse than the last. So your average fill ends up worse than the top price you saw.This is about how much liquidity is there, not a fee. Limit orders let you avoid it.
Funding is a payment between LONG and SHORT traders. It keeps the Mark Price close to the Index Price. The protocol takes no cut of it.Depending on which side you are on, funding is either something you pay or something you earn. See Funding & Price Alignment.

​
Where the Fees Go

Taker fees are how the protocol earns money, and 100% of that money goes to $ASCEND stakers. Staking is easy. Your tokens stay in your Cardano wallet. Nothing is locked. You can leave any time. So staking does two things at once: it drops your own taker fee, and it earns you a share of every taker fee on the platform.

Staking Guide

Stake $ASCEND without giving up custody and earn 100% of protocol revenue

​
Why Makers Pay Nothing

Perpetual markets need deep books to work. A market with a tight spread is easy to trade. A market with a wide spread is not, no matter how interesting the asset is. Charging makers would punish the exact behavior these markets need most. So Ascend does not charge makers, at any tier:
  • Tighter spreads. Market makers can post prices closer to fair value when it is free to do so.
  • Real depth at every level. Posting and canceling orders costs nothing.
  • Lower total cost for takers. The spread you cross is usually bigger than the fee you pay.
  • A level playing field. A new account can post liquidity on the same terms as the biggest firm.
Takers fund the protocol. Makers build the book.

​
Key Points

  • Makers pay 0.000% at every tier.
  • Takers start at 0.040% and pay as low as 0.024% with 1,500,000 $ASCEND staked.
  • Tiers are based on the amount of $ASCEND you have staked, and update once a day at 00:00 UTC.
  • You are a maker if your order waited on the book, and a taker if your order took liquidity right away.
  • Fees are based on trade size, not on your margin, so leverage makes them bigger.
  • Placing and canceling orders is free. You only pay when your order fills.
  • Spread, slippage, and funding are separate from trading fees.
  • 100% of taker fees go to $ASCEND stakers.

Next: Staking Guide

Stake $ASCEND and earn 100% of protocol revenue