Economics
Fees, payouts, and the AMM that prices conviction.
Fee schedule
| Fee | Amount | When taken | Goes to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Creation fee | 0.015 SOL | Once per market, at creation | Platform treasury |
| Trade fee | 1.5% | Every YES/NO purchase | Platform treasury |
| Completion fee | 5% | At resolution (YES or NO wins) | Platform treasury |
| Refund | 0% | Tie or threshold-not-met | n/a — full refund |
Trading limits
- Minimum stake: 0.01 SOL per vote
- Target pool options: 5, 10, or 15 SOL per market
- Maximum pool for launch: 50 SOL (excess routes to founder via vesting)
- Market duration: 1 day minimum, 1 year maximum
Pricing — Constant Product AMM
PNL uses a constant-product Automated Market Maker (x · y = k) to price YES and NO shares within a market.
When a market is created, the YES pool and NO pool are seeded equal — yes_pool = no_pool = target_pool. This anchors the market at 50/50 probability (each side starts at 0.5).
As stakes flow in:
- A YES purchase swaps SOL for YES shares. The YES pool gains SOL; the NO pool shrinks (preserving
k). The implied probability of YES rises. - A NO purchase does the inverse.
Early stakers get more shares per SOL because they hit the pool when it's thin. Later stakers pay more SOL per share as the pool deepens. This rewards conviction.
Distribution when YES wins
When a market resolves with YES winning, the founder's idea graduates: a token is launched on pump.fun with pooled liquidity. The token supply distributes as follows:
| Recipient | Share | Vesting |
|---|---|---|
| YES voters | 65% | Immediate, proportional to YES shares held |
| Project team / founder | 33% | 8% immediate, 25% vested linearly over 12 months |
| Platform | 2% | Immediate to PNL wallet |
The founder also earns ongoing creator fees on pump.fun trading of the launched token — this is pump.fun's native mechanism, not something PNL takes.
Founder SOL vesting (when pool > 50 SOL)
If the pool ends above 50 SOL, the founder also receives a SOL allocation from the excess pool:
- 8% immediate claim
- 92% linear vesting over 12 months
This prevents a single market from front-loading too much capital to one founder.
Distribution when NO wins
The total pool, minus the 5% completion fee, is split among NO voters proportional to their NO shares held. NO voters always get their principal back at minimum (if the market reached the threshold).
Distribution when no one wins (refund)
If the pool fails to reach its target OR YES and NO are exactly tied, the market resolves to Refund. All stakes are returned in full. No fees taken. The market joins the on-chain library but no token launches.
What stays free
- Reading markets —
/api/markets/listis public, no auth, no payment - Cranking expiry —
expireis permissionless; anyone can move a market from Active to Expired - Resolving a market —
resolve_marketis permissionless after expiry - Browsing the orchard — pnl.market/browse, /launchpad, /whitepaper are all free