Reward tokens
A reward token routes a slice of its own trading back to the people holding it. The catch - and the reason this page exists - is that the same words mean two different things depending on the chain. On Solana the tax is enforced by the token itself, on every transfer at any venue. On EVM it can only ride the official pool. Getting this right is the difference between what you promise your holders and what they actually receive.
The idea
Most tokens earn their creator a fee. A reward token instead earns its holders: a percentage of activity is collected and handed back to everyone holding the token, pro-rata. It is the “reflection” / “tax token” pattern, built honestly - but the mechanism that collects the tax is not the same on every chain, and that changes what the feature can truthfully promise.
Solana taxes every transfer, at any venue. EVM taxes only trades on the token’s own official pool. Everything below is a consequence of that one difference.
3% of every transfer is automatically redistributed to holders. This fee is permanent and cannot be changed.
Solana: taxed everywhere
A Solana reward token is minted with Token-2022, the newer SPL token program, carrying a 3% transfer fee that is immutable - the rate authority is set to null at mint, so nobody, ever, can change or remove it. Because the fee lives in the token program and not in a pool, it applies to every single transfer:
- a buy or sell on the token’s Raydium pool,
- a swap on any other venue that lists it (Orca, Jupiter routing, a new pool),
- a plain wallet-to-wallet send.
There is no way to route around it, because there is no “around” - the tax is a property of the token, not of a particular market. That is the whole appeal of the Solana version, and it is genuinely not reproducible on an ERC-20.
- Program
- Token-2022
- Transfer fee
- 3.00% (300 bps)
- Rate authority
- null (immutable)
- Applies to
- every transfer
- Pool
- Raydium CLMM
- Supply
- ~970M
A reward token is a custom-pair launch: it opens directly into a Raydium CLMM pool at market, with no bonding curve. It has to be - a Meteora curve creates its own base mint and leaves no place to attach a transfer fee, so the reward model and the curve are mutually exclusive by construction, not by choice. (Supply is ~970M rather than the usual ~1B because the pool has to gross up its own deposit against a mint that taxes it.)
The tax is automatic; the payout is not
This is the honest part most “reflection” tokens gloss over. Collecting the 3% is automatic and trustless - the token program withholds it on every transfer, no keeper required. Getting it to holders is a separate, active process:
- the withheld fee accrues in the launch token itself, wallet by wallet;
- a platform keeper periodically harvests it, swaps it into the token’s reward asset (its LP pair - SOL, or a pair you elected), and distributes that to holders.
Payouts arrive on the keeper’s cadence - every 15 minutes, skipping a cycle whose pot hasn’t cleared a dust floor so a payout’s transaction cost is never a meaningful fraction of what it moves - in the reward asset, not the moment a trade lands, and not in the launch token. Anyone who tells you a Token-2022 reward token “pays holders automatically in real time” is describing the tax, not the payout. The creator does not get a separate fee position either: as a holder, they receive the same pro-rata reward as everyone else.
Which asset holders are paid in
- Custom (non-SOL) pair: the reward asset is the pair token - fixed, not a choice.
- SOL pair: you may elect a different reward asset; it defaults to SOL.
EVM: the official pool only
On Robinhood Chain, BSC and Base, a token is a plain ERC-20 (or a V4-hooked pool). ERC-20s have no transfer hook the platform can trust to tax arbitrary sends - a fee-on-transfer token that tried would break composability and get de-listed. So on EVM, “rewarding holders” can only draw from the one place the platform does control: the token’s own official market.
The tool for it already exists and is live: the “Pay stakers” fee routing. The creator’s share of the swap fee - charged on the curve and on the graduated pool - is deposited into the token’s staking pool, where holders stake and share it pro-rata.
- It is funded by the official pool’s fee only. A trade on some other DEX, or a wallet-to-wallet transfer, contributes nothing - the platform never sees it.
- Holders must stake to receive it; simply holding is not enough, unlike the Solana model where every holder is credited.
- It rides the creator’s fee slice, so it competes with the creator taking that fee - it is a routing choice, not an extra tax on top.
Solana vs EVM, side by side
| Solana (Token-2022) | EVM (Robinhood / BSC / Base) | |
|---|---|---|
| What is taxed | Every transfer, any venue | The official pool’s trades only |
| Enforced by | The token program (immutable) | The pool / staking contract |
| Rate | 3% | The creator’s swap-fee share |
| Who receives | Every holder, pro-rata | Holders who stake, pro-rata |
| Paid in | The reward asset (LP pair / SOL), via keeper | The routed fee asset (ETH/BNB), via the staking pool |
| Curve? | No - Raydium CLMM at market | Yes - the normal bonding curve, then DEX |
| Cross-chain expansion | Excluded, permanently | Available (standard tokens) |
| Status | Built · not live | Live |
Rules & consequences
- A reward token cannot expand cross-chain. Ever. Its 3% is enforced by its Solana mint; a bridged copy on another chain would be a plain token paying no tax, so expansion would quietly route volume to a venue where holders earn nothing - and neither bridge shape even survives the mint. See Cross-chain expansion. If you elect expansion, the reward model is removed from the form, not merely disabled.
- The 3% is permanent. Set at mint, rate authority null. You cannot lower it later to court traders, and you cannot raise it to squeeze them. Buyers can verify this on-chain.
- The tax hits every send, including yours. Moving reward tokens between your own wallets pays 3% too. There is no allowlist.
Is it live?
Built · not live - Solana reward tokens are built end to end but not yet live. The mint, the grossed-up direct-to-pool launch, reward-aware pool registration and the payout keeper all exist and are proven on devnet; the launch form shows the option inert, with its reason. Two of three gating items are settled; one remains:
- Decided: the mainnet authority that withdraws the withheld fee is the fee-router program’s PDA - client sign-off 2026-08-22, non-custodial, chosen once at mint time. The Anchor instruction that lets the PDA actually claim still needs building; until it does, devnet keeps a keeper key standing in, baked into every mint at creation, immutably;
- Open: one more watched keeper cycle paying out cleanly on recent fixes (an earlier devnet run surfaced four payout defects, now fixed) - against the decided 15-minute cadence below;
- Decided: client sign-off on the fee wording and the payout cadence, 2026-08-22 - payouts every 15 minutes, gated by a dust floor, and the disclosure quoted above.
The EVM side of the story - the “Pay stakers” routing - is Live today. When the Solana flag flips, this page loses its “built” caveat and nothing else changes.