Operator FAQ
Every question a prospective firm operator is likely to ask, grouped by theme. Each links to the full page for depth.
Getting started
How much does it cost to launch a firm?
A one-time fee from $1,000 to $50,000, depending on tier. See Launching a firm.
What do I actually get for that fee?
In one step: a firm identity, a treasury seeded with roughly 63% of the fee, and your own fixed-supply token with a and a payout reserve already minted. It's a working setup, not just a registration.
How long does it take to launch?
The deployment itself is a single on-chain transaction. The two-phase design (configure, then launch your token) means the practical timeline is however long it takes you to set your branding and pricing, not a platform-imposed waiting period.
Why can't I sell evaluations the moment I pay the fee?
Deploying and launching are deliberately separate steps so you can finish configuring your firm before your storefront goes live. See Launching a firm.
Which tier should I pick?
Your tier sets your launch fee and your owner fee percentage; it does not cap which account sizes you can eventually sell, every firm reaches the same account-size ceiling as its liquidity grows, regardless of starting tier. Pick based on how much you want to invest up front and what owner percentage you want locked in, not based on ambitions for firm size.
Can I upgrade my tier after launching?
The tier-specific numbers (launch fee already paid, your owner fee percentage) are set at deployment. Growth beyond that happens through your treasury and liquidity growing, which is uncapped and tier-independent.
Do I need technical or coding skill to launch?
No. Deployment and configuration happen through the operator console; you're not writing code or deploying programs yourself.
Control & rules
What do I actually control as an operator?
Branding, storefront copy, pricing within a guided range, your profit split preset, which affiliates you approve, and your marketing setup. See Operating a firm for the full breakdown.
Can I make the evaluation rules easier to pass, to sell more evaluations?
No. Profit target, drawdown limits, daily loss limits, and minimum trading days are fixed platform-wide and identical on every firm. This is deliberate, it's what lets a trader trust any firm's numbers without auditing each one separately.
Can I set my own trader profit split and leverage?
The split, yes, and it's the only economic dial your firm has. You pick it as a preset at deploy.
Leverage is not yours to set. It's platform-set for every firm, and the risk engine lowers it on new funded accounts when your firm is under stress. Whatever a trader is shown at purchase locks into their account for its life and can only move in their favour later, never against them. See Funded accounts & payouts.
Can I change my pricing whenever I want?
Yes, within your guided band. There's no cooldown or approval step to adjust price.
Who decides which account sizes I'm allowed to sell?
Your own combined liquidity, automatically. Sizes above $50k unlock as your treasury, reserve, backstop, and pool share cross set thresholds, and the system turns them on (or pauses them) without you doing anything. See Evaluations & the rulebook.
What can I actually customize on my storefront?
Branding, copy, pricing display, and which currently-unlocked account sizes to feature. The underlying rules and mechanics are identical across every firm regardless of storefront presentation.
Money & liquidity
How do I actually make money as an operator?
A fixed percentage of every evaluation fee your firm sells (6–14% depending on tier), plus you own your firm's treasury and token equity outright, both of which grow as your firm does. See Operator economics.
Do trader payouts cost me money, or make me money?
Both, and the second part is the one nobody expects. A payout spends your treasury's SOL, and it also pays you 30% of the stakeholder share in , roughly 6% of the trader's gross profit, while buying your token on your own curve and burning a slice of supply. Paying traders well is also what lifts your public happiness score and fills the treasury that raises your fee share. See The conflict of interest, removed.
When do I get paid my share?
Half of your fee share pays immediately on each sale. The other half is held for 90 days from that sale, then it's yours to claim from the console. Don't confuse it with your token: the 10% of supply you own drips monthly over 24 months, which is a separate schedule on a separate asset.
Do I need a lot of my own capital to cover trader payouts?
No. Your launch fee seeds a real treasury and token reserve from day one, and your real payout capacity comes from the bonding curve, backstop staking, and the shared stacked on top of that. See Tokenomics & liquidity.
Where does payout money come from if my treasury runs low?
An automatic waterfall: your treasury, then your token reserve, then your backstop pool (if you have one), then the shared Universal Treasury Pool. You don't manage this manually. See Funded accounts & payouts.
What's the difference between $FIRMA and $DPROP for me as an operator?
$FIRMA is your firm's own token, it funds your payouts and represents your firm's equity. is a separate, protocol-wide token that hasn't launched yet; it isn't something your firm issues or controls.
Can outside investors put capital behind my firm?
Yes, through : investors voluntarily stake $FIRMA as payout collateral in exchange for yield. It's optional, and it's their capital at risk, not an obligation on you.
Do I have to pay backstop stakers out of my own pocket?
No. Their yield comes from a fixed fee leg on evaluation sales, not from your treasury directly.
Does my treasury ever just sit idle, or does it actually do something?
It's active working capital: it's what funds most ordinary payouts (via curve buys) and it's the metric that gates which account sizes you're allowed to sell. It's not a balance you draw down for personal use, it's your firm's operating liquidity.
Risk, safety & the ARE
Who manages my firm's risk?
The Autonomous Risk Engine (ARE), automatically, identically across every firm. You don't configure it. See The risk engine and Operator risk & lifecycle.
What happens if my firm's risk tier drops?
New evaluations get modestly harder, payouts slow down, and available leverage on new funded accounts drops. None of this touches accounts your firm already funded, and you're never stopped from selling.
Can my firm go negative, or lose money it doesn't have?
No. The waterfall and the risk engine are built specifically to slow or queue payouts rather than pay out money that isn't there. Internal large-scale simulation found zero firms failing to eventually pay what they owed, across tens of thousands of simulated firm-runs.
What's the security bond, and can I lose it?
A 50 SOL fraud deterrent, self-funded from your own fee revenue over time. You lose it only if a settlement from your firm is proven fraudulent, in which case it's seized entirely. Operating honestly, you'll never interact with it.
Am I personally liable for anything?
This isn't legal advice, and the platform's own legal and entity structure is still being finalized. Operationally, your economic exposure is bounded by the mechanisms in Operator risk & lifecycle; for questions about your personal legal exposure, that's outside what this documentation can answer.
Growing your firm
Can I run an affiliate or referral program?
Yes. You approve who's eligible; the rate itself is fixed platform-wide at 10% so you're never negotiating terms deal by deal. See Growing your firm.
Can I do my own marketing?
Yes, entirely. You can also connect your firm's X and Telegram to automate real, triggered updates and scheduled messages using your own templates, but nothing is required, and nothing posts without your setup.
Does the protocol help bring me traders, or is that entirely on me?
The protocol gives you tools, competitive guided pricing, an affiliate mechanism, marketing automation, a public that rewards firms that actually perform. It doesn't send you traders directly; growth still comes from running a firm worth choosing.
Can I operate more than one firm?
Nothing in the protocol limits a single operator to one firm. Each deployment is independent, its own treasury, its own token, its own launch fee.
Running long-term
Can I close my firm and withdraw the treasury?
Not on your own initiative. A solvent firm runs indefinitely by design; the only path to closing is automatic bankruptcy, and even then every trader is paid in full before anything returns, to the shared pool, not to you. See Operator risk & lifecycle.
What if I just stop actively selling evaluations?
Nothing forces continuous activity. A quiet firm isn't penalized and isn't a path toward bankruptcy, it simply stops generating new revenue until you resume.
What happens to my treasury and vested tokens if I step back from actively managing the firm?
Anything already vested is permanently yours regardless of your activity level. The firm itself keeps running on the shared engine either way, it doesn't depend on your day-to-day attention to stay operational.