Referral fees of 10% paid to referrers in ETH / AVAX
Bonus referral fees of 10% paid to referrers in GMX up to a cap of 5000 GMX, if the cap is exceeded it will be split proportionally to recipients
If fees from referrals are ~$2,500,000 for a week, that would be $250,000 worth of GMX, or about 5000 GMX per week
If the program is working well we can propose to raise the GMX cap, the cap is just there for a start as we evaluate the program
The bonus referral fees in GMX will be for the first three months of the program and re-evaluated after
Rebate of 5% of fees paid to traders in ETH / AVAX if they use a referral code
Referral fees and rebates will be on the trading fees for opening and closing positions only, swap or borrowing fees will not be included for the rebates
No tiers to keep things simpler for a start
The program will last for 6 months and re-evaluated after
To keep the program open while preventing gaming by traders referring themselves, the following format could be implemented:
Anyone can create a referral code, but this code will begin in a provisional state
In a provisional state, rebates for traders using the referral code will be 2.5% instead of 5% and no referral fees will be paid to the referrer
Anyone can submit a form to activate their code by providing information of how they can publicise the platform and their referral code, if they have a reach of more than 100 potential users, their code will be activated
Alternatively, if at least 10 users use a referrer’s referral code and the total volume of those users over 1 week is more than $100k, then the referrer can submit a form providing information of how they publicised their referral code, the information will be checked and the code will be activated after
After a code is activated, the rewards will be updated to 5% of rebate for traders and 10% fees + 10% GMX bonus for the referrer, this will apply for future traders and will not be applied retroactively
Referral process:
There will be a page where a user can register their referrer, this will require signing a transaction using their wallet
All referrals and volume tracking will be done through on-chain data using The Graph
In addition to this referral program for leverage trading, we would also like to propose a swap rebate of 5% of fees for swaps done through integrations such as Yield Yak, UniDex and DODO, this will be distributed to an address specified by the respective projects. As a reference, around $40 million of swaps were done through Yield Yak over the past 7 days, considering swaps have an average of 0.25% fees, that would be $100,000 and 5% of that would be $5000 distributed to Yield Yak for the week.
Fantastic way to set up the program! Thank you and team!
Perhaps when users enter ref codes we could gather one or two more drop down pieces of data to verify the aource/ origin of referrals on the user side which should align with any future applicants for the verified level program.
Incentives for swap / routing partner platforms are a must and in was hoping this would be brought up. It’s important we incentivize platforms to integrate gmx which benefits everyone mutually. I would be careful to set those incentives too high since that will be hard to unwind or reduce moving forward. I am sure you’ve considered this in setting the level considering that the routing doesn’t necessarily cost the partner platform much, but mainly benefits it and it’s users. I am not saying this is the case with YY and other existing partners, but we may want to avoid too much pay-to-play in forming partnerships because that would not be organic and somewhat contrary to the principles many of us in crypto for the right reason may agree with.
The structure is well-thought-out and balanced.
-20% for the referrer & 5% for the referred is comparable to other competitors and will attract more users
-10% in ETH/AVAX & 10% in GMX (with a limit) looks great to avoid excessive pressure on price but be attractive to prospects
-5% swap rebates going to aggregators gives them a clear incentive to integrate GMX fast & align efforts in the partnership
I wouldnt change even a comma here
Referral process:
These measures will prevent without a doubt at least 95% of the gamification that could be done on the platform, and in that sense I like them as traders referring themselves will cost the platform about 25% of the profit.
Having said that, I think there could be some issues damaging the GMX UX & narrative:
Its quite a centralised process and might not be seen with good eyes by some of the current/potential users (specially the need to doxx wallet)
Small players could end up not being rewarded due to the limits
Possible solution:
Not requiring any proof to validate upfront but cross checking logs with monthly/bi-monthly frequency and banning the referrals of the accounts with malicious behaviour till proof is provided
All in all, I believe the program will be a huge growth lever for GMX and the structure is great, but I am a little worried about the impact the current process could have, so probably I would opt for a more comfy set up
Not requiring any proof to validate upfront but cross checking logs with monthly/bi-monthly frequency and banning the referrals of the accounts with malicious behaviour till proof is provided
This is true as well, I think the issue with allowing it first then banning later would be that it might be difficult to prevent gaming of it, e.g. banned accounts just create new accounts and repeat the process until banned.
If the referral program extends for the long term, perhaps we could have the vetting team be nominated by the GMX DAO, so the process could be decentralised in that way.
For a start, we could evaluate the process as things play out and adjust the rules to become a referrer if needed.
2017 when BitMEX launched, when there was no competition they offered 10%, with bigger whales (me for example) 20% + bonuses.
Then ByBit and FTX and Binance came, with ByBit most actively finding referrals, that’s why ByBit succeeded otherwise an underdog (to ftx and binance capital or Binance’s userbase).
ByBit offers 35% + bonuses.
I think it’s a joke to start with 10% and expect wonders.
Why not reduce the greed factor and offer 50% for the first 6 months and after 20%?
We are gathering some feedback from potential referrers and finalizing the discounts, rebates and volume thresholds, will post an update here this week
On the implementation side, it should be ready close to the end of next week
Based on feedback from referrers and users, we propose to have the following structure for the program:
Tiers
Tier 1: 5% discount, 5% rebates to referrers
Tier 2: 12% discount, 10% rebates to referrers
Tier 3: 12% discount, 15% rebates to referrers paid in ETH / AVAX, 5% to referrers paid in esGMX, the esGMX will not have any requirements for vesting, it can just be deposited into the vesting vault to be converted into GMX over 365 days
Rebates and discounts apply for the 0.1% opening and closing fees for longing and shorting.
If the trade was on Arbitrum then the rewards will be in ETH, if on Avalanche then the rewards would be in AVAX.
The reasoning for the percentages is to encourage users to use the referrer’s code if that is how they know of the platform instead of self-referring.
240,000 esGMX will be reserved for this program to be applied for the first 12 months of the program’s launch. Assuming a price of ~$30 per GMX this is worth ~$7.2 million.
This also means that there will be a cap of 5000 esGMX distributed per week.
Assuming a price of ~$30 the full 5% can be paid for total Tier 2 referral volumes up to $3 billion per week.
The price of GMX will be based on the 7 day TWAP.
Rebates comparison
For every $1 million in volume traded, referrers will receive
Tier 1: $50 in ETH / AVAX
Tier 2: $120 in ETH / AVAX
Tier 3: $150 in ETH / AVAX, $50 in GMX
The rewards / volume ratio should be comparable to CEXes and other referral programs.
Access
Tier 1: anyone can create this code
Tier 2: at least 15 unique users and referred weekly volumes above $5 million
Tier 3: at least 30 unique users and referred weekly volumes above $25 million
For Tier 2 and Tier 3, referrers would need to fill in a form with information of how they brought in their users.
If a referrer is in a higher tier and referred volumes are below the tier amount for 4 continuous weeks then the referrer’s tier may be changed.
Is the code a referral link, or how does this work?
Filling in the forms, don’t you mean Tier 2 and Tier 3? Do you really don’t think a lot of people will not be doing this because they have to constantly fill in forms? I do understand that we don’t want to game the system, but aren’t there easier ways?
Most of the form applications will be ‘I posted on Twitter’ anyway, no way you can completely check all of it.
In addition to the program structure, we could also explicitly specify that wallets or other protocols are valid to qualify for higher tiers.
One concern pointed out by coinflipcanada is that if the discount is 12% for higher tiers, then we may unnecessarily incentivise users to search for a referral code to get the extra discount even if they did not start using the site because of any referrer.
To avoid this, I think the discount should be 10% for Tier 2 and Tier 3.
Based on conversations with some potential referrers we may also need the option to offer trial periods where a referrer who is likely able to bring in users is given a higher Tier for a month to start.
I have no complaints about the referral program. But I think we need to add new tokens to GLP before referrals goes live. Because the maximum flow of new users will be in the beginning of program and if they will be disappointed with the abundance of trade choices, they may not return to platform later.
the terms and conditions stipulate a restriction on using referral codes in paid marketing campaigns, but those looking at utilizing them on banner ads etc on their own platforms can contact @gmxpartners on telegram and these can be evaluated.
Hi @xdev_10 have been impressed with the GMX referral program - very well done. Having been live now for almost a year what have been the most salient learnings either positive or negative about the program?