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Every trader on Decibel can refer others. The Affiliate Program is the tier above that: approved affiliates get a dedicated portal, higher reward rates, a second level of earnings on their sub-affiliate referrals, and the option to receive USDC instead of Amps.
By joining the Affiliate Program you are subject to Decibel’s Terms of Service, which are incorporated herein. Please review the Terms carefully before participating.
Already approved? Your portal is at app.decibel.trade/affiliates →

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Two Ways to Earn From Referrals

Everything on this page is about the Affiliate Program. For the standard referrer path, see the Referral Program.

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Terms Used on This Page

  • Direct referral (L1). A trader who signed up with your referral code.
  • Sub-affiliate. One of your direct referrals who goes on to refer traders of their own.
  • Sub-affiliate referral (L2). A trader referred by one of your direct referrals.
  • New-user volume. Trading volume from wallets that redeemed your code directly and traded on Decibel for the first time in the last 30 days. This is what sets your level.

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Applying to Become an Affiliate

There is no self-serve application form. Affiliate status is granted by the Decibel team after review, at its discretion.
1

Join the official Decibel Discord

discord.gg/decibel is the only place applications are taken.
2

Open an application ticket

Go to the #affiliate-applications channel and tap Become a Decibel Affiliate to open a ticket. Include your wallet address (the owner address you trade with), where your audience is and roughly how large it is, the languages and regions you cover, and how you intend to grow your referral network.
3

Wait for a decision

A moderator or a member of the team reviews the application and replies in your ticket. If approved, an affiliate code is provisioned to your wallet and the portal unlocks the next time you connect.
Applications are assessed on whether you can bring trading activity: real people who choose to trade, reached through audiences and communities you genuinely have. Sign-up counts alone do not qualify an application, and networks built from wallets you fund or control are not eligible. Decibel may request further information to verify eligibility before or after approval.
While your application is open you still earn as a standard referrer, and anyone who signs up with your existing code stays attributed to you.
Security: Decibel will never ask for your seed phrase, private key, or a payment in exchange for affiliate status. Applications are only ever taken through a ticket in the official Discord with official mods or team members.

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The Affiliate Portal

Once approved, connect your wallet at app.decibel.trade/affiliates and enable trading once so the portal can create the signed session that unlocks your private data. Where available, private labels you add to a referral are stored in your own browser only. They are never shared with the referred trader and never written on-chain.

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Choosing How You Earn: Points or Commission

Every affiliate starts in Points mode. You may switch once, to Commission.
The switch to Commission is permanent. It is a one-time election: once recorded it cannot be undone, and referral Points will not be available to you again. It takes effect the next day (00:00 UTC), and your referral Amps stop at that moment. Amps from your own trading are never affected by this choice.
Only one mode earns at a time. Figures shown for periods before you elected Commission are historical estimated potential earnings, not amounts owed to you.

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Commission Mode

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What Commission Is Calculated On

Commission is a share of Decibel’s own trading fees, generated by the wallets in your referral network.
  • Both sides count. Maker and taker fills both contribute; maker rebates reduce the basis for that fill.
  • Third-party fees are excluded. Builder and app fees are separate charges collected by other parties and are never part of the commission basis.
“Commission” here means a share of Decibel’s trading fee revenue. The traders you refer pay the standard fee schedule, no more and no less for having used a code.

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Levels

Your level comes from new-user volume: the trading volume of wallets that redeemed your code directly and traded on Decibel for the first time within the last 30 days. New-user volume is a subset of your referred volume: direct referrals only, wallets new to Decibel only, last 30 days only. Your all-time referred volume across both levels is usually much larger.
A level is a rolling window, not a rung you climb once. A wallet stops counting as new when its first trade falls outside the window, so a level can go down as well as up. Each day’s earnings use that day’s level, and moving up or down never recalculates days already accrued. Level requirements are subject to change at Decibel’s discretion.

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Two Levels

  • Direct referrals (L1). Wallets that signed up with your code.
  • L2 referrals. Wallets referred by one of your direct referrals. You earn the override on their fees whether or not that direct referral is an affiliate themselves.
Overrides are additive on top of your direct commission. Building a second level never reduces your L1 share. The chain is exactly two levels deep.

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How and When You Get Paid

1

Accrued daily

Each UTC day, one immutable record is written per affiliate with that day’s level, rates, and basis stamped onto it. Later changes never restate a past day.
2

Swept weekly

A payout week runs Monday to Sunday UTC. Once the week closes, the sweep runs on the following Wednesday and decides that week’s payout.
3

Allocated and claimed

Amounts that pass the sweep are allocated on-chain in USDC and claimed by you from the /rewards page. Claim windows apply — an allocation left unclaimed past its window expires.
A week is paid in full or not at all. A week that accrues less than the $1.00 minimum is forfeited; amounts never carry over into the next week. Accrued is not the same as claimable. The portal answers what you have earned; the chain answers what you can take.

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Points Mode

Points-mode affiliates earn 15% of the trading Amps their direct referrals earn, plus a 5% override on L2 referrals. Standard referrers who are not affiliates earn 10%. Referral Amps are drawn from a dedicated daily emission pool and do not reduce the Amps earned by the traders you refer. They are provisional during the season.

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How Attribution Works

  • One code, once. A new user enters a referral code when they first connect their wallet. Each account can redeem one code, ever, and the first code bound stays.
  • Permanent. Once bound, the link between referrer and referred trader does not change.
  • Not retroactive. An account that has already deposited or traded can no longer bind a code.
  • No self-referral. You cannot redeem your own code. Self-redemptions and referral loops are excluded from your referral counts and removed from commission before it is calculated.
  • Lifetime. Your referrals keep earning for you for as long as they trade. Only the rate moves, with your level.
  • Multiple codes. Affiliates can hold more than one code, which is useful for splitting by brand, campaign, or region. Each code has a maximum number of sign-ups set when it is issued. When a code reaches that limit it stops accepting new sign-ups; traders already attributed to it are unaffected. Ask in your Discord ticket if you need another code or a higher limit.
  • Market links. Referral links (app.decibel.trade/r/CODE) can point at a specific market. Attribution follows the code either way.

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Your Responsibilities as an Affiliate

Affiliates promote Decibel on their own behalf, in their own name. When you refer traders you agree to the following.
  • Disclose the relationship. Make it clear in your posts, videos, streams, and messages that you receive rewards when people sign up with your code.
  • No advice, no managing funds. Do not give trading or investment advice, place orders for anyone else, take custody of anyone’s funds, or offer managed trading in connection with your referrals.
  • No promises. Do not guarantee profits, quote expected returns, or present trading on Decibel as low-risk or risk-free. Do not describe affiliate rewards as guaranteed income.
  • Do not speak for Decibel. You may not represent yourself as an employee, agent, or spokesperson of Decibel, make commitments on its behalf, or imply that Decibel endorses your trading, your signals, or any third-party product.
  • Respect eligibility. Do not solicit traders in restricted jurisdictions, do not target sanctioned persons or entities, and do not help anyone circumvent access controls.
  • Follow the law and the platforms you use. You are responsible for complying with the advertising, financial-promotion, and disclosure rules that apply to you and to the channels you post on.
Breaking any of these is grounds for removal from the program and forfeiture of unpaid rewards.

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Program Integrity

Affiliate rewards are paid for introducing real traders to Decibel. Participation is conditional on your referral network being organic, and this is enforced continuously and automatically. An organic network means the wallets attributed to your code belong to independent people who found Decibel through you and trade on their own decisions, with their own funds, for their own reasons. Volume that exists to produce rewards rather than to express a genuine trading decision is not organic, however it is arranged.

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What Is Not Allowed

  • Self-dealing. Referring wallets you own, fund, or control, directly or through an intermediary.
  • Wash trading. Self-matching between wallets, including offsetting or delta-neutral positions between accounts in your network that exist to manufacture volume rather than to take risk.
  • Sybil clusters. Batches of wallets funded and operated together to look like independent traders.
  • Paid farming. Any scheme that pays or instructs people to generate volume purely to farm affiliate rewards.
  • Misrepresentation. Misleading anyone about Decibel, its rewards, or the risks of trading in order to acquire sign-ups.

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What Happens When Activity Is Flagged

Reviews run continuously and flags are applied per wallet.
  • A flagged referral’s activity leaves your numbers. Their fees are removed from your commission basis and their volume is removed from your new-user volume for the days they are flagged, which can also lower your level. Legitimate wallets further down the chain are unaffected.
  • A flagged affiliate is not paid for the affected period. The week shows Forfeited, and forfeited commission is not recoverable.
  • Removal from the program applies at the wallet-owner level and covers every code that wallet holds, from a stated date forward.
If you believe a review has caught you in error, open a ticket in the Discord.

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Disclaimers

By joining the Affiliate Program you are subject to Decibel’s Terms of Service, which are incorporated herein. As detailed in the Terms, we reserve the right to disqualify any participant for any reason in our sole discretion, and to modify, suspend, or cancel the Affiliate Program, its rates, or any part of it at any time without prior notice.
  • No relationship beyond the program. Affiliates act on their own behalf as independent participants. Participation creates no agency, partnership, employment, or joint venture with Decibel and confers no authority to make representations, offers, or commitments on Decibel’s behalf. Traders who use your code are Decibel users, not your customers, and you do not hold, manage, or have any claim to their funds or accounts.
  • No entitlement. Approval, continued participation, rates, and payment are at Decibel’s discretion. Nothing on this page is an offer, and nothing is owed to you until a week has been swept and allocated on-chain.
  • Eligibility. Affiliate eligibility follows the same criteria as the Decibel exchange. Access from restricted jurisdictions, including locations subject to sanctions restrictions, is not permitted.
  • Rates can change. The rates and levels published here are the ones live today. Changes are never retroactive: days already accrued keep the rates that were stamped on them.
  • Commission basis. Commission is calculated on Decibel’s trading fees only. Builder and app fees are separate third-party charges and are never part of the basis.
  • Figures are estimates. Amounts shown in the portal are accruals and estimates until they are swept, including any historical figures shown for a mode you were not in at the time.
  • Taxes. You are responsible for determining and paying any taxes arising from rewards or commission you receive, and for any reporting obligations that apply to you.
  • Risk Warning: DeFi protocols and perpetual trading carry significant risks. Always perform your own research (DYOR). Participation in the Affiliate Program does not guarantee financial gain, and you must not present it as such to the traders you refer.