Skip to main content
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 rewards 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 →

​
Two Ways to Receive Referral Rewards

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

​
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 tier.
  • Tier. Bronze, Silver or Gold, set by your new-user volume. Not to be confused with L1 and L2, which describe how a referral reached you.

​
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 Decibel address: connect at app.decibel.trade and copy the address shown as Primary in the header. Also include 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 receive rewards 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.

​
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.

​
Choosing Your Rewards Mode: Points or Rewards

Every affiliate starts in Points mode. You may switch once, to Rewards.
The switch to Rewards 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 is active at a time. Figures shown for periods before you elected Rewards are historical estimates of potential rewards, not amounts owed to you.

​
Rewards Mode

​
What Rewards Are Calculated On

Rewards are an amount equivalent to 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.
  • Third-party fees are excluded. Builder and app fees are separate charges collected by other parties and are never part of the rewards basis.
The traders you refer pay the standard fee schedule, no more and no less for having used a code.

​
Tiers

Your tier 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 L1 and L2 is usually much larger.
A tier is a rolling window, not a rung you reach once and keep. A wallet stops counting as new when its first trade falls outside the window, so a tier can go down as well as up. Each day’s rewards use that day’s tier, and moving up or down never recalculates days already accrued. Tier requirements are subject to change at Decibel’s discretion.

​
Two Referral Levels

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

​
How and When Rewards Are Paid

1

Accrued daily

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

Finalised weekly

A payout week runs Monday to Sunday UTC. Once the week closes, it is reviewed and finalised in the days that follow, and that decides the week’s payout.
3

Allocated and claimed

Amounts that pass review 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 shows what has accrued; the chain decides what you can take.

​
Points Mode

Points-mode affiliates receive 15% of the trading Amps their direct referrals earn, plus a 5% override on L2 referrals. Standard referrers who are not affiliates receive 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.

​
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 rewards before they are calculated.
  • Lifetime. Your referrals keep generating rewards for you for as long as they trade. Only the rate moves, with your tier.
  • 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.

​
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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
Breaking any of these is grounds for removal from the program and forfeiture of unpaid rewards.

​
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.

​
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.

​
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 rewards basis and their volume is removed from your new-user volume for the days they are flagged, which can also lower your tier. Legitimate wallets further down the chain are unaffected.
  • A flagged affiliate is not paid for the affected period. The week shows Withheld while a review is open, and Forfeited if the finding stands. Forfeited rewards are 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.

​
Disclaimers

By joining the Affiliate Program you are subject to Decibel’s Terms of Service (“Terms”), which are incorporated herein. These Affiliate Program Rules constitute Supplemental Terms under the Decibel Terms of Service and become binding on you upon your application to, or use of, the Affiliate Program. In the event of any conflict between these Affiliate Program Rules and the Terms of Service, these Affiliate Program Rules control.As detailed in the Terms, we reserve the right to disqualify any Affiliate 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.
  • Rewards basis. Rewards are calculated using Decibel’s trading fees only. Builder fees, app fees, and any other fees are separate third-party charges and are never part of the calculation of rewards.
  • Rates and tiers. The rates and tiers published here are the ones in effect today and may change prospectively at any time. Changes are never retroactive: days already accrued keep the rates that were stamped on them at the time.
  • Figures are estimates. Amounts shown in the Affiliate portal are accruals and estimates until they are swept, including any historical figures shown for a mode you were not in at the time.
  • For eligibility, taxes, your relationship with Referred Users, and other terms governing the Affiliate Program, see Section 1.9 of the Terms.
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.