How it works
The reward model, in full
1 · Where the money comes from
Pump creator fees, split on-chain
When a coin is launched through CLIPPING, the launching wallet becomes its creator and Pump's own fee-sharing configuration is set to two shareholders: the creator, and the campaign treasury. The creator picks the percentages in basis points (1% to 100% to the campaign). The same transaction that sets them revokes the right to edit them, so the split is fixed for the life of the coin and enforced by Pump's programs, not by our database.
Pump pays shareholders when someone runs its fee distribution. Anyone may run it. For coins traded with Pump's newer instructions, fees first wait on the bonding curve until they are swept, and the distribution includes that sweep. The treasury is paid directly, and a campaign's balance only changes once that transaction is finalized on Solana and read back from the chain.
Anyone may also deposit SOL into a campaign directly. Deposits carry a memo naming the campaign, are counted the same way, and are returned to the creator if unused when the campaign ends.
- Fees accrued
- Waiting in Pump's vaults, not yet distributed. Shown as an estimate of the campaign's share.
- Fees distributed
- Paid to the campaign treasury by a finalized distribution transaction.
- Deposited
- SOL sent straight to the campaign with its memo.
- Reserved
- Owed to clippers by periods that have been finalized, not yet paid.
- Paid
- Sent in payout transactions that finalized on-chain and matched exactly.
2 · Reward periods
Fixed periods, explicit cutoffs
- 1
Period opens
Clips that entered the campaign earn views from their baseline.
- 2
Period ends
Funding cutoff and view-measurement cutoff are the same instant.
- 3
Measurement window
The first view count taken at or after the cutoff is the closing count, accepted until the window closes.
- 4
Review window
Reviewers resolve flagged clips and appeals. Nothing is paid yet.
- 5
Finalization
An administrator freezes the period. From now rewards are owed, not estimated.
- 6
Payout
The treasury wallet's owner signs SOL transfers after seeing recipients, amounts and cost.
Funding cutoff. Verified funding received up to the end of a period is that period's pool. Funding that arrives later belongs to the next period. Only money that actually arrived counts; future creator fees are never assumed.
View measurement. Eligible views for a period are the closing count minus the starting count. The starting count is the baseline (when the post entered), or the counted closing count of the previous period, so periods tile exactly: no view is counted twice and none is lost. If a closing measurement is missing, or a clip is held for review, its views simply carry into the next period in which it is counted.
Finalization. After the review window, an administrator finalizes the period. This is a single locked database transaction: concurrent finalizations are impossible, a period cannot be finalized before the previous one, and the result is immutable afterwards. Finalizing early requires a written reason and is flagged in the audit log.
3 · The formula
Proportional, in whole lamports
Rounding. Everything is integer lamports; no floating point touches money. Each share is rounded down, so a few lamports of dust are left. They are never paid out and never lost: they roll into the next period.
Zero views. If nobody has eligible views, nothing is paid and the whole pool rolls forward.
Caps and redistribution. A campaign can cap how many views one clip may contribute per period, and how much of a pool one clipper may receive. When someone hits the cap, their excess is shared proportionally among everyone below it, repeating until stable. If every clipper is capped, the remainder rolls forward.
Unused budget. After the final period, anything unallocated, including fees that keep arriving, is returned to the creator by an authorised refund. It is never silently kept.
Minimum payout. A Solana account cannot receive less than its rent-exempt minimum in one transfer, so a clipper's owed rewards wait until their total reaches it.
Worked example
Example onlyThese numbers are invented to show the formula. They are not platform statistics, forecasts or promises.
Reward pool for the period
2 SOL
10 SOL fees × 20% = 2 SOL, and only what actually arrives counts.
- Clipper A0.8 SOL capped
66.7% of views → 40.0% of the pool
- Clipper B0.8 SOL capped
25.0% of views → 40.0% of the pool
- Clipper C0.4 SOL
8.3% of views → 20.0% of the pool
Left over (rounding, caps, or no views): 0 SOL rolls into the next period. Estimates stay estimates until a period is finalized.
4 · Verification
Counts are evidence, not proof
What is checked
- The post belongs to the clipper's verified account (platform API, or a reviewer).
- Each post can enter one campaign once; duplicate links are caught however they are written.
- A baseline view count is stored with its timestamp when the post enters.
- Required length, disclosure text and tags; per-account clip limits.
- Every clip is approved by a person. Rejected clips can be appealed once.
What is flagged
- A sudden jump far above a clip's own pace, or an extreme single jump.
- Views that fall (the platform removed some).
- Very low engagement on large view counts.
- A post that disappears or changes owner.
A flagged clip is held out of payouts until a reviewer clears or removes it. These are prompts for a human, not bot detection; some manufactured views will be missed and some real surges will be flagged. Both are why a review window exists.
Where an official API exists, we use it. YouTube views and ownership come from Google's API; TikTok's API only returns videos owned by the connected account. Instagram and X do not offer a free, suitable route for view metrics, so those accounts and counts are checked by reviewers using evidence, and are labelled that way everywhere.
5 · Who controls what
Authority, stated plainly
| Who | Can |
|---|---|
| Coin creator | Chooses the allocation at launch. Cannot change it afterwards. Receives their share of fees directly from Pump, and gets unused campaign funds back when the campaign ends. |
| Anyone | Can trigger Pump's fee distribution, deposit SOL into a campaign, and read every record. Distribution pays shareholders directly; it needs no permission. |
| Reviewers | Approve or reject campaigns, clips, accounts and appeals; clear or confirm flags; enter evidence-based view counts. They can never finalize periods or move money. |
| Administrators | Finalize periods, prepare payouts, attribute unlabelled funding, pause the system. Every action is attributed and written to an append-only audit log. |
| Treasury wallet owner | Signs payout transactions. Holds the key for the treasury wallet, which is a normal single-signer wallet, not an autonomous escrow. |
The treasury is a wallet, not an escrow program. Whoever holds its key can move its funds. CLIPPING never holds that key: payouts are built by the server, decoded and shown in full, signed in the owner's own wallet, and only marked paid when the finalized on-chain transaction matches exactly. An autonomous escrow would need a custom Solana program, which this version does not include.
Tracking links count visits only. They are not signups, buyers or purchases and are never reported as such. No Pump.fun referral attribution is used: Pump's public documentation and SDK describe no referral mechanism, and paid promotion alongside any referral program should be checked against that program's current terms first.
6 · Limits
What we do not promise
- FeesCreator fees depend on trading and can be zero. A campaign may never be funded.
- LockedThe allocation cannot be changed after launch, by anyone.
- SOLPayouts are in SOL. Any dollar figure anywhere is an estimate, never a promise of dollars.
- ViewsView counts can be inflated; review reduces but cannot eliminate that risk.
- PlatformsPlatforms can change or withdraw their APIs and rules at any time.