Fee Model

Vektes can charge a small protocol fee on each transfer, paid in $VEK and split between burn and treasury. Fees are tiered by the sender's monthly transfer volume — not by the size of any individual transfer.

Current status: transfers are free. Every fee tier is set to 0 on-chain today (the protocol launched fee-free). The tier mechanism documented here exists and can be activated later by the owner via updateFeeTier. Until then, previewFee() returns 0 and no $VEK is required to transfer.

Fee Tiers

Tiers are keyed to a sender's cumulative volume over a rolling ~30-day window (monthlyVolume, reset every 30 days). The rate is stored as feeBps in units of 0.001% (so 5 = 0.005%).

The "intended rate" column is the standard schedule (also shown on vektes.com). All four tiers are currently 0 on-chain — the table describes what the owner can activate, not what is charged today.

The tier is chosen by the sender's accumulated monthly volume, including the current transfer. Two identical $50K transfers can fall in different tiers depending on how much the sender has already moved this month.

How Fees Are Calculated

1. The transfer amount is converted to a 6-decimal USD value via the token's Chainlink price feed (_toUsd6).
2. That value is added to the sender's monthly volume, and the tier rate (feeBps) for the resulting volume is selected.
3. Fee in USD = usdValue × feeBps / 100_000 (6-decimal USD).
4. The USD fee is converted to $VEK via the VEK/USD feed.
5. The $VEK fee is pulled from the sender at send time, separately from the transfer amount — the recipient always receives the full transfer amount.

feeUsd6 = usdValue6 × feeBps / 100_000
feeVek  = feeUsd6 → VEK   (via the VEK/USD Chainlink feed)

Example (once tier 1 is active)

Sending 50,000 USDC while in tier 1 (0.005%):

• feeUsd = $50,000 × 0.00005 = $2.50
• If VEK = $0.25 → fee = 10 VEK

Fee Cap (slippage protection)

There is no fixed maximum fee. Instead, the sender can pass a per-transaction cap via the 6-argument overloads:

send(token, to, amount, txCode, settlementDate, maxFeeVek);
sendNative(to, txCode, settlementDate, maxFeeVek);   // payable

If the computed $VEK fee would exceed maxFeeVek, the transaction reverts with FeeExceedsMax(feeVek, maxFeeVek). Pass maxFeeVek = 0 to disable the cap. Quote the value with previewFee(sender, token, amount) and pass it (optionally with a little headroom) as the cap — a moved or manipulated VEK price then can never pull more VEK than the sender approved.

Fee Split

When a fee is charged, it is split immediately on-chain by burnPercentage (currently 50, owner-adjustable 0–100):

Fee Payment Requirements

• Fees apply only above the free tier. While all tiers are 0 (today), no VEK is needed at all.
• When a fee applies, the sender must hold enough $VEK and have approved the protocol to spend it — otherwise the send reverts.
• Every transferred token (and native ETH, and VEK when fees are on) must have a registered Chainlink feed that is not stale, or the send reverts (PriceFeedNotSet / StalePrice / InvalidPrice).

Tip: call previewFee(sender, token, amount) before sending to show the exact fee and to set maxFeeVek.

Previewing Fees

// previewFee(sender, token, amount) — note the sender is required (tiers are per-sender)
const feeInVek = await vektes.previewFee(
  signer.address,
  USDC_ADDRESS,
  ethers.parseUnits("50000", 6) // 50,000 USDC
);
console.log("Fee:", ethers.formatUnits(feeInVek, 18), "VEK"); // "0.0 VEK" while free

// Which tier applies to this sender right now
const [tier, bps] = await vektes.getCurrentTier(signer.address);
console.log(`Tier ${tier}, rate: ${Number(bps) / 1000}%`);

Oracle

The protocol prices tokens (and VEK) in USD via a Chainlink-compatible AggregatorV3Interface. Each feed is registered per token by the owner with setPriceFeed(token, feed, staleThreshold), and each has its own staleness threshold — an answer older than the threshold reverts the transfer (StalePrice). This protects fee calculation from stale or manipulated prices. Feeds and thresholds are owner-managed via the multisig.

Fee Activation

The protocol launched fee-free — all tiers are 0 today. While fees are 0:

• No protocol fee is charged, and no $VEK is required to transact.
• The fee-burn mechanism is dormant — nothing is burned or routed to the treasury, because that only happens when a fee is actually collected.
• $VEK's protocol-fee utility is therefore latent until fees are switched on.

Fees are turned on by the protocol owner (the Gnosis Safe, moving toward on-chain governance) by setting non-zero tiers via updateFeeTier. The standard schedule above (0.005% / 0.01% / 0.02% by monthly volume) can be activated once the protocol has meaningful, sustained settlement usage. There is no fixed date — activation is a governance decision and would be announced in advance.

Activation criteria (to be finalized by governance): the specific trigger — for example a sustained settlement-volume or active-user threshold, or an on-chain governance vote — is still being set and will be published here once decided. Until then, transfers are completely free.

Fee-Free Scenarios

No fee is charged when:

• All tiers are set to 0 (the current launch state), or
• The sender's monthly volume is within the free tier (tier 0), or
• The computed fee rounds to zero.

There is no per-address fee whitelist in the contract. Fee exemptions, if ever offered, would be implemented by the tier schedule / governance — not a whitelistSender function.