Canonical pools
A launch's canonical pool is the GAMA DEX pool it graduates into: the pool that holds its locked liquidity and carries all of its launchpad trades after graduation. The app calls it the token's official GAMA pool. This page explains how the pool is protected before graduation and what every trade in it pays.
One pool per launch
The pool is fixed when the launch is created: the launch token, its pair token, no LP fee, and GAMA's launch hook, the contract that charges the launch's fees. Like every GAMA DEX pool it is known by the pool manager and a pool ID. A graduated token's page lists both under Token information, then Contracts and locked position.
Swaps of a launch token in the app always go through its canonical pool, even when you are viewing a different pool for the same pair. In the Pools view its Type is GAMA launch.
Before graduation
Until a launch graduates, its pool cannot be used:
- Nobody can set the pool's opening price. Only graduation can, at the curve's last price.
- Nobody can add liquidity to it. The first position is reserved for graduation.
- The launch token refuses to go into any GAMA DEX pool, its own or any other, until graduation opens it. So no pool on GAMA DEX holds the token before then, and nobody can trade it there to avoid the curve's fees and buy limits. Someone can create an empty pool for the token, or put only the pair token into one, but nothing can be bought from or sold into it.
If graduation's second step fails and waits for a retry, the token stays closed to pools until it succeeds. Pools on other DEXes outside GAMA cannot be restricted this way.
After graduation
The pool is open to everyone. Anyone can swap in it, through the app or any other route, and anyone can add their own liquidity, which stays theirs. Pool trades have no buy limits.
Fees on every trade
A canonical pool charges no LP fee. Every swap pays the launch's own two fees instead, always in the pair token:
| Launch mode | First fee | Second fee |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | Trading fee, 1%: 70% to the creator, 30% to GAMA | Creator tax, 0% to 9%, to the creator |
| Reward | Platform fee, 1%, to GAMA | Holder fee, 1% to 4%, shared by holders |
Both rates are copied into the launch when it is created and never change, even if its liquidity later moves to another venue. Each fee is capped at 10%, so together they are at most 20%. A reward-mode launch charges the same two fees on its curve, so its fees do not change at graduation.
The pool's Fee breakdown shows them as Trading fee and Creator tax or Holder rewards, with Total per trade. The fees go to the fee escrow in the same transaction; see Fee escrow and payouts.
Two kinds of trade pay no launch fee: GAMA's own buyback rounds, and swaps whose direct caller the protocol owner has exempted from fees. A wallet that trades through the app's routers or an order book still pays. See Administration and trust.
DEX protocol fee
Uniswap V4 also has an optional protocol fee on each swap. On GAMA DEX it is 0% on every new pool. The protocol owner can switch it on for a pool, up to 0.1% of each swap; the token page warns that it can change. What it collects is protocol revenue.
No trading fees for liquidity
Because the pool has no LP fee, neither the locked position nor anyone else's position in it earns trading fees. Everything a trade pays goes to the creator, the holders and GAMA as described above. See Locked liquidity.
A price average for orders
Each canonical pool keeps a three-minute price average, updated by the first swap of each block from the price before that swap. It starts at the pool's opening price at graduation. Market orders are checked against it, so a price pushed in a single block cannot fill them. Ordinary swaps do not use it. See How orders fill.