Understand fees and price-impact protections
Separate the costs in a quote from the rules that respond to specific trade shapes.
TL;DR
- Trading fees, price impact, slippage and network gas describe different costs or limits.
- Price-impact rules respond to the trade, not to the identity of the trader.
- Use the full quote and the contract-protection reference together.
One quote can contain several numbers that answer different questions. Reading them separately prevents a protocol charge, market movement and execution boundary from being mistaken for the same cost.
Read each quote number for its own job
Trading fee and network gas
The trading fee is a protocol charge taken by the market path. Network gas is separate: it is paid to Base Chain for processing the transaction, not to Orbit or the creator.
Price impact, slippage and minimum received
Price impact estimates how your own order moves the market. Slippage tolerance describes additional movement you accept while the transaction settles. Minimum received is the output floor produced by those quote choices.
Understand the impact fee as trade impact
On the bonding curve, a trade above 10% price impact may pay an additional impact fee that routes to the protocol side. Exactly 10% computes no surcharge; the ramp begins above the threshold.
The impact fee reads trade impact, not whether the address belongs to a person or a bot. Splitting an order can keep individual moves below the threshold, so the rule is a speed bump for one large atomic trade, not an identity check or a cap on patient accumulation.
Keep provenance and TWAP narrow
Same-block token provenance rejects a curve sell when the current holder received those tokens in the same block. Moving the tokens to another wallet does not bypass that stamp. It is not bot detection and it does not impose a longer holding period.
For specific internal buyback paths after graduation, a 30-minute time-weighted average price (TWAP) reference must have sufficiently fresh and complete history. Those paths and the matched graduation transition narrow particular manipulation opportunities; they do not guarantee a fair price or fair market.
A protection is not an outcome guarantee
The market can still be shallow, a patient buyer is not stopped and a quoted trade can move sharply. Review fees and protections alongside liquidity, creator and wallet risk.
Common questions
Does increasing slippage reduce price impact?
No. Slippage changes the settlement boundary you accept; it does not reduce the movement caused by the order. Know what your trade will cost puts those values back into the product quote.
Does the impact fee mean a trade has been identified as a bot trade?
No. It responds to the trade’s price impact and applies without classifying the trader. Understand Orbit’s contract protections explains the precise threshold and limits.
Why might a TWAP-backed internal action refuse to proceed?
The reference can fail closed when history is stale, sparse or incomplete. Waiting for valid observations is safer than substituting one spot price and broadening the protected path.