Understanding fees

Bullish does not charge fees for opening an account.

Different fees may apply depending on whether your order immediately matches against an existing order (is a “taker”), is matched later (is a “maker”), or some combination of both. When an order is placed, potential taker fees are pre-locked even if an order cannot be a taker. If you do not have a sufficient balance this can also cause an auto-borrow of the fee currency. However, at order execution, we only charge fees on the filled amount. Fees locked up for the unfilled amount (partial or full) will be released if the order is canceled or expires.

Maker fees are charged on the amount filled when your limit order is matched later with a subsequent taker order.

Taker fees are charged on the amount filled when you send a market order or when you send a limit order that immediately matches against another market participant’s previously sent limit order.

Taker fees are not applied when trading stablecoins for cash (e.g. USD, EUR) or vice-versa.

A single OTC trade can be composed of up to 25 legs. Multi-leg trades may benefit from a fee discount, described below.

Step 1: Segregate the OTC Transaction into mini-portfolios of the same underlying
Each mini-portfolio contains all the trades related to a single underlying asset. For example, all trades on Bitcoin options and futures would be grouped into one mini-portfolio, while all trades on Ethereum options and futures would go into another.

Step 2: Calculate the fee for each leg in a mini-portfolio and then total them by side
In each mini-portfolio the the fee for each leg is first calculated using the fee matrix seen later in this article. For options legs, the fee is the lower of the fee rate applied to the option's notional value, or 10% of the option premium. For perpetual and dated futures legs, the fee is the applicable rate applied to the notional value. All buy-side fees and all sell-side fees are then totalled separately, to arrive at two totals.

Step 3: The fee for each mini-portfolio is the more expensive of the two sides
Now you have a total buy fee and total sell fee for each mini-portfolio. You will only be charged for the more expensive side, assuming there is more than one side. The same rule applies if there is a potential fee rebate: you will pay for the more expensive side, or receive the lowest rebate.

Finally, the total fee of an OTC transaction is the sum of the fees of the individual mini-portfolios.

The example below shows a client buying a call option at a lower strike, selling a call option at a higher strike, and shorting a perpetual — all on BTC, executed as a single OTC trade. All legs in this example are executed under the same trading account. OTC fee netting applies at the mini-portfolio level across all legs within a single account.

Role: OTC Taker | OTC Taker Fee: 1.5bps | Option premium fee cap: 10%

The short side is more expensive — so the short side fee $34.425 is charged.

Your trading fee tier determines the trading fees applied to all trading accounts within your onboarded institution and it is determined by criteria explained below. Our goal with these criteria is to ensure all clients are able to easily understand and adhere to the same standards and benefit from a best-in-class trading experience alongside a diverse set of market participants.

The following fees are presented in “maker / taker” format and are quoted in basis points (bps).

Current Stable Markets are: USDT/USD, USDT/USDC and USD/USDC markets.

In these spot markets both assets are a fiat currency or a stablecoin but they have a different underlying currency. Examples are: EUR/USDC, EUR/USD spot markets.

All customers can enjoy a zero taker fee in these markets. Please note that inclusion in this fee tier is usually time-limited. Current Promotional Markets include, but may not be limited to:

• The FIDD/USD, FIDD/USDT, PYUSD/USDC, RLUSD/USDC, USDG/USDC, USD/RLUSD, SCX/USDC, SCX/EUR, SBTC/BTC, SBTC/USDC, STX/USDC, BTC/SOFID, ETH/SOFID, SOL/SOFID, SOFID/USDC, MEZO/MUSD, MEZO/USDT, ANVL/USDT, SLX/USDC, SLX/USDT, BTC/USX, BTC/EUSX, USX/USDC, EUSX/USDC, BONK1M/JITOSOL, ANVL/USDC, JITOSOL/USDT, JITOSOL/USD, PENGU/SOL, MEZO/USDC, MEZO/BTC, MUSD/USDC, BTC/MUSD, VET/VTHO, NIGHT/USDT, VET/USDT, VTHO/USDT, CC/USDT, CC/USD, NIGHT/USDC, FIDD/USDC, BTC/FIDD, CC/USDC, BTC/USDG, BTC/EURC, PENGU/USDC, PENGU/USDT, USDCV/USDC, BTC/USDCV, TRX/USD, BTC/RLUSD, XRP/RLUSD, ETH/RLUSD, BTT1M/USD, JITOSOL/USDC, AUSD/USDC, BTC/AUSD, EURCV/USDC, BTC/EURCV, JITOSOL/SOL, BONK1M/USDC, BONK1M/USDT spot markets.

• Upcoming: USDSUI/USDC, BTC/USDSUI, CT/USDC

Taker fee in these markets is 1 bps across all customers. Current Promotional II markets are: the BTC/PYUSD market.

Customers receive a fee rebate when their maker orders are filled in these markets. All perpetual futures and dated futures markets currently fall under this market category.

Taker orders pay the minimum of the taker fee on the option's notional value and 10% of the premium, while maker orders pay the minimum of the maker fee on the option's value and 10% of the premium.

• Option notional value = # contracts * underlying asset (spot) price in USDC

• Option premium = # contracts * price paid per contract in USDC

Any market not listed above falls into this category.

Standard market covers all spot markets that are not classified as promotional markets or stablecoin markets.

Customers receive a maker rebate when their maker orders are filled in these markets. The maker and taker fees for Token Markets are -1.5 / 2 bps. Current Token Markets include, but may not be limited to:

AAVE/AUSD, AAVE/USD, AAVE/USDC, APE/USDC, AVAX/AUSD, AVAX/USDC, BCH/USDC, CHZ/USDC, CHZ/USDT, CRV/USD, CRV/USDC, DOGE/USD, DOGE/USDC, DOT/USDC, ENS/USDC, ETC/USDC, GALA/USDC, GRT/USDC, ICP/USDC, LINK/BTC, LINK/USD, LINK/USDC, LINK/USDT, LRC/USDC, LRC/USDT, LTC/BTC, LTC/USDC, MANA/USD, MANA/USDC, NEAR/AUSD, NEAR/USDC, PEPE1M/USDC, POL/USDC, SAND/USDC, SHIB1M/USDC, SUI/USDC, SUSHI/USD, SUSHI/USDC, GRAM/USDC, UNI/AUSD, UNI/USD, UNI/USDC, WIF/USDC, XAUT/USDC.

Other Calculations

The Same Direction Score is the percentage of your taker trade volume that was immediately followed by another market participant trading in the same direction. For example, if your total taker volume is 100 and 50 of that volume was followed by another participant trading in the same direction, your SDS is 50%. The SDS score only applies to standard markets.

Standard SDS
The SDS is calculated using the prior 45 days' trading data (a fixed 45 calendar day lookback window).

Volume-Based SDS
The SDS is calculated using active trading days over the prior 12 months to determine your ADV, with the lookback window set to 45 × ADV days, in place of the standard fixed 45 calendar day window.

Taker Fees for Standard markets
Customer taker fees are recalculated monthly, immediately after the last Friday of each month, with updates applied the following Wednesday (typically between 04:00 and 08:00 UTC). Please note that taker fees are also monitored daily and may be adjusted at any time outside of this regular monthly schedule.

Clients subject to the Individual fee schedule are charged a flat taker fee of 0.5 bps.

Clients subject to the Institutional fee schedule are assessed using one of two SDS formulas depending on their trading volume. Institutional clients with an Average Daily Taker Volume (ADTV) above 0.01% of the Exchange's ADTV over the fixed 45-day lookback window are subject to the Standard SDS formula; all other institutional clients are assessed using Volume-Based SDS.

You can use this formula to calculate the specific fee we will apply when your SDS is above 50%. The SDS used in the formula is your Standard SDS or Volume-Based SDS, depending on which applies to you (see above):

taker fee = min(2.5, 0.5 + floor((SDS - 50%) / (80% - 50%) * 2.0 * 10) / 10)

The taker fee increases in steps with SDS, capping at 2.5 bps once SDS is at or above 80%. Please reach out to your relationship manager for more information.

1. Each market supported on the exchange is assigned a “feeGroupId” which is available using the getMarkets and getMarket by symbol endpoints.

2. Get your maker and taker fees as part of the “tradeFeeRate” from the getTradingAccountDetails endpoint.

As detailed in Understanding interest charges, interest payment will be charged to borrower hourly from the moment of opening the loan. Interest Rate charge is calculated using the following formula.

Borrower Interest Charge = ((1 + APR)^(1/365 x 24) - 1) x Borrow x (1 + Multiplier x Taker Fee)

No fees are charged to submit or terminate AMM Instructions.

As detailed in Understanding Automated Market Making Instructions, on every fill made by a taker against an AMM Instruction, Bullish collects earnings consisting of the taker fees paid against one or more AMM Instructions and the spread income generated by those AMM Instructions.

Bullish’s AMM fees for all supported spot and perpetual markets are broadly categorized into three tiers as specified below:

1. 75:25 i.e the exchange retains 25% of the Gross AMM Payments.

2. 90:10 i.e the exchange retains 10% of the Gross AMM Payments.

3. 100:0 i.e the exchange does not retain any amount.

Please contact your Relationship Manager for market specific fees.

Any order sent by the automated liquidation engine will incur an additional fee of 50bps (0.5%) for any fills that arise from use of the engine.

No fees are charged for positions in derivative contracts that expire, such as options and dated futures.

Ordinarily settlement does not incur any fees, other than potentially the interest on the amount borrowed to fulfil your obligations if you have an unsettled loss and do not have sufficient funds to pay it from your available balance.

If you have an unsettled loss, insufficient funds to pay that loss and in addition you are unable to borrow those funds to make immediate settlement – for instance, because you are already above IM% = 100% – then you have no way to immediately meet your settlement obligations and you will be charged a Delayed Settlement Fee. This is charged as an APR, converted to an hourly charge using the compounding formula.

If the asset has an active loan market:

Delayed Settlement APR = 2 x Margin Borrowing Rate

Otherwise:

Delayed Settlement APR = 50%

As mentioned above, this APR is converted to an hourly charge and added to your unsettled loss

Delayed Settlement Fee = (Unpaid loss) x (power(1 + Delayed Settlement APR, 1 / (365 * 24)) - 1)

Unsettled Loss = Unsettled Loss + Delayed Settlement Fee

For example if you had an unsettled loss of 1,000 USDC and the current borrowing rate of USDC was an APR of 20%, then you would be charged a Delayed Settlement Fee of 0.0384 USDC = 1000 x (power(1.4, 1 / 8760) - 1).

Deposit and withdrawal fees are detailed below.

Your bank may also charge additional fees. For these additional fees, please contact your bank for more information.

To view the records of charged fees:

1. Go to the left-hand navigation and choose History.

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2. Choose Trading.

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3. Choose Fills.

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4. View the Fees column.

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To check your paid trade fee history:

1. Go to the left-hand navigation and choose History.

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2. Choose Trading.

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3. Choose Fills.

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4. View the Fees column.

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You can also filter your search results by:

• Market (e.g. BTC/USDC, ETH/USDC).

• Side (Buy or Sell).