DAO protocol fees

The 10% protocol cut of vault fees — what it is, what it applies to, and where it goes

Chamber takes a 10% cut of every vault fee. This is the protocol's only source of recurring revenue and the mechanism that funds the treasury, grants, and any future buyback programs.

The rule

When a vault's fees mint new shares, 10% of those newly-minted shares are sent to the Chamber DAO treasury. The manager keeps 90%.

This is enforced by the vault contract itself — it's not a withdrawal, a transfer, or something the manager has to remember to do. It happens at the same moment the fee is minted.

Which fees it applies to

All four:

Fee	DAO cut
Entry fee	10%
Exit fee	10%
Performance fee	10%
Management fee	10%

The cut is identical across all four. Older documentation that suggested the DAO cut applied only to performance and management fees is out of date — the contracts split every fee the same way.

Paid in vault shares

Like all Chamber fees, the DAO's cut is paid as vault shares, not as the vault's underlying asset. The treasury therefore accumulates shares in every fee-earning vault across the protocol. If the DAO wants those shares in stablecoins, it withdraws from the vault like any other holder.

This is intentional: the DAO's exposure tracks the vaults it's hosting. Good vaults appreciate; poorly-performing vaults don't contribute as much.

For the fee-share mechanic in depth, see Manager: fees and performance.

What it doesn't touch

• Depositors — the 10% comes out of the manager's share, not the depositor's. A depositor in a vault with a 20% performance fee pays 20% to the vault; the manager sees 18%, the DAO treasury sees 2%. The depositor's cost is unchanged.

• The underlying assets — fees mint new shares, which dilute all holders slightly. They don't move assets out of the vault.

Governance

The 10% rate is a governance parameter. DHT holders can in principle move it through the meta-proposal process. It has stayed at 10% since launch and isn't expected to change — but the mechanism exists.

Any change would apply going forward only. Existing accrued fees aren't retroactively re-split.

Where it goes

The treasury receives the shares. From there, governance allocates the proceeds across:

• Grants to managers and ecosystem builders

• Operations — audits, infrastructure, oracle subscriptions

• Buybacks (in future)

See Overview and Holdings for the current picture, and the Analytics page for live figures.