# DAO protocol fees

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 Older documentation that suggested the DAO cut applied only to performance and management fees is out of date — the contracts split every fee the same way.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](/manage/fees-performance.md).

## 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](/governance-and-token/meta-proposals.md). 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](/treasury-and-protocol-economics/overview.md) and [Holdings](/treasury-and-protocol-economics/holdings.md) for the current picture, and the [Analytics page](https://chamberfi.com/analytics?analyticsType=treasury) for live figures.


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