If you have ever swapped crypto on a decentralized exchange (DEX), you know that a tiny fraction of your trade usually goes toward a "protocol fee." But have you ever wondered where that money actually goes?
On STON.fi, the answer is completely public, automated, and decided by the community. Thanks to a decentralized governance vote and a live on-chain ledger, STON.fi is setting a new standard for transparency in Web3.
Decided by the Community: The DAO Mandate
In January 2026, the STON.fi community took decentralized governance into their own hands. Through the STON.fi DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization), community members voted on and approved a major proposal.
The mandate directs that up to 50% of collected protocol fees (initially collected in TON and USDT) be automatically used to buy STON and GEMSTON tokens back from the open market. The remaining 50% goes toward funding the platform's ongoing development, operations, and infrastructure.
Instead of these decisions happening behind closed doors, the community literally wrote the rules for how the protocol's revenue is spent.
Step-by-Step: How a Fee Becomes Treasury Power
The conversion process is entirely automated and runs on-chain via smart contracts. Here is how it works:
The Swap: A user makes a trade on STON.fi, and a small protocol fee is automatically collected.
The Accumulation: These fees accumulate in two separate, secure on-chain wallets, one for STON and one for GEMSTON.
The Market Buy: Once a certain fee threshold is reached, the wallets execute an automated swap on the open market, buying STON and GEMSTON at the current market price.
The Treasury: The newly acquired tokens are forwarded directly to a separate STON.fi DAO treasury wallet.
To date, this system has successfully converted over $337,000 across more than 3,100 individual swaps, accumulating hundreds of thousands of STON and millions of GEMSTON for the community's future.
Radical Transparency: The Live Ledger
To ensure the community can trust this process, the Ston Foundation maintains a live protocol fee conversion ledger that refreshes every 20 seconds.
Anyone in the world can see exactly when a fee was converted, how much USDT was used, how many tokens were bought, and the exact transaction hash on the blockchain.
A Note on the Foundation's Role:
To keep the platform truly decentralized, the Ston Foundation does not own or control STON.fi’s smart contracts. They do not engage in market-making, price support, or manipulate the timing of buys based on market prices. Their job is simply to provide public transparency, acting as a window into the blockchain so users can see governance in action.
What Happens Next?
Because these tokens are sitting in a secure DAO treasury wallet, the community has total control over what happens next. Any future use, allocation, or transfer of these acquired treasury tokens must go through another DAO community vote.
By combining community-led governance with automated, visible smart contracts, STON.fi ensures that the platform's success directly strengthens its ecosystem fully in the open for anyone to see.
For more info check the official blog
https://transparency.ston.foundation/
Or
STON.fi
