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Comment by alberth | Hacker News Reader

Just curious, do you have concerns/issues with progressive discounts?

  Tier        Taker Fee   Maker Fee
  ----------  ---------   ---------
  $0K-$10K    60bps       40bps
  $10K-$50K   40bps       25bps
  $50K-$100K  25bps       15bps

Everyone is still paying the same full price (for the volume tier they are in).

Only those transactions at the higher volume tier get the higher discount (and everyone is eligible for that same discount).

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They charged consumers on average 155 bp (!), and institutional 4 bp.

So consumers are charged 40x. Nice business. TradFi has wet dreams of margins like that for simple exchange business.

Source: Their 2024 10K, pages 92 and 94, and my calculation.

For 2024, in $bn:

  Transaction   Volume   Revenue   Cut
  Consumer        221      3.43   1.55%
  Institutional   941      0.345  0.04%

From a capitalist economic perspective, it makes logical sense to maximize your profits and entice wealthier customers with quantity discounts.

From a societal impact perspective, it adds transactions that may not have happened otherwise, but these are mostly isolated effects from what I can tell. This can spur the economy with spending, and be more efficient. Ultimately however, it ensures that those with more money and the ability to buy in bulk lose less money than the tired masses. This should lead to wealth inequality over time.

Without knowing what impact each of these individual variables has in isolation, it’s difficult to define metrics for “net benefit” to society with any real certainty, let alone begin to measure them.

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