Understanding the Sniper Tax

Sniper Tax is Zora's protection against automated trading bots at token launch. When a new Trend or Pair is created, bots can detect it and attempt to buy within milliseconds, before any real person has a chance to react.

When a new Trend or Pair is created, the trading pool starts with a temporary high tax that rapidly decays to normal levels. This creates a brief window during which bot transactions are economically infeasible, while remaining completely transparent to regular traders.

The tax is automatic; no configuration or action is required from creators or traders.

All new pools start with a 100% tax on trades. This tax then automatically decays down to the normal 1% fee over a period of 2 seconds.

1. At creation: Pool launches with 100% tax

2. Over 2 seconds: Tax rapidly decays from 100% to 1%

3. After 2 seconds: Normal 1% fee applies to all trades

The sniper tax does not apply to the initial buy when creating a Trend or Pair. If you choose to buy up to 5% of the supply at creation, that purchase happens before the pool opens to public trading and is not subject to the tax.