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How The Forge works

A plain-English guide to staking on The Forge — how you earn, why holding longer pays more, how holding the Forge token cuts the launch fee, and how referrals pay. No jargon required.

The 30-second version

  • You lock (“stake”) your tokens into a shared pool and earn rewards every 20 minutes.
  • The longer you keep them staked, the bigger your rewards grow — up to 2.0×.
  • Rewards are split among everyone in the pool by their share, so your cut depends on how much you stake and how long you’ve held.
  • Hold the Forge token (launching on pump.fun) and the launch fee drops — 5% at 10k, up to 30% at 10M.
  • Share a referral link and earn 10–30% of the launch fee when someone creates a pool through you. Two more hops, then it stops.
  • Anyone can spin up their own staking contract — you pick the token, the tier, and the stake length (up to 30 days), and LaForge deploys a dedicated pool for it.

Preview a pool dashboard

Live listings only show pools that have actually launched. If you want to see how Bronze, Ecosystem, and Marketing dashboards read — banners, socials, vault stats, and the add-on — open the sample walkthrough. Those screens are labeled sample data and are not a stake.

Preview sample dashboards →

More chains are on the way

Creating a pool from the terminal is live on Robinhood and Ethereum today. More networks are being forged for the create picker and will appear there when they’re ready — same app, same pools, no new download.

What does staking mean here?

Staking is simply parking your tokens in the program so they earn rewards. While staked, your tokens aren’t spent or sent anywhere — they’re held in the pool and count toward your share of the rewards. You can unstake and take them back at any time.

Think of it like a shared reward jar: everyone drops tokens in, the program adds fresh reward tokens on a schedule, and each person takes a slice sized to their contribution.

Create stakes

Anyone can be a Stake Creator. Inside LaForge you pick a reward token and launch a dedicated staking pool for it in one transaction — no code or deployment scripts. You become the pool’s operator and admin, and other people stake into the pool you created.

You choose the stake length. As the Stake Creator you set the pool’s duration, and it can run for up to 30 days. Choose any whole number of days from 1 up to that 30-day maximum (the Bronze tier is capped lower — see below). Duration and taxes are locked in at launch, so pick them deliberately.

Staking tiers

The launch fee and available features depend on the tier you pick when creating the pool:

Bronze
0.01 ETH
Up to 2 days (48h)
  • Core staking mechanics
  • No banner or social links
  • Best for quick, short campaigns
Ecosystem
0.03 ETH
Up to 30 days
  • Everything in Bronze
  • Custom banner image
  • Website + social links
  • Full pool dashboard
Marketing
0.06 ETH
Up to 30 days
  • Everything in Ecosystem
  • 12h featured trending slot
  • Verified-safe badge

Bronze is capped at 2 days; Ecosystem and Marketing can run the full 30 days. Branding (banner + social links) is available on the Ecosystem and Marketing tiers only.

Missed Marketing at launch? Anyone can pay the Marketing fee (0.06 ETH on Robinhood / Ethereum) anytime on the pool page. That is a community boost, not a stake. It unlocks banner and socials for the operator and a 12-hour trending slot. Paying again extends trending. The verified badge stays with the operator. The original on-chain launch tier does not change.

Holder discounts

Hold the Forge token — launching on pump.fun — in the same wallet you create a pool from. The factory reads that balance in the create transaction and cuts the launch fee. No ticker yet; the CA lands here when it mints.

Earn through referrals

Share your link (?ref=your-wallet). When someone creates a pool through it, you earn a slice of the launch fee they actually paid — after any holder discount. That wallet stays yours: every later pool they create pays you, even from another browser or someone else's link. Direct starts at 10%, +1% per extra launch, cap 30%. Your upline (hop 2) gets 5% of your commission. Hop 3 gets 2% of hop 2. Then it stops. Overrides come from the protocol remainder — nobody’s cut is reduced. Claim from the referral desk.

How Stake Creators earn

Creators earn from stake and unstake taxes they set at launch. Each side can be configured up to 10%, and the collected tax is routed to the treasury address you choose:

  • Stake tax — a percentage taken when someone stakes into your pool (up to 10%), sent to your treasury.
  • Unstake tax — a percentage taken when someone withdraws (up to 10%), sent to your treasury.
  • Leave the treasury blank to run a zero-tax pool — friendlier to stakers, no fee income for the creator.
Immutable at launch: the duration and both tax rates are fixed when the pool is created and can’t be changed afterward. Funding the pool with reward tokens is a one-time deposit made at creation.

Holder discounts

Hold the Forge token — launching on pump.fun — in the same wallet you create a pool from. The factory reads that balance in the create transaction and cuts the launch fee. No ticker yet; the CA lands here when it mints.

Tokens heldLaunch-fee discount
10,0005%
100,00010%
1,000,00020%
10,000,00030%
This only discounts the ETH/native fee to create a pool. Staking into a pool has no protocol fee — optional stake/unstake tax is set by the creator and is not discounted.

Earn through referrals

Share your link (?ref=your-wallet). When someone creates a pool through it, you earn a slice of the launch fee they actually paid — after any holder discount. That wallet stays yours: every later pool they create pays you, even from another browser or someone else's link. Direct starts at 10%, +1% per extra launch, cap 30%. Your upline (hop 2) gets 5% of your commission. Hop 3 gets 2% of hop 2. Then it stops. Overrides come from the protocol remainder — nobody’s cut is reduced. Claim from the referral desk.

1

You sent the link

10–30%

First launch through you is 10%. Every extra one +1%, cap 30%. This is the steak.

2

You brought the closer

5% of hop 1

5% of their steak. They keep the whole steak. You get the side.

3

You brought the bringer

2% of hop 2

2% of that side. Crumbs. Good crumbs. Then we stop.

Hop 4 is a tourist. Tourists don’t get paid.

Open the referral desk →

How you earn rewards

The pool releases a batch of reward tokens on a fixed heartbeat — once every 20 minutes. That’s 72 payouts a day. Every payout is divided among stakers according to their share of the pool.

every 20 min
Reward heartbeat
72
Payouts per day
14 days
Program length

Your share of each payout is based on your reward weight = the amount you staked × your loyalty multiplier (explained next). The higher your weight compared to everyone else, the bigger your slice.

Why holding longer pays more (the loyalty multiplier)

The Forge rewards patience. The moment you stake, your tenure multiplier starts at 1.0× and grows a little every hour you stay staked. After 3 days it reaches its maximum of 2.0× — meaning your rewards are worth twice as much per token as someone who just joined.

Heads up: if you unstake, your loyalty multiplier resets back to 1.0×. When you stake again, it starts climbing from the beginning. So frequent in-and-out staking works against you.

The early-days bonus (emissions ramp)

On top of your personal loyalty multiplier, the whole program starts with a warm-up bonus. In the first 1 days, the pool’s reward output ramps up from 1.0× to 2.0× (stepping up every 2 hours), then holds steady at the top for the rest of the program.

In short: rewards start smaller and grow to full strength over the first 1 days, so early stakers see their yield climb as the ramp completes.

What you can do

Stake

Lock tokens in and start earning. Your loyalty clock begins ticking.

Claim

Collect the rewards you've earned without touching your staked balance.

Unstake

Withdraw your tokens. Note: this resets your loyalty multiplier to 1.0×.

How your launched pool behaves

Each token gets its own self-contained pool with the same mechanics described on this page — the reward heartbeat, loyalty multiplier, and emissions ramp all apply automatically. The pool runs for the length you set at creation (up to 30 days). Once it’s live, you can share it and let others stake into the pool you created.

One pool is created per token: the first person to launch a pool for a given token establishes it, and everyone else stakes into that same shared pool for the token. See “Create stakes” above for tiers, fees, and how creators earn.