Drift Builder Codes

Overview:

Drift’s Builder Code (DBC) system enables any builder to build on top of Drift while earning fees for routing trades.

Drift Builder Codes establish the financial infrastructure layer on Solana, by allowing anyone tap into Drift’s deep liquidity and efficient execution, without building their own backend. This enables a fully open, composable UI layer for perps and spot on Solana.

This Builder Code system makes Drift the first on-chain DEX on Solana to offer per order monetization for third-party frontends, setting the stage for a permissionless ecosystem of apps, bots, and aggregators all aligned with Drift and Solana’s liquidity growth.

DBC Features:

Drift builder codes are essentially an extension of the Drift referral (opens in a new tab) system, leveraging the same infrastructure for user linking, fee calculation, and reward distribution.

User-Approved: Traders must explicitly approve a builder and set a maximum fee (in basis points), which can be revoked at any time. This approval is stored onchain through the existing referral infrastructure, specifically in UserStats.

Security: Builder fees are enforced and processed fully onchain, and subject to a globally set max_builder_fee, with user safety being top priority.

Getting started with DBC

Builder Registration: In order to receive fees, builders are required to have an existing Drift account.

User registration: Users approve builders via the approve_builder_code instruction. This updates the referrer field within a user's UserStats account. Users are therefore required to either have an existing Drift account, or create one on first use of the builder code.

Fee accrual: The Builder's Drift account accrues fees in the following way:

• Perpetual contract fees are credited to the builder's quote_asset_amount and unrealizedPnL

• Spot fees are credited to the builder's spot balance