Market Maker Program
The following program goes live on February 1st, 2026.
Users participating in Backpack's market maker program have access to maker rebates plus a share of a $300k monthly rewards pool for providing liquidity across spot and perpetual futures markets.
To be eligible for this program, please reach out to us at [email protected]
Market Maker Rebates
MM tiers can be reached either by Total Maker Share or Adjusted Maker Share, whichever is highest. The Adjusted Maker Share model rewards traders for providing liquidity on lower liquidity markets. Each market has a multiplier (as presented below), which is used to calculate the Adjusted Volume.
Adjusted maker share is calculated by dividing a user's total adjusted maker volume from that month by the total adjusted maker volume of all users across all markets in each instrument category.
MMs can also unlock MM tiers through their Total Maker Share, which does not factor in market multipliers. For Total Maker Share, we take the user’s total maker volume and divide it by the total maker volume of all users across all markets in each instrument category without applying any multipliers.
MM Tier Calculation and Payout
On the last day of every month, we will calculate the Total Maker Share and Adjusted Maker Share for each user and choose the highest between the two to determine their MM tier / fees for the month.
Futures rebates are instantly credited after every fill. Spot rebates are credited manually to the user’s Backpack account the following month.
Market Maker Monthly Rewards
Backpack has allocated $300,000 in monthly rewards to market makers based on their maker volume share and liquidity score.
Out of the total reward pool, $200,000 is allocated to perpetual futures and $100,000 to spot markets.
The rewards are distributed per symbol as follows:
Within each instrument, there are 3 tiers. Each tier represents a portion of the total rewards pool allocated to that instrument and covers a specific subset of trading pairs. For example, Tier 1 futures includes BTC, ETH, and SOL with $70k allocated across these three symbols. Each symbol shares the $70k equally, so BTC, ETH, and SOL each have a $23,333 monthly reward pool.
To account for instances where a symbol is added in the middle of the month / during an ongoing epoch, a symbol’s reward will be based on the number of days each symbol was active during the month (the timestamp of first trade is considered the start). The formula is:
Individual Pair Reward % = Pair's Active Days / Sum of All Pairs' Active Days
Example
Let's say we have three Tier 3 futures pairs in a 30-day month:
Pair A: Active for 30 days
Pair B: Active for 30 days
Pair C: Active for 10 days
Total active days across all pairs = 70 days (30 + 30 + 10)
Therefore:
Pair A receives: (30/70) = 37.5% of Tier 3 Futures rewards
Pair B receives: (30/70) = 37.5% of Tier 3 Futures rewards
Pair C receives: (10/70) = 25% of Tier 3 Futures rewards
Scoring System For Monthly Rewards
To determine a user’s share of the reward pool for a given pair, we will look at their Blended Score, which takes into account their Volume Score and Liquidity Score.
For each market:
Volume Score = your maker volume / volume of all MMs in the program
Liquidity Score = Your Liquidity Metric / Sum of all MMs Liquidity Metric
Liquidity Metric = Average Size / (Average Spread) * Uptime Score
Uptime Score = Active Snapshots / Total Snapshots
Blended Score = (Volume Score * Volume Weight) + (Liquidity Score * Liquidity Weight)
Reward = Blended Score * Monthly Reward Pool
Volume Score has a weight of 0.8 and Liquidity Score 0.2.
MM Reward Calculation Example
The example below illustrates how rewards are calculated for a single market.
Further Information
All new MMs will enjoy MM5 maker fees for their first month; thereafter, fees will be determined based on the user’s market share and volumes at the end of the fee holiday period. Backpack Exchange does not, and will not entertain special fee deals with any MM. Fee schedules with all MMs are the same.
MMs participating in this program are not able to participate in other programs.
MMs must receive at least 1% of the total allocation in order to be eligible for rewards in a given month. Additionally, MMs with an average size lower than $2000 or a volume score lower than 1.5% won't be eligible for rewards on a given market.
For the liquidity score calculation, we will only consider orders placed within 100bps from the mid.
The spot equity program started on January 1 2024 and ended on December 31 2024. The futures equity program started on February 1 2025 and ended on January 31 2026.
MMs must comply with Backpack Exchange's User Agreement and all applicable policies and procedures.
Backpack Exchange reserves the right to modify this program any time when appropriate.
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