Backpack Exchange Referral Code: Rules, Rebates and the BP Airdrop

Sign-up bonus

None published. Backpack's help center documents no welcome bonus or sign-up task rewards.

Fee discount (kickback)A kickback is the share of your own trading fees the platform hands back to you, usually for as long as the account exists.

None with a standard code. An approved affiliate can share part of its commission with you as a fee discount; the percentage is set by the affiliate.

Referrer reward

Inviter earns 10% of the trading fees you generate, claimable for up to 24 months; approved affiliates earn a higher, unpublished rate

KYCKnow Your Customer: identity verification with an ID document and often a selfie, required by regulated platforms before bonuses or withdrawals.

Required. Referral rebates only apply to KYC-verified users, and full exchange access needs identity verification.

Withdrawable?

Not applicable for invitees (no bonus). Inviter rebates are claimed from the Referrals page.

Availability

Not served: North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Crimea, Sevastopol, Luhansk, Donetsk. Not yet served: Canada, Japan, New Zealand.

How the bonus unlocksWhat you must do (deposit, trade a volume, hold funds) before the bonus becomes usable or withdrawable.

Enter the code at sign-up and complete KYC. Rebates for the inviter are calculated weekly; Equity Perps fees are excluded.

Backpack Exchange is one of the few platforms that tells you, in its own help center, that a normal referral code does not lower your fees. Most code pages for the Backpack referral code skip that line and promise a discount anyway. The real structure is simple. Any verified user can share a code and earn 10% of the fees their friends pay. Only approved affiliates can pass part of their commission back to the people they invite.

So the question is not “which Backpack code is best”, but “is this code from an affiliate who shares fees, and how much?”. This review covers the referral rules, the affiliate fee-sharing option, what Backpack charges in the first place, and the BP token airdrop that drove a lot of interest in Backpack referrals.

• 10%of your trading fees earned by a standard inviter
• 0%published discount for you with a standard code
• 24 monthswindow for inviters to claim referral rebates
• 0.10%Tier 1 spot taker fee for new accounts

What a Backpack referral code actually gives you

Backpack runs two layers on top of each other. Every exchange member gets a referral code. A smaller group of approved affiliates gets extra commission and the ability to share it.

Backpack’s wording on the affiliate page is direct: flexible commission sharing “provides the only available method for new users to receive discounted trading fees” apart from the normal volume-based tiers. A standard code is a way to reward the friend who brought you in. It is not a discount coupon.

How Backpack’s standard referral program works

The inviter’s side is spelled out in Backpack’s support center. Members who onboard KYC-verified users with their code earn 10% of the trading fees those users generate. A few rules shape it:

• KYC first. The referral only produces rebates once the new user completes identity verification.
• Weekly, not instant. Referral rebates are populated weekly and cannot be claimed as each trade happens.
• Claim within 24 months. Rebates stay claimable for up to 24 months after they become eligible.
• Equity Perps excluded. Fees from Equity Perps generate no referral rebate.
• VIP 4 and VIP 5 referrals. High-tier users still pay rebates to their inviter as long as API-executed trades stay under 25% of their weekly volume. Above that, no rebate is paid for that week.
• Custom codes. You need $1,000,000 in lifetime trading volume to customise your code. Below that, Backpack assigns one.

None of these rules give the invited user anything. That is why the affiliate tier matters so much.

Affiliate fee sharing: the only invitee discount

Approved affiliates earn an increased cash rebate on top of the standard 10%. Backpack does not publish how large that extra rate is. Once approved, an affiliate opens the Affiliate Dashboard, clicks the pencil icon next to Commission Rates and sets what share to pass on. Every percentage shared becomes a direct fee discount for their referrals.

The bar for becoming an affiliate is high on purpose. Backpack’s minimums are $20 million in monthly referral volume, 15 active referred users and 5 new users per month on Backpack, or alternatively more than 5,000 followers on X or equivalent referral volume on other exchanges. Meeting them does not guarantee approval.

For you as a new user this creates a practical test. If someone offers a “Backpack discount code”, they should be able to show the percentage on the sign-up flow or tell you clearly what share they pass on. If they cannot, assume it is a standard code with 0% for you. Our guide on referral vs affiliate programs explains why the two get mixed up so often.

What Backpack charges, and what a fee share is worth

Backpack’s fee table starts every new account at Tier 1. You can move up by meeting any one requirement in a row: staked BP, assets held, 30-day spot volume or 30-day futures volume. Tiers are recalculated hourly.

USDT/USDC spot trades carry a 0% fee and do not count toward volume tiers. Spot volume is the easier path for most traders; on futures, Tier 2 needs $500,000 of 30-day volume. See our maker vs taker fees guide for why placing limit orders matters here.

Now the worked example. Suppose you trade $100,000 of futures a month at the Tier 1 taker rate of 0.05%. Your fees are $50. With a standard code, your inviter receives $5 of that and you pay the full $50. If an approved affiliate shared, say, 10% of your fees with you, you would get $5 back and pay $45. The 10% here is only an illustration, because Backpack publishes no typical share.

Compare that with staking. Reaching Tier 2 through 350 BP staked cuts the same futures taker rate from 0.05% to 0.045%, also a 10% reduction, without needing anyone’s code. On spot the Tier 1 to Tier 2 drop is 0.10% to 0.09%. For a regular trader, the fee tier you hold matters at least as much as the referral code you used.

The BP airdrop and points: how referrals fit in

Backpack’s BP token page lays out the tokenomics. Of the 1 billion BP total supply, 25% was distributed at the token generation event: 240 million BP to points holders and 10 million BP to Mad Lads NFT holders. Backpack marks that phase as complete. Another 37.5% is labelled pre-IPO and “progressively unlocked” as Backpack hits regulatory, product and market milestones, with each increment going to users. The final 37.5% is locked treasury until one year after an IPO.

Here is what that means for a referral code today:

• The points-based airdrop already happened. Signing up now does not give you a share of it.
• Backpack’s current help center does not describe a live points program, and it does not say how, or whether, referrals earn points.
• Backpack has not published how the pre-IPO unlocks will be distributed to users.

So any page claiming that a Backpack referral code earns you “airdrop points” or “BP rewards” is making a claim Backpack itself does not document. We have seen this pattern before and cover it in our guide to fake crypto bonuses.

BP does matter in another way. Staking it through the Backpack Participant Program unlocks lower trading fees, wire discounts, extra yield of up to 3% APY on lent USD for eligible tiers, and a right to exchange staked BP for Backpack equity at an IPO or acquisition after at least one year staked. These benefits come from staking, not from referrals.

KYC, adding a code later and regions

Backpack requires identity verification for full exchange access, and referral rebates only count for KYC-verified users. Expect to upload ID documents during onboarding. Our KYC guide for crypto bonuses explains what that usually involves.

On timing, Backpack’s wording is specific: it “cannot add referrals for users who have already completed KYC” without using a code. Enter the code in the Add referral field during sign-up, before verification.

Backpack does not serve residents of North Korea, Iran, Cuba, or the Crimea, Sevastopol, Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine. It does not yet serve Canada, Japan or New Zealand. Its affiliates are also banned from marketing to Korean residents, including any Korean-language promotion. The supported-regions page does not mention the United States either way, and we could not confirm US eligibility from Backpack’s help center, so check it at sign-up.

Is a Backpack referral code worth using?

Backpack is honest about its referral program, which earns it a high transparency score, but the value to invitees is low unless you find an affiliate who shares. If you mainly trade perpetuals, compare it with on-chain venues in our perp DEX referral reviews, such as Hyperliquid, and with the rest of our exchange referral programs. For the mechanics behind fee sharing, read how referral kickbacks work.