# Circular Links At Most 1.14% of Axiom Tips to Validator Incentives

By John Kim

Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/business/36582
Published: 2026-10-21T11:03:56.000Z
Updated: 2026-10-21T11:03:56.000Z
Section: Business

> The finding covers a recent 30-day period. From April 26 through Oct. 19, Axiom transactions sent about $55.67 million to Lunar.

Circular founder Ben has challenged Axiom’s “validator bribe” fees after tracing at most 1.14% of recent trader payments routed through Lunar to additional on-chain validator incentives.

Ben’s review identified 530,166 Solana (SOL) paid to Lunar, a service of HelloMoon, through Axiom transactions from April 26 to Oct. 19. At $105 per SOL, that equals about $55.67 million. The payments were associated with 189 million successful transactions.

In the most recent 30-day period, 45 million Axiom transactions paid Lunar, representing 80.6% of successful Axiom transactions. Lunar collected 138,964 SOL, worth about $14.59 million at the same price. The review connected no more than 1,579 SOL of that total to additional on-chain incentives for validators.

Ben called the fee label misleading and questioned whether Axiom receives a share of the tips. His payment tracing did not establish a transfer to Axiom. The 1.14% figure does not rule out other service costs or payments made off-chain.

Ben also examined transactions dated Sept. 26 and Oct. 7. In a separate test using the fee suggested by Axiom’s interface, the additional priority fee he could identify was about 1% of the payment to Lunar.