Every coin trades on its own bonding curve first. When the curve sells out, the coin graduates into a pool. A Shards pool is the coin's own pool inside its contract, called Prism. The creator picks which pool when the coin is made, and it cannot be changed after.

	Shards pool	Rhea pool
Where it trades after graduation	Inside the coin's own contract, on Shards	In a new pool on Rhea, NEAR's largest exchange
Creation fee	0.5 NEAR	1.25 NEAR: 0.5, plus 0.75 for Rhea
Highest tax, each side	10%	4%
Pairs	Takes any pair	Takes any pair
Liquidity after graduation	Locked inside the coin's contract	Locked in the coin's own positions on Rhea
Pool fee after graduation	1%	1%, Rhea's pool fee
Where you can trade it after graduation	On Shards	On Shards, on Rhea, and in apps that trade through Rhea

The create screen shows the exact fee the factory asks for before you sign. That figure is the one to trust.

What is the same for both

Both start on the same curve and graduate at the same size, in their pair. Every trade pays the coin's tax, before graduation and after it, and the tax is divided the way the creator set it. Every trade also spends its buyback share at once, buying the coin back and burning it. The pool, the pair, the taxes and the split are all fixed when the coin is made.

After a Rhea coin graduates

The raise and the tokens held back for the pool open a new pool on Rhea, at the price the last curve buyer paid, within Rhea's smallest price step. The platform does it on its own, usually within about a minute; there is no button, because it takes more than a wallet can send. Trading pauses until the pool is open. Your balance is untouched.

From then on its trades are swaps on Rhea. The trade panel on Shards makes them for you:

• A buy is one approval. Your first buy of that coin adds one more, to register you on it.
• A sale is one approval. On a NEAR coin you are paid plain NEAR, straight to your wallet.
• The tax is still charged on every trade, wherever it is made: on Shards, on Rhea's own site, or in another app that trades through Rhea. Those apps may quote a price before the tax.

The tax is taken in the coin, as it moves into or out of the pool. Its burn share is burned at once. The rest is sold into the pool in small pieces, and what those sales bring in is divided the usual way. So creator fees and dividends on a Rhea coin arrive as those sales happen. What the coin's own liquidity earns in pool fees is divided the same way.

Once it trades on Rhea, DexScreener charts it through Rhea. The token page links its Rhea pool and its DexScreener page.

Bought it somewhere else first? If you buy a Rhea coin on another app before you have ever held it, your coins are held for you. One approval on the coin's page, or under To collect in your portfolio, moves them to your wallet.

If Rhea cannot open the pool

If the Rhea pool has not opened after 7 days and at least 3 tries, the coin can move to a Shards pool instead. Only its creator, its current fee wallet or the platform can start that move. Its liquidity is locked there, and it trades on Shards like any Shards-pool coin. The token page says when the move becomes possible. Nothing happens to your balance.

What can go wrong has the risks of both.