SHARDS is the platform's own coin, the first coin ever made on Shards. Every trade on every coin made since pairs arrived feeds it, whatever that coin is paired with, NEAR included. That is every coin created from block 217,082,815 on. Coins made before it keep the terms they were made with, and have no SHARDS burn.

Half of what Shards earns from every tax buys SHARDS and burns it. That is 10% of every tax. The other half of what Shards earns, another 10%, goes to the treasury. The burn comes out of what Shards earns, never the creator's share or the holders'. The split is written into each coin when it is made and cannot be changed.

SHARDS is a pair too. A creator can launch a coin in SHARDS, and anyone holding NEAR buys it in seconds.

Where each coin's burn share goes

Each coin's burn share builds up inside the coin, in its pair, until anyone sends it on. Where it goes was fixed when the coin was made.

Coin paired with	Its burn share goes to	What happens there
NEAR	The burn contract	Buys SHARDS in the SHARDS pool, then burns it
SHARDS	The burn contract	Already SHARDS, so it is burned directly, with no buy
RHEA, Zcash, or a stock or fund	The burn wallet, a platform wallet	Converted, sent to the burn contract, then burned
Quantus	The burn wallet, a platform wallet	Held as QTC for now, then converted and burned by the platform

The burn contract can do two things, and anyone can make it do either: buy SHARDS with the NEAR it holds, and burn the SHARDS it holds. It has no method that sends money anywhere else.

The burn contract takes only NEAR and SHARDS, so RHEA, Zcash, Quantus and stock coins pay a platform wallet instead. What collects there is converted and sent to the burn contract, which means trusting the platform with that share until it is burned. The Quantus share is held as QTC for now and converted by hand.

The burn contract's limits

The burn contract buys in small steps so it does not move the SHARDS price much at once. Its owner can change these settings, but only within limits compiled into the contract.

Setting	At deploy	The owner's limit
Largest single buy	0.5% of the SHARDS pool	At most 5% of the pool
Worst price it accepts	2% under both the quote and the pool's recent average	At most 10% under
Time between buys	10 minutes	At least 60 seconds
Smallest buy	0.1 NEAR	At least 0.01 NEAR

The contract's current settings can be read from it at any time.

Every account involved is on the contracts page.