# Council Update: Increased xORCA Buyback Rewards Fueled by Protocol Fee Revenue (20% to 40%) and R&D Grant

**URL:** <https://forums.orca.so/t/council-update-increased-xorca-buyback-rewards-fueled-by-protocol-fee-revenue-20-to-40-and-r-d-grant/1129>\
**Category:** Governance Proposals\
**Created:** [January 13, 2026, 4:21am UTC](https://forums.orca.so/t/council-update-increased-xorca-buyback-rewards-fueled-by-protocol-fee-revenue-20-to-40-and-r-d-grant/1129 "2026-01-13T04:21:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![CouncilSecretary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bc8723/32.png) [@CouncilSecretary](https://forums.orca.so/u/CouncilSecretary)\
**Post date:** [January 13, 2026, 4:21am UTC](https://forums.orca.so/t/council-update-increased-xorca-buyback-rewards-fueled-by-protocol-fee-revenue-20-to-40-and-r-d-grant/1129/1 "2026-01-13T04:21:25Z")

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**Summary**

The ORCA Governance Council has recently APPROVED the following:

(i) increased the percentage of protocol fee revenue that is utilized to programmatically purchase ORCA to be deposited as rewards for xORCA stakers from 20% to 40%; and

(ii) deployed 500,000 USDC of the ORCA DAO Treasury (the “Treasury”) in a research and development exercise of a new confidential product experiment of the initial development team, the principle balance of which (along with any yield generated on it) is to be returned to the Treasury at the expiration of the two-month testing period which began on January 1, 2026.

**Description**

The Council is announcing the approval of two matters. First, it increased the existing programmatic buyback parameter for ORCA rewards to be deposited into the xORCA liquid staking smart contract from 20% to 40% of protocol fee revenue generated by Orca’s autonomous, open-source automated market maker smart contract. That increase has been technically implemented and is live.

Second, the Council approved a 500,000 USDC grant from the Treasury to the initial development team to conduct a hands-on research and development exercise of a new confidential product in a live environment. The core rationale is operational: while testnet environments and theoretical analysis are valuable, live deployment with real constraints (execution, rebalancing mechanics, monitoring, and operational discipline) is expected to generate practical learnings to improve the product prior to rollout. This grant authorizes a limited, controlled, and access-restricted Treasury deployment of 500,000 USDC to support a structured learning initiative, with defined safeguards and an obligation to return the principal balance (and any yield generated from it) to the Treasury upon completion.

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**Author:** ![chmelevsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e0b2c6/32.png) [@chmelevsky](https://forums.orca.so/u/chmelevsky)\
**Post date:** [January 14, 2026, 1:20pm UTC](https://forums.orca.so/t/council-update-increased-xorca-buyback-rewards-fueled-by-protocol-fee-revenue-20-to-40-and-r-d-grant/1129/2 "2026-01-14T13:20:27Z")

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wonderful news and a great way to start 2026, keep it up!