How We Verify Figures

Primary Sources

For any claim involving a specific number, we cite primary sources first and aggregators second. Specifically:

• Photon's official documentation (the Photon Trading GitBook) is the authority for fees, order types, Memescope filters, MEV modes, preset behavior and wallet mechanics. The 1% buy and sell fee is quoted verbatim from it.
• The DefiLlama API (api.llama.fi/summary/fees/photon) for gross fee revenue, launch date, monthly history and cohort share. Every figure carries the date it was pulled.
• The live Photon terminal for anything about UI flow, defaults, and what a screen actually asks you to do.
• Competitor documentation for comparison figures: Axiom's and GMGN's own fee pages, BullX's GitBook, Jupiter's docs. Where a competitor publishes no fee schedule, we say so rather than repeating a number from a review site.
• Named security research for phishing and scam claims. The fake-Photon drainer at speedtrade[.]icu is documented by PCRisk, and we link the write-up rather than paraphrasing it.

What We Refuse to Publish

This is the part most competing sites skip. Some claims about Photon circulate widely and are still not sourced to anything. We treat those as unverified and label them as such:

• Referral commission rates. Photon publishes no schedule anywhere in its documentation. The "30% of fees forever" figure traces to affiliate blogs. We print the link format, which is confirmed, and no rate.
• Undocumented features. A Telegram bot, a "Discover" page, wallet tracking of other people's wallets, copy trading, a named sniper module and a PnL tracker are all attributed to Photon by third parties and appear nowhere in its docs. We do not describe them.
• Latency benchmarks. The claim that Photon confirms 100 to 300 milliseconds faster than Axiom is repeated across several sites with no published methodology. We flag it as unverified rather than repeating it as a selling point.
• Any Photon token. Tiny Astro has issued none. Several unrelated projects use the PHOTON ticker, and we treat any contract address presented as Photon's as a scam.
• Two-factor authentication. Third-party reviews say Photon offers it. It appears nowhere in the Terms of Use, Settings or mobile documentation, so we treat it as unconfirmed against primary sources.

Review Cadence

Every guide carries a Last Updated date. Pages with time-sensitive figures also carry a Last Verified date marking the most recent manual data check, which is usually more recent than the last content edit.

Fee pages, getting-started walkthroughs and security pages are re-checked at least monthly. Comparison pages are re-pulled from DefiLlama on the same cadence, because this cohort changes faster than most: three competitors (BullX, Nova, Vector) went from live to dead inside twelve months, and Padre was acquired and rebranded. A comparison page that is not revisited becomes wrong rather than merely stale.

Limitations

Two specific traps are worth naming. First, DefiLlama's Photon volume module only begins in May 2026, so its "all time" volume total is not lifetime volume and must never be compared against the fee series, which runs back to January 2024. Second, Tiny Astro publishes no corporate registration, names no founders and discloses no funding, so any statement about who runs Photon is inference rather than fact and is labeled that way. Between verification dates, figures drift. When accuracy matters for a decision you are about to make, check the primary source linked from the page.

Reporting Outdated Figures

If a figure here looks wrong or out of date, please report it. The fastest path is a direct message to @Concept211 on X or an email via the About page. Include the URL, the figure, and the source you are comparing against. We re-verify and update within 48 hours on average.

Editorial Independence and Disclosure

PhotonGuides earns from Photon's referral link (see the About page and the referral page for the full disclosure). It does not change which figures we publish. The clearest proof of that is on this site already: Photon's fee revenue is down roughly 99% from its January 2025 peak, it sits 7th in its cohort on a 1.26% share, and its flat 1% is beaten by competitors who publish referral discounts. All of that is on our comparison pages, because a comparison that always concludes in favor of the platform paying you is worth nothing.