This is the part people ask about. When your team upgrades, each payment travels up the matrix to the position at the matching depth. Each person below you pays you exactly once — at the single level that matches how far below you they sit.
To catch each one, you must be at or above the level that person is leaving (and qualified). Layer 3's Culmen payment only stops at you if you're at Fabrica or higher — otherwise it passes up to the next eligible position. That's why the rule is: keep your level at or above your team's deepest active layer.
Two things to remember: your tier is set when you join and can't be changed later — upgrading advances your level, never your tier. And a Standard position in your team pays everyone above it half, at every level. So the team play is simple: join Premium, and make sure the people you bring on do too, so your whole leg pays full value up the line.
Every level you climb makes you eligible to catch the upgrade pass-ups from one generation deeper in your matrix — and each generation is twice as wide as the one above it, paying twice as much per person. That's why the team's rule is to keep leveling up as your team grows: stay one level ahead of your deepest active layer so those pass-ups land on you instead of passing over.
⚠️ This is an illustration of the contract's mechanics at Premium tier, not a prediction or a promise. The right-hand column is the mathematical maximum if every position in that generation fills and upgrades — most never do. Real results depend entirely on team-building effort, and POL's value changes over time. No income is guaranteed.
-| Level you hold | Generation · positions | They pay you when they buy | Each pays you | If that whole generation fills | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Scintilla | Gen 1 · 2 | Ascensus | 621 POL | 1,243 POL | |
| 2 · Ascensus | Gen 2 · 4 | Fabrica | 1,243 POL | 4,971 POL | |
| 3 · Fabrica | Gen 3 · 8 | Culmen | 2,486 POL | 19,885 POL | |
| 4 · Culmen | Gen 4 · 16 | Apex | 4,971 POL | 79,540 POL | |
| 5 · Apex | Gen 5 · 32 | Fastigium | 9,942 POL | 318,158 POL | |
| 6 · Fastigium | Gen 6 · 64 | Vertex | 19,885 POL | 1,272,632 POL | |
| 7 · Vertex | Gen 7 · 128 | Corona | 39,770 POL | 5,090,529 POL | |
| 8 · Corona | Gen 8 · 256 | no level 9 — their Corona buys land on your Gen 1 | top level | every eligible pass-up lands on you |
| Level you hold | Generation · positions | They pay you when they buy | Each pays you | If that whole generation fills | Net after that level's price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Scintilla | Gen 1 · 2 | Ascensus | 621 POL | 1,243 POL | +882 POL |
| 2 · Ascensus | Gen 2 · 4 | Fabrica | 1,243 POL | 4,971 POL | +4,350 POL |
| 3 · Fabrica | Gen 3 · 8 | Culmen | 2,486 POL | 19,885 POL | +18,642 POL |
| 4 · Culmen | Gen 4 · 16 | Apex | 4,971 POL | 79,540 POL | +77,054 POL |
| 5 · Apex | Gen 5 · 32 | Fastigium | 9,942 POL | 318,158 POL | +313,187 POL |
| 6 · Fastigium | Gen 6 · 64 | Vertex | 19,885 POL | 1,272,632 POL | +1,262,690 POL |
| 7 · Vertex | Gen 7 · 128 | Corona | 39,770 POL | 5,090,529 POL | +5,070,644 POL |
| 8 · Corona | Gen 8 · 256 | no level 9 — their Corona buys land on your Gen 1 | top level | every eligible pass-up lands on you | — |
Two ways to read the same row: the level you hold is your reach, and the level they buy is one rung higher. Holding Fabrica is what lets you catch your 3rd generation (8 people) when they buy Culmen. Add the right-hand column down to any row for a running total: through Fastigium it is 1,696,429 POL; the Vertex row alone is the 7th generation, 5,090,529 POL, not a total.
+Two ways to read the same row: the level you hold is your reach, and the level they buy is one rung higher. Holding Fabrica is what lets you catch your 3rd generation (8 people) when they buy Culmen. Add the generation column down to any row for a running total: through Fastigium it is 1,696,429 POL; the Vertex row alone is the 7th generation, 5,090,529 POL, not a total. The green figure is that generation's full-fill amount minus the price of the upgrade that opens the row (the 360.58 entry for Scintilla) — what a full generation would leave you above that one cost; the total spent to hold each level is in the exact-costs table below. Still a mechanical maximum, never a promise.
How to read it: at each depth below you, every position sends one upgrade pass-up when they level up — and your very first catch at each level is the exact price of your own next upgrade, to the penny, so your team can carry you up the ladder. Everything past that first one is upside. A fully built matrix through all seven paying generations would be an enormous number — but "fully built" is rare, which is exactly why the honest play is steady team-building, not counting on a full fill.
Charts you'll see around the team round these slightly. The numbers below are read live from the contract's public getAllCosts() function — anyone can verify them on Polygonscan, and nobody (not even the operators) can change them. Premium tier, in POL: