In this post:
- Raydium surpassed Uniswap based on 24-hour trading volumes.
- The DEX leads on Solana, driven by bot traffic and new meme token launches.
- Raydium onboarded a total of 275K liquidity pairs after rapid growth in the first months of 2024.
- RAY and SOL are still depressed after the recent market correction.
Solana’s main decentralized exchange, Raydium, has grown in volume in the past months. Recently, Raydium’s activity surpassed Uniswap based on the growing demand for Solana-based assets.
Solana’s Raydium exchange surpassed Uniswap in the short term, printing higher 24-hour trading volumes. It remains to be seen if Raydium holds onto its position based on real Solana activity.
Raydium’s volume reaches $822M in 24 hours, still smaller compared to centralized exchanges. Currently, Uniswap V2 carries around $192M in daily trades, while Uniswap V3 carries $633M. Additional smaller versions of Uniswap add to the total, but Raydium concentrates more trading activity in a single DEX.
Raydium also has unequal days of activity, with usual volumes at around $400M in 24 hours. The biggest driver for Raydium is the on-chain order book, which allows for high-velocity transactions. So far, the Solana network has managed to handle most of the traffic, with a 20-25% transaction failure rate.
Raydium aims to limit dishonest tokens
Activity on Raydium is mainly two types. One type of projects usually aims for social media engagement and sets up high expectations before a listing.
Other types of tokens launch immediate pools with as low as 3-6 SOL. Those tokens rely on automated traders who dive into all new launches with the hope of one token taking off. The occasional hot token or launch also boosts activity. In the case of Raydium, that was Daddy Tate (DADDY), a newly launched asset by the controversial influencer Andrew Tate.
Usually, the first generation of meme tokens like SLERF or BOME make up most of the volume on Raydium. But in the past 3 days, the SOL/DADDY trading pair made up 22% of Raydium’s bot-driven volume. On Raydium, top trading pairs can also shift within a day, so only very few of the meme tokens are active for the longer term.
Raydium tokens also have access to pump bots, as well as exposure bots, which drive activity artificially. Some of the tokens also come from small-scale users trying out Raydium with a minimal liquidity pool. Bot risk is also present, as those pools can be easily attacked and drained.
Raydium users also often resort to buying bots to snag the tokens early after their launch. After that, they also use selling bots to make profits. Raydium is also trying to offer a faster interface, otherwise some of its pairs may not be open to human-based orders.
In June, more sell bots were active on Raydium, surpassing buying by as much as 30%.
Raydium carries 50% of Solana volume
Uniswap currently carries around 50% of all DEX volumes. At the same time, Raydium surpassed all Solana exchanges, carrying 50% of the network’s activity.
The Raydium team is aware of the presence of bots. Based on organic volume alone, Raydium is responsible for 30% of Solana DEX trades.
Raydium is the fourth biggest DeFi protocol on Solana, with more than 900M in total value locked. The token hub displaced even the Jupiter DEX aggregator. The value deposited on Raydium is more than four times that of Orca, the other significant Solana exchange. The activity is helping Raydium mark another successful period after the boom of meme tokens.
Raydium is also the leader with more than 427K daily transactions, compared to around 50K for the Serum DEX.
Remember that not all new trading pairs are active, and Solana’s top memes comprise only a dozen tokens. Most of the pools fail shortly after launch, and some tokens are issued with the sole purpose of rug-pulling.
Raydium also benefits from the overall inflows into the Solana ecosystem. After the bear market of 2022 and 2023, Solana once again drew in more value. Based on all pools and protocols, Solana holds $4.3B in value, still more than 50% down from its total peak in value locked.
However, the RAY native token is yet to reach its level from the 2021 DeFi boom. RAY trades around $1.70, still far from its peak above $16. SOL retreated to $146.14, down from recent levels above $170. SOL is essential to Raydium liquidity pools, where it forms the basis for most new pairs.
