Orca was one of the first protocols deployed on Solana Mainnet back in February 2021. Since then, Orca has processed over $160B in cumulative volume. Today, there are over 400 tokens and 1050+ trading pairs available, with more pools being added daily. Orca is the Solana ecosystem’s most trusted DEX, boasting an impeccable security record with no hacks to date.
Along the way, we’ve launched many updates to improve the way you trade, provide liquidity, or build on top of our liquidity layer. From Splash Pools to the SDK, there’s something for everyone.
This article walks you through a few important features of Orca and how you can make the most of it as a trader, liquidity provider, new asset creator, or developer.
Let’s get into it!
Orca, Solana’s Apex Liquidity Layer
Orca is Solana’s apex liquidity layer, an advanced DeFi protocol built around a Concentrated Liquidity Automated Market Maker (CLMM). Orca’s simple and intuitive UX caters to beginner, advanced and professional users, making it the go-to choice for anyone looking to engage in DeFi on Solana.
Orca’s mission is to become the leading provider of on-chain financial primitives. We see a future where much of the world’s financial system is powered by DeFi, and we believe user-centric design is mission-critical towards realizing this vision.
Buying crypto shouldn’t have to be hard. This core belief is what drove the creation of Orca in the first place. And over time, this philosophy has led us to continuously improve the ways you trade and provide liquidity on Orca.
Orca for Traders: Sleeker, Friendlier, and More Reliable
Smooth, fast, and reliable, Orca is the easiest place to trade cryptocurrency on the Solana blockchain and tap into Orca’s liquidity layer.
We select the route with the best liquidity and dynamically adjust slippage tolerance and priority fees (helpful during times of high volatility!). Plus, Orca’s CLMM architecture means that for popular pools like SOL-USDC, the liquidity is usually concentrated around the most common price points, creating deep liquidity and low slippage, even for large transactions.
Orca for Liquidity Providers: Full-Range & Flexibility
Orca’s concentrated liquidity (CLMM) pools continue to offer liquidity providers advanced ways of operating that were previously impossible on an CPMM (constant product AMM).
As a liquidity provider, you can create a full-range position, or specify a concentrated liquidity price range through the sliders, preset ±% range, or by inputting specific prices. Once you specify a deposit, other values will automatically adjust to match the deposit ratio for your chosen range.
Once deposited, you’ll receive a pool position NFT that acts like a receipt for your deposited tokens. You can send the NFT to another wallet to transfer your position, but (whale forbid) please don’t burn or sell it, or you’ll lose your liquidity!
Your portfolio shows a summary of all positions and offers the option to Harvest Yield from all your positions at once.
Orca for New Asset Creators: Initial Pools Made Easy
We support new asset listers in creating initial pools for their tokens, permissionlessly, as well as other features to improve your token holder’s experience:
- Create an initial pool for your new token (full or custom range)
- Customize the fee tier
- Add additional rewards to incentivize providing liquidity to your token
- Support for Token Extensions (formerly Token2022)
Orca recently launched Splash Pools to make pool creation simpler, cheaper, and quicker. In a Splash Pool, all LP positions are full-range. This means LPs earn fees and rewards at the same rate and their liquidity supports the full price range just like a CPMM pool. Perfect for new assets and memecoins!
Orca for Developers: Integrate with Ease
Tap into the most efficient source of liquidity on Solana, by building quickly and easily using Orca’s double-audited, open-source smart contract and open-source SDK. Kamino, Birdeye, BonkBot, and Dune are just some of the growing community of projects building on top of Orca.
Our SDK supports integration activities like:
- Obtaining pool addresses
- Obtaining price quotes
- Trading
- Depositing and withdrawing from a liquidity pool
- Harvesting rewards
- Creating new liquidity pools (concentrated and splash)
Orca is constantly improving the SDK to add new features and provide the best developer experience, and we’re always looking for feedback on what we should add next.
The Path Ahead for Orca
We’re committed to making liquidity provision more flexible and accessible, empowering both new token creators and liquidity providers of all experience levels.
The journey to apex protocol doesn’t end here! The team at Orca is constantly working on features and products that will apply Orca’s core principles of human-centered design to new areas of finance. Probably nothing… 👀
Because no matter whether you’re a trader, market maker, or builder —
Orca makes it easy. 🐳
