Buying crypto shouldn’t have to be hard.
This core belief is what drove the creation of Orca in the first place. And this time, it’s given birth to an entirely new way to buy and sell crypto.
It’s called… The new Orca.
Why build a new version of Orca?
Orca earns the majority of fees on Solana — 70–80% over the past 6 months, and over $34.7b in all-time volume. It also generates the most fees, has raised over $1.6m for climate change through the Orca Climate Fund, and has never been hacked.
So, why invest effort in a new, radically different interface?
Crypto has the potential to bring efficiency, transparency, and verifiability to global financial markets. But for mass adoption to happen, the experience of buying and selling tokens on-chain must be not only on par with TradFi, but meaningfully better.
So, Orca is making an audacious bet:
- Concentrated liquidity AMMs (CLAMMs) will be the innovation that enables mainstream adoption.
- Solana will be the chain to power that revolution.
For that bet to pan out, the basic building blocks of finance — buying and selling assets — must feel familiar enough for everyday people to use.
That’s where the new Orca comes in.
Sleeker, sexier…
Orca is known for its focus on human-centered design, a rarity in the world of crypto. But until now, even Orca itself was catered more toward technically savvy, crypto-native users.
The new Orca provides the table-stakes features that make buying/selling crypto on-chain easy, even for “normies”:
- Price charts
- Transaction history
- Actually helpful error messages
- Price comparison with Jupiter
- NFT profile pictures
- Attractive, polished visuals
For DeFi natives, the interface is going to feel unfamiliar — maybe even jarring. That’s a deliberate choice. The goal is not to onboard users from Ethereum, but rather to serve people who come to Solana for gaming, dePIN, or use cases that haven’t yet been dreamed of. Folks new to crypto generally don’t think of themselves as “trading” — they “buy/sell crypto”. The new Orca is designed to make that familiar, seamless, and — yes — a little bit sexy.
…and more reliable
Pretty as it may be, the new Orca isn’t all icing on the cake. It’s also a leap forward when it comes to reliability. On-chain trades often fail during periods of high volatility, which is exactly when it’s the most vital for them to succeed (think back to trading BONK during the hype earlier this year).
Under the hood, the new Orca features a host of technical upgrades:
- An all-new frontend written in Next.js, which is slated to be open-sourced after the next major product release
- An entirely custom “Smart Router” that routes trades across up to 6 liquidity pools to provide better prices
- Shorter confirmation times and easier retries
- More accurate stats and price APIs
- Dynamic priority fees
In contrast to most trading interfaces, these improvements ensure users never need to fiddle manually with settings. Simply type in what you’d like to happen — say, “buy 10 SOL with USDC” — and let Orca take care of the rest.
Long story short: It just works.
What’s next
Psst — here’s a secret: Another big thing is coming… and it’s codenamed Orca Pro.
Years after the launch of the first CLAMM, there remain very few tools available to learn effective liquidity provision. Orca Pro equips active traders with:
- Tutorials to learn the art of CLAMM liquidity provision
- Tools to estimate returns effectively
…both of which open up peer-to-peer market-making to a wider audience. The interface will feel familiar to users of centralized exchanges, reinforcing Orca’s controversial stance that concentrated liquidity AMMs can power the same experiences as order books — but with even greater computational and capital efficiency.
But the journey to apex protocol doesn’t end there! There are additional projects in the works 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. 🐳
🐋
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Disclaimer: The content of this communication is not financial advice and should not be relied on by any persons as financial advice. This communication has not been provided in consideration of any recipient’s financial needs. We have not conducted any financial assessment based on the personal circumstances of any recipients. Before using the protocol, carefully review all relevant documentation and consider risks including total loss of funds.
