Raydium is the leading automated market maker (AMM) and liquidity provider on Solana, serving as the primary DEX for most Solana ecosystem tokens. Founded in 2021, Raydium was among the first protocols to combine an AMM with a central limit order book, sharing liquidity with the Serum DEX. After FTX collapse rendered Serum unusable (late 2022), Raydium launched its own CLMM (Concentrated Liquidity Market Maker) pools, maintaining its dominant position. Raydium products include Standard AMM pools (constant product formula for general trading), CLMM pools (concentrated liquidity for capital efficiency), and the LaunchLab platform for new token launches. RAY is the native governance and fee-sharing token. Raydium processes the majority of Solana memecoin trading volume – any token launching on Solana typically creates a Raydium pool as its primary liquidity venue. Integration with Jupiter (which aggregates Raydium liquidity) means most Solana swaps route through Raydium at some point. TVL regularly exceeds $1B during bull markets. Raydium is to Solana what Uniswap is to Ethereum – the foundational liquidity layer upon which the entire ecosystem is built.
Example: Example: A Solana project launches a new governance token. They create a Raydium CLMM pool with 100,000 USDC and 1,000,000 tokens at $0.10 initial price. Within hours, Jupiter aggregates this pool into its routing, making the token tradeable by any Solana wallet user. Trading fees (0.25%) accrue to the project treasury, funding ongoing development without token sales.
Learn more: Raydium – Solana AMM
