About

Raydium is an automated market maker (AMM) decentralized exchange (DEX) on Solana that offers a decentralized exchange where users can swap tokens that trade on Raydium through its permissionless liquidity pools. Pools can follow the standard AMM model or the concentrated liquidity market maker (CLMM) model.

The CLMM model enables increased capital efficiency by allowing liquidity to be concentrated at certain price ranges. Traders experience lower slippage due to liquidity being concentrated around the live price point. Liquidity providers (LPs) earn increased fees when the liquidity provided is concentrated at the price range in which all trades are occurring. However, this comes with an increased risk of impermanent loss for LPs since position weights change more quickly due to liquidity being provided on a tighter price range rather than on the entire price curve. Notably, Raydium provides order flow and shares liquidity with OpenBook’s onchain central limit order book (CLOB).

Raydium also hosts a Solana launchpad named AcceleRaytor that allows users to participate in token sales. An AcceleRaytor Application can be found here.

History

Raydium’s development began in Q4 2020 before the protocol was launched in February 2021.

V1

Raydium V1 was launched in February 2021 along with its announcement. At launch, Raydium used order flow and liquidity sourced from Serum’s onchain central limit order book (CLOB), a now-deprecated project.

• In March 2021, Raydium launched “Fusion Pools,” which allowed projects to create liquidity pools that reward liquidity providers (LPs) with token incentives.
• In April 2021, Raydium launched “AcceleRaytor,” a launchpad for Solana Projects that allows users to participate in token sales.
• In May 2021, Raydium launched “Permissionless Pools,” which allowed users to create liquidity pools for any token without permission.
• In September 2021, Raydium launched a non-fungible token (NFT) launchpad that hosted external projects’ NFT launches.
• In November 2021, Raydium launched liquidity pools for various non-Solana tokens through a partnership with Wormhole.

V2

Raydium V2 was launched in March 2022 in a beta phase. V2 introduced a refreshed user interface (UI), improved speed, and introduced a new SDK.

• In July 2022, Raydium launched “Ecosystem Farms,” allowing what were formerly known as Fusion Pools to be created without permission.
• In October 2022, Raydium launched beta testing for concentrated liquidity market maker (CLMM) liquidity pools. A month later, Raydium allowed CLMM pools to be launched without permission.
• In July 2023, Raydium launched support for Solana’s Token-2022 token programs within CLMM pools, a new token standard that allows for token extensions.

V3

Raydium V3 was launched in March 2024 in a beta phase. V3 introduced a more reliable user experience through increased responsiveness, mobile optimization, a portfolio page, token search improvements, charting, etc.

• In May 2024, Raydium launched the official V3 UI. Alongside this launch, Raydium revamped AMM pools by making them easier and cheaper to create, introducing support for Token-2022 token programs, and integrating a new built-in price oracle. These revamped AMM pools were dubbed constant product market maker (CPMM) pools.