Dialogue Orca: The only DEX platform on Solana with pure automated market-making functionality

With the strong push from SBF, the Solana public chain is launching a fierce offensive against Ethereum, and more and more ecological projects are thriving, among which many innovative and high-quality projects have emerged, such as the DEX project Orca.

In this interview, Orca's China CM Yiran shared insights on Orca's differentiated advantages and characteristics, the growth potential and development trends in the DEX track, which we believe will help you gain a deeper understanding of the Solana ecosystem.

Chain Catcher: Please introduce the Orca team and its background. What was your original intention for creating Orca?

Yiran: Our team initially consisted of two founding engineers, one of whom is a developer and designer who graduated from Stanford University's computer science department, and the other is a senior engineer with years of experience in the cryptocurrency field. Currently, our team has a total of 8 members, and we are continuing to expand. Our goal is to provide users with a better experience.

Chain Catcher: As we all know, the decentralized exchange track has the most participants in the DeFi field, and the competition is very fierce. What are Orca's differentiated advantages and characteristics compared to other DEXs?

Yiran: Orca is the only DEX platform on Solana that has a pure automated market maker (AMM) function and also possesses its own liquidity pool. Compared to order-based trading, we believe that the simplicity and composability of AMM can make it the best choice for the next generation of DeFi applications.

We believe that what makes Orca stand out is our deep understanding of cryptocurrencies, our high attention to user experience, and our commitment to value. In a recent series of tweets, we distilled our brand into three aspects: professionalism, principledness, and fun.

Chain Catcher: Capital efficiency has been a hot topic in DEX recently. What considerations does Orca have for improving capital efficiency?

Yiran: We are planning to improve our smart contracts to enhance the capital efficiency of liquidity providers.

Chain Catcher: How does Orca incentivize users to provide liquidity for small token trading pairs, and how does it reduce slippage for small token trades?

Yiran: If there is demand in the form of trading activity, liquidity will naturally follow. There is no need to directly incentivize liquidity for small pools.

Chain Catcher: Does Orca adopt the AMM protocol like other decentralized exchanges? Are there any measures in place to reduce impermanent loss?

Yiran: Yes, we are a pure AMM decentralized exchange built on Solana with our own liquidity pools. Some degree of impermanent loss is unavoidable, so we emphasize and encourage everyone to understand impermanent loss before providing liquidity on the deposit interface.

Chain Catcher: How is Orca's token economic model designed, and what is the core value of the token? What are its application scenarios?

Yiran: It is not convenient to disclose details about the economic model at this time. However, our governance token is expected to be released around mid-July.

Chain Catcher: The trading volume of DEX in the DeFi market is still growing significantly. What do you think are the main driving forces? What growth potential still exists?

Yiran: I believe this is determined by market demand; DeFi is a trend and the future. The subsequent market potential lies in technological innovation and capital operation.

Chain Catcher: Compared to established public chains like Ethereum, Polkadot, and BSC that have formed a certain ecological foundation, what are the advantages and characteristics of the Solana public chain's future ecosystem? Which track do you see the most potential in, and where are the shortcomings?

Yiran: In the competitive blockchain ecosystem solutions, Solana's performance stands out: 50,000 transactions per second, 400ms block time, and an average transaction fee as low as $0.01. More importantly, the values, vision, and engineering capabilities of the Solana team have impressed us. We are proud to be part of this vibrant ecosystem.

We believe that Solana's unprecedented performance is its greatest advantage. However, it is still a relatively nascent ecosystem, so the developer experience is not easily obtained. Nevertheless, Orca is a pioneer, which gives us an advantage in this environment. Personally, I am more focused on the DeFi track.

Chain Catcher: Currently, the Solana ecosystem already has several well-known DEX projects like Serum and Raydium. What operational strategies does Orca plan to adopt to compete for users and market share? What considerations and plans do you have for community building?

Yiran: We are a pure AMM DEX that also focuses on user experience.** Moving forward, we will work more closely with the community and capital institutions to contribute to the development of DeFi. At the same time, our governance token will also be launched soon. I believe our economic model can be accepted by users and can bring higher efficiency in capital utilization.

Chain Catcher: Orca previously released an airdrop for collectibles, which attracted widespread attention in the market. What are the use cases for these collectibles? Are there similar airdrop plans in the future?

Yiran: We are very happy that users like our collectibles, which they obtain through participation in the Orca ecosystem!

Our collectibles are actually not NFTs, even though they are similar in form! This is because they are fungible (for example, any guppy can be replaced with another). As for future airdrops, please stay tuned.

Chain Catcher: Recently, there have been significant changes in the cryptocurrency market environment. What do you think the future development trend of the DEX track will be?

Yiran: Changes in the environment cannot alter the pace of technological advancement. I believe DEX is currently just in its infancy, and there will be greater development space in the future.