Raydium, Jupiter, Orca, and Meteora are competing for the dominance of the Solana DEX market. Who will reign supreme?

Solana's DEX landscape is shifting towards greater efficiency and more concentrated Liquidity.

Authored by: vik0nchain, Researcher at Cyber Capital

Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News

From the fourth quarter of 2024 to the beginning of 2025, the competitive landscape of Solana's DeFi ecosystem is gradually emerging, mainly reflected in the rise of aggregators, abstraction of user experience (UX), major integrations, and evolving token economic standards. Although these changes may not be obvious at first, recent data has clearly shown their impact, particularly in the redistribution of Liquidity, fee generation, and changes in market share.

This analysis delves into the Liquidity positioning of the major decentralized exchanges (DEX) based on Solana - Raydium, Jupiter, Orca, and Meteora, focusing on their advantages, disadvantages, and potential investment impacts relative to existing and emerging competitors.

Investment Analysis Framework

Raydium (RAY) optimistic outlook: deep Liquidity and repurchase advantages

• Liquidity and trading volume dominance: Raydium remains the most powerful and frequently used decentralized exchange for Liquidity in the Solana ecosystem. Over 55% of trades routed through Jupiter settle on Raydium. Additionally, Raydium, together with the long-term leader Uniswap, occupies a leading position in the market among all decentralized exchanges on all blockchains, sometimes even surpassing Uniswap, while its fully diluted valuation (FDV) and market value are only about one-third of Uniswap.
• Raydium/Uniswap fully diluted valuation ratio: 28.72828346 billion USD / 91.02379018 billion USD = 31.5%
• Raydium/Uniswap Market Cap Ratio: 15.05604427 billion USD / 54.65824531 billion USD = 27.5%


• Pump.fun integration: Key partnerships including integration with Pump.fun, as all new Meme pools migrate to Raydium, boosting trading volume and protocol stickiness.
• Token Buyback: Raydium's 12% fee buyback program has repurchased over 10% of the total supply of tokens, significantly alleviating selling pressure. It is worth noting that the amount repurchased by Raydium far exceeds that held by centralized exchanges.

)

(# Jupiter (JUP) is optimistic about the future: a leading aggregator in the market

• Liquidity Aggregation Advantage: Jupiter, as the dominant aggregator of Solana, plays a crucial role.
• Acquisition of Moonshot: Acquiring Moonshot allows Jupiter to integrate deposit/withdrawal channels within its decentralized exchange to enhance competitiveness by simplifying user experience.
• Unlocking pressure: Due to the token unlocking, Jupiter faces a 127% increase in supply, which brings medium-term inflation risks. Although a buyback mechanism was recently announced, the internal estimated annual buyback rate is 2.4%, which provides some support for the token economy, but has limited impact in competition with Raydium.
• Business model: Due to the fact that aggregator fees are charged on top of underlying protocol fees, the aggregator model faces challenges in a low fee environment.
• Lack of competitors: As the first aggregator on Solana, Jupiter lacks strong competitors.

)# Meteora Outlook Optimistic: Rising Liquidity Aggregator

• Aggregated Liquidity Efficiency: Unlike standalone decentralized exchanges, aggregators like Meteora inherently have lower downside risk and more stable capital efficiency.
• Token issuance catalyst: The successful issuance of Meteora tokens may change the Liquidity preference and provide long-term support for its market positioning. Unlike industry LP leader Kamino, MET points are not publicly displayed on the user interface. In addition, since the announcement of the MET points system over a year ago, there has been no official statement regarding airdrops. Although Liquidity providers can earn higher returns elsewhere in the ecosystem (such as lulo.fi), market positioning and airdrop expectations may be the main drivers for Liquidity providers.
• Total Value Locked (TVL) retention: Meteora has achieved development through Pengu airdrops and the launch of Memecoins related to Trump and Melania, among other major events. Although during the launch of Memecoins, the Vol/TVL ratio of many trading pairs increased due to temporary demand, Meteora's total locked value continued to rise after the events, demonstrating a good retention rate.
• Integrated Development: Virtuals will migrate to Solana in the first quarter of 2024 and announce integration with the Meteora Liquidity pool.

![Raydium, Jupiter, Orca and Meteora, the four strong players, who will dominate the Solana DEX market?]###https://img.gateio.im/social/moments-8383699c865d906caf09dc19d5015016###

( Orca outlook pessimistic: Insufficient Liquidity

• Insufficient Liquidity: Despite being highly efficient, Orca's pool size is significantly smaller than Raydium's, resulting in higher slippage for large trades.
• Market positioning issue: Jupiter's routing mechanism prioritizes trading platforms with deeper Liquidity, making emerging low-Liquidity decentralized exchanges and Liquidity pools less attractive.
• The emergence of Meteora as a Liquidity aggregator further constrains the competitive survival ability of non-dominant decentralized exchanges in the routing framework, as routing only occurs when the slippage cost is lower than Meteora's fee premium, which is extremely rare outside of market demand surge.
• Limited Liquidity provider incentives: Orca lacks strong Liquidity mining strategies, resulting in a low long-term Liquidity provider retention rate.
• Inefficient capital allocation: Unlike Meteora, Orca has not yet implemented automated yield optimization, requiring manual management of LP, resulting in a more cumbersome user experience.
• The not optimistic Liquidity trend: the upcoming Meteora token may completely attract Liquidity providers from Orca, making its situation even more difficult.
• Insufficient integration: The failure to cooperate with Pump.fun in early 2024 and the recent missed opportunity with Virtuals highlight its competitive disadvantage in acquiring orders from emerging retail-driven applications. If there are no upcoming catalysts to reverse this trend, Liquidity migration may continue.
• The above factors have led to Orca's inability to retain the additional user volume obtained during peak network demand.

) Key Catalysts and Risks

Catalysts to Watch

• Comparison of RAY Repurchase and Holdings on Centralized Exchanges: RAY's repurchase speed has now exceeded the total amount of RAY held by centralized exchanges, strengthening the token's scarcity.
• The trend of total lock-up value growth: The sustained dominance of Raydium, Jupiter, and Meteora indicates the long-term sustainability of Liquidity. In high-pressure market conditions, the stickiness of emerging protocols is worth paying attention to and cannot be ignored.
• Partnership: Just as the integration of Pumpfun brings significant Liquidity to Raydium, the integration of Meteora and Virtuals may have a similar effect. Given the impact of such scale of cooperation on Liquidity and total locked value, partnerships with lesser-known participants are also receiving much attention.
• Meteora's Token Offering: This event could mark a turning point in Solana's decentralized exchange Liquidity allocation.
• Cost-to-Market Cap Ratio: Orca demonstrates high efficiency in high-demand months, but its Liquidity shortfall hinders long-term competitiveness. On the other hand, JUP faces the opposite situation, constrained by its business model. Compared to the latest 'Hot Project' Hyperliquid, Raydium generates ten times the cost at one-eighth of the fully diluted valuation.

![Raydium, Jupiter, Orca, and Meteora fight for dominance, who will rule the Solana DEX market?]###https://img.gateio.im/social/moments-349b4cf7f798579861547ae5c560cf27###

(# Risk

• Inflation pressure of JUP: Although Jupiter's aggregator position is stable, its large token supply may cause short-term price pressure.
• Decline in Orca market share: If the trend of Liquidity providers migration continues, Orca may face sustained Liquidity loss.
• Meteora airdrops and token economic execution risks: Although the early total lock-up value growth is strong, its token economy and incentive structure have not been tested.

) Conclusion and Investment Outlook

Solana's decentralized exchange landscape is shifting towards greater efficiency and more concentrated Liquidity. Raydium's excellent Liquidity positioning, active buyback mechanism, and market leadership make it a decentralized exchange highly confident for investment. Jupiter's aggregator role remains crucial, providing a competitive barrier, but token dilution poses a short-term obstacle. Orca, once a competitive player, faces significant challenges in retaining Liquidity and capital efficiency, becoming an increasingly fragile asset, indicating the dilemma of missing key integrations and difficulties in competing head-on with mature players. Meteora is expected to rise after the successful launch of upcoming tokens. Based on our current theory, investment positions in decentralized exchanges should focus on leading decentralized exchanges, decentralized exchange aggregators, and Liquidity aggregators within a given ecosystem, while emerging participants meeting catalyst standards can also hold small positions.