State of Raydium Q1 2025

Key Insights

• Raydium averaged $3.6 billion in daily volume in Q1 2025, up 12.7% QoQ due to a record $195.8 billion in volume in January ($6.3 billion daily average).
• On April 16, Raydium launched LaunchLab, its token launchpad that features free token launches. Token creators can choose between a default JustSendit mode and custom settings via LaunchLab mode.
• In January, Raydium released its public beta for trading perpetual futures with no fees on maker trades and 2.5bps in fees on taker trades during the beta phase. Raydium Perps averaged $21.7 million in daily volume in Q1 and features gas-free trading with up to 50x leverage on more than 110 trading pairs.
• In Q1, a record $76.2 million in USDC (+38% QoQ) generated from protocol fees was spent buying back a record 15.4 million RAY (+17% QoQ), or 2.8% of the maximum supply.
• Q1 was Raydium’s fourth straight quarter as the leader in Solana daily DEX volume.

Primer

Raydium (RAY) is the largest automated market maker (AMM) decentralized exchange (DEX) by volume on Solana. First launched in 2021, Raydium allows users to permissionlessly create new liquidity pools, provide liquidity to existing pools, launch tokens, swap tokens, and trade perpetual futures. Liquidity providers earn trading fees on each swap made in a pool as well as RAY, the protocol’s token, and/or other tokens if the pool is incentivized. RAY can also be staked to earn additional RAY tokens.

In May 2024, the Raydium V3 application launched alongside revamped Constant Product Market Maker (CPMM) pools that support the Token-2022 token program and include a built-in price oracle. In addition to CPMM pools and its legacy standard AMM pools (AMM V4), which offer uniform liquidity distribution, Raydium offers Concentrated Liquidity Market Maker (CLMM) pools that allow for liquidity concentration at specific price points. CLMM provides lower slippage for traders and higher fee earnings for LPs, though the risk of higher impermanent loss is magnified by this design. Trading and routing are also available via the Raydium API.

More recent developments include Raydium’s release of its perpetual futures trading platform, Raydium Perps, on Jan. 9, 2025, and its token launch platform, LaunchLab, on April 16, 2025.

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Key Metrics

Performance Analysis

Volume and Market Share

As the leading DEX by volume on Solana, Raydium’s trading volumes are a key indicator of the network's overall activity. In Q1 2025, daily average volume grew 12.7% QoQ to $3.6 billion, due to a record $195.8 billion in volume in January. Daily volume peaked at $16 billion on Jan. 19 following the launch of President Donald Trump’s memecoin, TRUMP, on Jan. 17.

Token prices and trading activity across the broader crypto market also peaked at this time. Thereafter, daily trading volume on Raydium steadily declined, with $709.6 million in volume at Q1 end on March 31, amid the broader crypto market downturn. To further elucidate this trend, Raydium averaged a record $6.3 billion in daily volume in January compared to $1.1 billion in March, which is 66% below the $3.2 billion in daily volume Raydium averaged in Q4 2024.

Q1 was Raydium’s fourth straight quarter as the leader in Solana daily DEX volume at 46.9%, down from 56.0% in Q4. With this decline in Solana DEX volume share, Raydium failed to capture the majority of Solana’s DEX volume in Q1, a feat the protocol previously achieved in Q3 and Q4 2024.

Meteora overtook Orca as the second-largest Solana DEX by volume in Q1, due in large part to a number of high-profile token launches on the protocol, including Donald Trump’s TRUMP, Melania Trump’s MELANIA, and LIBRA. Meteora’s daily volume share peaked on Feb. 14 at 31.8% after the launch of LIBRA. Following LIBRA’s price collapse, evidence of insider access, and liquidity and market manipulation, Meteora Co-Founder Ben Chow resigned on Feb. 17 from his position at the protocol. From that day forward to quarter close, Meteora averaged 11.8% of Solana DEX volume share.

Volume share by token type is an important metric to understand which tokens are trending on Raydium. Year-over-year, meme volume share on Raydium increased from 14.3% in Q1 2024 to 20.0% in Q1 2025. However, Raydium’s meme volume share declined from 27.9% in Q4. All other token categories increased their volume share in Q1. Most notably, AI tokens continued to surge, with a 130% QoQ increase in volume share from 1.2% in Q4 to 2.9% in Q1.

The difference in volume share growth between narratively hot categories like AI, compared to all other token types, reinforces the commonly held view that attention drives trading activity in crypto, particularly on Solana. Outside of memes and AI, some notable tokens to first launch liquidity pools on Raydium in Q1 include Sonic’s SONIC, First Digital Labs’ FDUSD, Portal’s PORTAL, and APOLLO’s zBTC.

Raydium’s share of global DEX volume declined from 17.4% in Q4 to 15.1% in Q1, while PancakeSwap’s volume share increased from 11.5% to 17.2%. As a result, PancakeSwap once again became the second-largest DEX by volume share in Q1, a position it previously held prior to Q4 when Raydium was second.

However, like with other metrics discussed, Raydium led global DEX volume share in January, overtaking Uniswap. Moreover, year-over-year, Raydium’s share of global DEX volume is up 149% from 6.1% in Q1 2024. This increase in volume share over a longer time horizon reflects both the relative strength of Raydium to other DEXs on Solana as discussed above, and Solana’s record DEX volumes in January. In Q1, Solana led weekly DEX volume across all networks in January, but fell below Ethereum each week (and twice below BNB Smart Chain) in February and March. This marks a decline from Q4 2024, when Solana led weekly DEX volume across networks the entire quarter.

On Jan. 9, 2025, Raydium released its public beta for trading perpetual futures, a type of derivative contract that allows traders to speculate on an asset’s price without an expiry date. Raydium Perps is powered by Orderly Network’s liquidity layer and features gas-free trading with up to 50x leverage on more than 110 trading pairs. During the beta phase, there are no fees on maker trades and 0.0025% (2.5bps) in fees on taker trades charged by Orderly Network.

To begin trading, users can connect a Solana wallet, register and generate an API Key, and deposit USDC, the only accepted form of collateral. Notably, a swap and bridge feature to deposit any asset converted to USDC collateral is intended for future release. Also, during public beta, anyone can submit UI/UX bugs to earn RAY, with one participant each week earning 50 RAY, ten participants earning 10 RAY, and 50 participants earning 5 RAY.

In Q1, Raydium Perps averaged $21.7 million in daily trading volume. Daily volume peaked at $116.0 million on Feb. 3, and steadily declined thereafter, closing the quarter at $11.8 million on March 31. Some notable perpetual futures contracts listed on Raydium Perps in Q1 include Donald Trump’s meme token TRUMP, Melania Trump’s meme token MELANIA, multichain layer Zeus Network’s ZEUS, and Web3 information platform Kaito’s KAITO.

Tezos activated the Quebec upgrade, enhancing core protocol performance with faster block times and refined incentives, while Layer 2 Etherlink supported the network’s growth vision by driving scalability and application activity.

In January 2025, Raydium collected a record $402.8 million in monthly fees. This led to a 6.4% QoQ increase in daily average fees to $7.5 million in Q1 despite daily volume and, thereby, daily fees declining thereafter. Year-over-year, daily average fees are up more than 5x from $1.4 million in Q1 2024. Notably, following the TRUMP token launch, Raydium flipped Tether on Jan. 18 for the top spot in daily fees generated across crypto. Raydium daily fees peaked at a record $29.7 million on Jan. 19 the following day.

Following this, on Jan. 23, RAY’s circulating market cap closed at an all-time high $2.4 billion, 28% higher than Q4’s peak circulating market cap close of $1.8 billion on Nov. 21, 2024. Still, RAY’s circulating market cap declined 65% QoQ from $1.4 billion at the close of Q4 2024 to $495.1 million at the close of Q1 2025. Year-over-year, RAY’s circulating market cap declined 23% from $640.4 million at the close of Q1 2024.

On Raydium, the RAY token has a number of functions:

• Stake RAY to earn RAY: RAY tokenholders can stake RAY to earn additional RAY tokens at an APR of approximately 5%.
• RAY Liquidity Provision Rewards: Liquidity providers can earn RAY when it is allocated by the project team to reward liquidity providers of incentivized pools. Pools incentivized with RAY and/or third-party tokens can easily be seen on Raydium.
• Other RAY Rewards: The protocol may also offer other ways to earn RAY at its discretion. For example, during the public beta phase of Raydium Perps, anyone can submit UI/UX bugs to earn RAY, with one participant each week earning 50 RAY, ten participants earning 10 RAY, and 50 participants earning 5 RAY. Additionally, Raydium’s bug bounty program pays rewards in RAY, SOL, or USDC on Solana.
• Governance: Raydium has an offchain governance process facilitated via Realms, where users must deposit RAY to participate. A minimum of 1 million RAY is required to create a proposal, while each token equals one vote for active proposals. As of the close of Q1, there have been two proposals. 299.63

Of RAY’s 555 million maximum supply, 188.7 million RAY (34%) is allocated to a mining reserve, with ~1.9 million emitted each year. At the end of Q1, approximately 290.3 million RAY (52.3% of the maximum supply) were circulating. The project’s documentation states that the “Team” and “Seed” allocations, which together make up 25.9% of the maximum supply, fully vested in February 2024. Additionally, the documentation states, “The majority of the locked supply remains allocated to the Mining Reserve, Partnership & Ecosystem, and Advisors.” Together, these allocations make up 66% of the maximum supply (366.3 million RAY), as seen on Messari Token Unlocks.

In the first quarter, a record $76.2 million in USDC (+38% QoQ) generated from protocol fees was spent buying back RAY from the open market. This resulted in a record 15.4 million RAY (2.8% of the maximum supply) bought back in Q1 (+17% QoQ), though the price of RAY declined 65% QoQ from $4.87 to $1.70 at Q1 close.

Notably, on Jan. 20, more than 1.68 million RAY (0.3% of the maximum supply) was bought back using $11.3 million USDC following record daily volume of $16 billion the day prior. The price of RAY on Jan. 20 opened at $6.29 and closed at $7.35. At Q1 end, a lifetime total of 63.8 million RAY (11.5% of the maximum supply) had been bought back using $177.6 million USDC for an average buyback price of $2.78.

On Raydium, pool creators can select the pool’s trading fee from a number of fee tiers depending on the pool type:

• Standard AMM (AMM V4): 0.25%
• Concentrated liquidity (CLMM): 0.01%, 0.02%, 0.03%, 0.04%, 0.05%, 0.25%, 1%, 2%
• Constant Product (CPMM): 0.25%, 1%, 2%, 4%

For all pool types, 12% of the fee is allocated to RAY buybacks. Trading fees allocated to buybacks are automatically claimed when the value reaches $10 and transferred to intermediary wallets to “programmatically” buyback RAY.

For AMM V4, the remaining 88% of the fee is distributed to the pool’s liquidity providers pro rata, while for CLMM and CPMM it is 84%, with the remaining 4% allocated to the treasury. Treasury fees for CLMM and CPMM pools are automatically swapped to USDC and held in treasury accounts controlled by the protocol multsig. A record $7.3 million USDC was deposited to the treasury in Q1, a 46% increase from the $5.0 million deposited in Q4 2024, and 31x the $233,000 deposited in Q1 2024.

On Jan. 1, 2024, a trial pool creation fee of 0.68 SOL was instituted for standard AMM pools to prevent pool spamming. This pool creation fee was reduced to 0.15 SOL on Jan. 13, 2025, while a 0.15 SOL fee was implemented for CPMM (there is no pool creation fee for CLMM). Fees are held in accounts controlled by the protocol multisig and reserved for protocol infrastructure costs. In Q1, Raydium generated 37,210 SOL in pool creation fees (-12.5% QoQ), with more than 241,280 SOL generated since pool creation fees were first instituted.

Qualitative Analysis

LaunchLab

On April 16, Raydium launched its own token launchpad called LaunchLab. Tokens launched on LaunchLab are free, with token creators able to choose between a default JustSendit mode and custom settings via LaunchLab mode. When a token’s bonding curve reaches the set amount of SOL (85 SOL for JustSendit mode), the SOL and its equivalent in token liquidity are migrated to a Raydium AMM pool. LP tokens are then burned, and trading continues in the Raydium pool.

Prior to LaunchLab’s release, leading Solana token launchpad Pump.fun launched its own AMM called PumpSwap on March 20. Like other token launchpads, Pump.fun simplifies the process for deployers, who need only select a name, ticker, and image to commence trading on a bonding curve, with no fees to create a token. Previously, when Pump.fun tokens reached a market capitalization of $69,000, $12,000 was added to a standard AMM pool on Raydium, which supports asset pricing between zero and infinity. Pools first launched on Pump.fun have generated significant trading volume on Raydium. However, since the launch of PumpSwap on March 20, Pump.fun migrates liquidity to PumpSwap rather than Raydium.

With LaunchLab mode, users can adjust the percentage of supply sold on the bonding curve, with a minimum of 20% sold and a maximum of 80% sold, with the remainder migrated to the AMM pool upon graduation. Additionally, users can choose to lock and vest a percentage of the token supply and set cliff and vesting durations. Moreover, LaunchLab mode creators can elect to turn on post-migration fee share, which allows the creator to claim 10% of LP trading fees from the AMM pool the token has graduated to. This feature uses Raydium’s “Burn & Earn” feature, which allows the creator to claim fees using a “Fee key” using Raydium’s portfolio page.

Additionally, LaunchLab has a referral program. Each token page has a “Share” button where each Solana address can share a unique referral link. When anyone trades using that link, the referrer receives 0.1% (10 bps) of the trade. Rewards are paid in SOL, or the quote token used in the specific AMM pool.

Finally, LaunchLab supports third-party integration through a flexible Platform PDA (Program Derived Address) system that allows external teams and platforms to create and manage their own launch environments. By registering a Platform PDA, third parties can maintain a separate brand and platform that is powered by LaunchLab’s infrastructure and Raydium’s AMM for liquidity. On April 25, Bonk launched Letsbonk.Fun, the most popular third-party token launchpad to date that is powered by LaunchLab. LaunchLab also has an SDK that provides tools and functions for interacting with LaunchLab bonding curves.

Integrations, Partnerships, and Upgrades

Raydium has made significant strides in expanding its ecosystem and enhancing its utility through a series of strategic integrations, partnerships, and upgrades:

• Opinions.fun Integration (Jan. 28) - Opinions.fun launched its opinion marketplace, where opinion coins that reach a market cap of $69,000 graduate to a Raydium liquidity pool with liquidity locked and LP tokens burned.
• Printr Integration (Feb. 16) - Printr, a to-be-launched token launchpad, announced all meme tokens launched on Solana via its platform will have their liquidity deployed to Raydium.
• Symbiosis Integration (Feb. 19) - Symbiosis, a cross-chain AMM DEX, integrated onchain routes on Solana via Raydium.
• Daos.fun Integration (Feb. 25) - Daos.fun launched its DAO fundraising platform, where creators/founders can create a token with liquidity migrated to Raydium after completion of a public sale.
• Zypto App Integration (Feb. 26) - Zypto, a mobile crypto wallet and payment app, integrated Raydium for trading on Solana.
• Pumpkin Integration (March 14) - Pumpkin launched its token launchpad, whereby a CLMM pool on Raydium is created for each token whose bonding curve on Pumpkin reaches 85 SOL.
• Dripster.fun Integration (March 19) - Dripster.fun launched its token launchpad, whereby $8,000 of liquidity is deposited and locked on Raydium for each token whose bonding curve on Dripster.fun reaches $40,000.
• CUBE Integration (April 9) - CUBE, a digital asset marketplace, integrated Raydium as its first onchain route.
• GREED Academy Contribution (April 18) - Raydium contributed 8,500 RAY to Web3 educational intitative GREED Academy’s reward pool used to distribute prizes to participants.
• FluxBot Integration (April 21) - FluxBot, a Telegram trading bot, integrated Raydium’s LaunchLab, enabling trading of tokens launched via the platform.
• Maestro Integration (April 23) - Maestro, a Telegram trading bot, enabled trading of pre and post-bonded LaunchLab tokens with its Maestro 2.0 upgrade.
• Letsbonk.Fun Integration (April 25) - Bonk launched Letsbonk.Fun, its token launchpad powered by Raydium’s LaunchLab.

Closing Summary

Raydium averaged $3.6 billion in daily volume in Q1 2025, up 12.7% QoQ due to a record $195.8 billion in volume in January ($6.3 billion daily average). Q1 was Raydium’s fourth straight quarter as the leader in Solana daily DEX volume. Additionally, a record $76.2 million in USDC (+38% QoQ) generated from protocol fees was spent buying back a record 15.4 million RAY (+17% QoQ), or 2.8% of the maximum supply.

New features were added to improve the protocol’s functionality. In April, Raydium launched LaunchLab, a token launchpad that features free token launches with customizable parameters such as the percentage of the tokens' supply sold on the bonding curve. Moreover, in January, Raydium released its public beta for trading perpetual futures with no fees on maker trades and 2.5bps in fees on taker trades during the beta phase. Raydium Perps averaged $21.7 million in daily volume in Q1 and features gas-free trading with up to 50x leverage on more than 110 trading pairs.

As Raydium continues to compete with other DEXs on both Solana and other networks for market share, it has shown a commitment to innovation and product iteration, which should position the protocol for continued growth in 2025.

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