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Best Decentralised Exchanges · Rank 07 of 8
Solana pairs that need a direct pool rather than a route
Last verified August 17, 20264 scored axes
Documented, with gaps
Raydium scores 8.1 out of 10 and ranks #7 of 8 in the best decentralised exchanges table, strongest on execution cost (9.2) and weakest on decentralisation (7.2).
Raydium supplies a large share of the underlying liquidity that Solana aggregators route through, and its pools are where most new Solana assets first trade. It carries the launchpad-adjacent risks that come with being first.
4 axes, weighted as published in the table’s methodology. Each score below is read from the fact printed under it.
7.8/ 35% of the score
AMM in production on Solana since 2021; in December 2022 a trojan-compromised pool-owner authority key allowed $4.4m to be taken from eight pools, after which RAY holders voted to fund compensation from the DAO treasury and the authority was moved onto hardware.
8.4/ 25% of the score
Supplies a large share of the base liquidity that Solana aggregators route through; most new Solana assets trade here first, where reserves are thin at launch.
9.2/ 20% of the score
Standard pool fee with very low network costs; price impact varies sharply on newly listed assets.
7.2/ 20% of the score
Program upgrade authority is held by the team; pool creation is permissionless.
When a Solana router quotes you a price, a large share of the depth behind that quote is Raydium's. It has run since 2021 and is where most new Solana assets trade first — which is simultaneously its usefulness and its hazard, since reserves on a fresh listing are thin and price impact on them is violent.
A trojan compromised the pool-owner authority key and $4.4m was taken from eight pools. The contracts behaved correctly; the operational security around them did not. RAY holders subsequently voted to fund compensation from the DAO treasury, and the authority was moved onto hardware. Read it as an operations failure with a remediation, and note that program upgrade authority still sits with the team.
Standard pool fees plus negligible network costs make it cheap; pool creation is permissionless, which is why the catalogue includes both blue chips and a long tail of assets nobody should touch. For most traders the sensible route is through an aggregator that happens to fill on Raydium, rather than choosing the venue directly.
Supplying to a new pool here means taking the other side of whatever the launch does, which on Solana is frequently violent. The fee income on a successful listing can be substantial; the impermanent loss on an unsuccessful one is total in the way only a failed token can be.
The AMM has run since 2021 without a contract-level exploit, but its record includes a December 2022 compromise of the pool-owner key that cost $4.4m, later compensated from the DAO treasury. Program upgrade authority remains with the team.
Pool creation is permissionless and the venue is where Solana routers look for liquidity, so a new pool gets order flow immediately. That also means brand-new pools are thin and expensive to trade at size.
For most swaps, Jupiter, because it will route through Raydium anyway when that is the best price and will find a better one when it is not. Going direct makes sense mainly for liquidity provision.
8 services in best decentralised exchanges