I. Project introduction
Orca is currently the most trusted decentralized exchange (DEX) on Solana and Eclipse, developed by experienced practitioners in the DeFi field, aiming to provide the best trading experience for traders and liquidity providers (LPs). Orca adopts the Centralized Liquidity Automated Market Maker (CLMM) protocol, which has powerful features and allows trading functions such as User Experience constant product. Orca focuses on providing the most user-friendly trading environment for traders and liquidity providers (LPs) with different levels of experience, as well as ecosystem builders.
Orca's mission is to change the way assets are traded by leading the way in liquidity provision. The platform is committed to improving transaction efficiency and transparency, expanding the range of tradable assets, and promoting the coordination and flow of capital globally. Orca's ultimate goal is not only to become the mainstream liquidity layer on Solana, but also to connect the traditional financial system, promote the transformation of the entire financial system to blockchain, and create more efficient cross-border capital flow methods.
Orca's core philosophy is based on three aspects: "professionalism, principles, and fun". The platform focuses on putting users first, ensuring that both novice and experienced users can enjoy a convenient experience; adhering to transparency and security, there have been no hacking incidents for four consecutive years; at the same time, emphasizing community participation, advocating for adding fun to innovation, and enhancing User Experience. Since 2021, Orca has grown into one of the top DEXs in the Solana ecosystem, always adhering to innovation and integrity.
II. Project highlights
1. Innovative centralized liquidity (CLMM) mechanism
Orca adopts the Centralized Liquidity Automated Market Maker (CLMM) model, which allows liquidity providers to concentrate capital within specific price ranges, greatly improving capital efficiency. Unlike traditional constant product market makers (CPMM), Orca's CLMM can help liquidity providers obtain higher returns while reducing trader slippage, especially during block trading, where traders can enjoy better prices and fewer price shocks.
2. Optimization of Whirlpool liquidity mechanism
Orca's Whirlpool model allows liquidity providers to concentrate liquidity within specific price ranges, and through this centralized liquidity mechanism, higher capital utilization and potential returns are achieved. The Whirlpool model solves the capital efficiency problem in traditional AMM models, allowing traders to enjoy lower slippage and better trading prices, especially in the case of large market fluctuations, providing a more stable trading experience.
3. Low slippage and efficient trading experience
The CLMM mechanism of the Orca platform ensures low slippage and efficient trading, especially in large transactions, which can provide prices close to expectations. The platform also integrates the Jupiter price comparison tool to help traders ensure the best price for trading, thus achieving more efficient market connection and lower trading costs. This makes Orca an efficient trading platform suitable for trading needs of all sizes.
4. Cross-chain expansion and Layer 2 compatibility
In 2024, Orca expanded to Eclipse, a platform that provides Layer 2 scaling solutions for Ethereum, while deploying the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) to execute smart contracts. Through this cross-chain expansion, Orca can provide liquidity to a wider range of blockchain users and support interaction between the Solana and Ethereum ecosystems. This enables Orca to not only serve local assets on Solana, but also connect more blockchains and traditional Financial Marekt, providing users with a convenient channel for cross-chain transactions and asset management.
III. Market value expectations
Orca ($ORCA), a trusted decentralized exchange (DEX) on Solana and Eclipse, significantly improves capital efficiency and trading experience through its innovative Centralized Liquidity Automated Market Maker (CLMM) model. Orca's high performance, low slippage, and developer-friendly features continue to attract traders and liquidity providers. The current price of $ORCA is $6.10, with a total supply of 100 million ORCA and approximately 53.4034 million in circulation.
In order to better evaluate the market potential of Orca, we compared it with other well-known decentralized exchanges, especially SushiSwap ($SUSHI), Uniswap ($UNI), and 0x ($ZRX), which are representative projects in the DEX field.
Benchmark project:
1. DEX based on automated market-making system: SushiSwap ($SUSHI)
Unit price: $2.5
Market capitalization: 483 million USD
Fully diluted market cap: $696 million
Circulation: 193 million SUSHI
Total supply: 278 million SUSHI
2. Decentralized trading protocol: Uniswap ($UNI)
Unit price: 18.14 USD
Market capitalization: 10.92 billion USD
Fully diluted market cap: $18.14 billion
Circulation: 600 million UNI
Total supply: 1 billion UNI
3. Decentralized trading infrastructure: 0x ($ZRX)
Unit price: 0.7296 USD
Market capitalization: 619 million USD
Fully diluted market cap: $730 million
Circulation: 848 million ZRX
Total supply: 1 billion ZRX
Market value comparison with expectations
Based on Orca's current market positioning and technological advantages, we can speculate on its future market value growth potential, as follows:
1. Benchmarking SushiSwap ($SUSHI)
If $ORCA reaches SushiSwap's circulating market cap level ($483 million), the $ORCA unit price will rise to $9.04, which means an increase of about 48%.
2. Benchmark 0x ($ZRX)
If $ORCA reaches the circulating market cap level of 0x ($619 million), the $ORCA price will rise to $11.59, an increase of about 90%.
3. Benchmarking Uniswap ($UNI)
If $ORCA approaches Uniswap's circulating market cap ($10.92 billion), the price of $ORCA will soar to $204.54, an increase of 3,255%.
IV. Token Economics
Token basic information
ORCA is the governance token of the Orca platform, published on August 9, 2021. The total supply is 100 million, the initial circulation supply is 5.25 million, and the current circulation of tokens is 53.4034 million.
Token distribution
The initial supply of ORCA tokens is 5.25 million tokens, which are distributed entirely through airdrops. The specific distribution methods are as follows: 4 million tokens are allocated to liquidity providers, which are retroactively distributed based on the USD value of the liquidity provided; 500,000 tokens are allocated to ordinary traders, targeting addresses with a total transaction volume between $1,000 and $10,000; 500,000 tokens are allocated to heavy traders, applicable to addresses with a total transaction volume of more than $10,000; 250,000 tokens are allocated to advisor e ^ {i} ventures to thank them for providing early liquidity to the Orca protocol.
Team and consultants
The team and advisors received a total of 20% of the tokens, 9.6% for private sales, and 4.3% for value-added and advisor classes. All team members, advisors, and future investors' tokens are gradually released with a 3-year vesting period and a 1-year lock-up period. These allocated tokens are designed to support Orca's long-term development, including encouraging developers to build on top of Orca through the Builder project, attracting community leaders to participate, and helping to promote the development of the Orca ecosystem.
Contributor Rewards Program
In 2022, ORCA token holders elected the DAO Governance Committee to enable rapid protocol upgrades and decision-making, while still retaining ultimate control over token holders. In Quarter 1 of 2023, the Governance Committee approved a proposal to allocate 5 million ORCA tokens, which will be used to recruit and retain top talents in the Solana ecosystem to further promote innovation and development in the Orca ecosystem.
Unallocated tokens
The remaining unallocated ORCA tokens are divided into three categories, which are used for community and governance plans, contributor rewards and teams, private sales, and advisor distribution. These tokens will be stored in transparent addresses on the chain, and community members can query and audit them at any time.
Reward distribution and liquidity incentives
Orca will distribute ORCA tokens on specific trading pairs through a reward mechanism to encourage more liquidity participation. These rewards can be provided by the token publisher to attract liquidity to their asset pairs. The amount and duration of rewards will be adjusted according to market demand.
Private sales and investors
Orca has never conducted a public sale. The only sale activity occurred during the private sale phase in September 2021, during which 9.6% of ORCA tokens were allocated to private investors. All investors' tokens will follow a linear attribution unlocking method after the unlocking period ends.
V. Team and financing
Team Info
Orca is jointly led by two co-founders, Yutaro Mori and Grace Kwan. With their rich experience in the DeFi field, they are committed to providing users with secure, transparent, and efficient decentralized trading services. The team focuses on improving User Experience and has built a powerful and user-friendly decentralized trading platform for the Solana ecosystem. Financing information
Orca completed its Series A financing on September 22, 2021, with a financing amount of $18 million and a valuation of $188 million at the time. This round of financing was jointly participated by several well-known institutions, including Placeholder, Polychain, Three Arrows Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Jump Capital, Ryze Labs, DeFiance Capital, Zee Prime Capital, Collab + Currency, and Solana Ventures. This funding helped Orca accelerate the development of the platform and the expansion of the ecosystem.
VI. Risk Warning
1. The decentralized exchange industry is highly competitive. Although Orca is leading in the Solana and Eclipse platforms, it still needs to face competition from other DEXs, AMMs, and centralized exchanges (CEXs). The emergence of new competitors or the technological upgrades of existing competitors may place pressure on Orca's market share and user engagement rate.
2. Orca uses the Centralized Liquidity Automated Market Maker (CLMM) model, which improves the capital efficiency of liquidity providers. However, insufficient market depth or liquidity providers exiting the market may lead to insufficient platform liquidity, especially when the market is volatile, there may be slippage or large price fluctuations.
VII. Official links
Website:https://www.orca.so/
Twitter:https://x.com/orca_so
Discord:https://discord.com/invite/nSwGWn5KSG