Overview

Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder and CEO of Solana Labs, has introduced plans for a new decentralized perpetual exchange known as Percolator. This initiative comes in response to growing competition from platforms such as Hyperliquid and Astar.

On Monday, he presented the concept of a sharded perpetual exchange protocol on the Solana blockchain. A perpetual exchange allows traders to speculate on cryptocurrency prices without an expiration date.

Percolator will feature two primary on-chain programs: the Router program to manage collateral, portfolio margins, and cross-slab routing, and the Slab program, which is run by liquidity providers, delivering a self-contained matching and settlement engine, as outlined in Yakovenko’s proposal on GitHub.

Reaction from the Crypto Community

Cointelegraph attempted to contact the Solana Foundation for comments but did not receive a reply by publication time.

The announcement follows Hyperliquid’s recent ability for third parties to independently launch their own perpetual swap contracts, aided by an upgrade known as HIP-3. This upgrade allows users staking at least 500,000 HYPE tokens to access permissionless, builder-deployed perpetual futures contracts.

Competition and Market Insights

A VanEck report suggested that Hyperliquid is attracting users from the Solana blockchain. In July, Hyperliquid captured 35% of all blockchain revenue, gaining traction at the expense of Solana, Ethereum, and BNB Chain.

VanEck’s analysts noted, “Hyperliquid has successfully attracted high-value users from Solana,” stating that the platform offers a straightforward and efficient product.

Despite Hyperliquid’s recent successes, rival DEX Aster has overtaken it to become the leading perpetual DEX with a daily trading volume of $14.5 billion, significantly higher than Hyperliquid’s volume.

However, data shows that Hyperliquid’s 30-day trading volume stands at $309 billion, outperforming Aster’s $145 billion, indicating robust usage among cryptocurrency traders.