Venues / DEX

DEX Solana live

Orca

Orca is a Solana concentrated-liquidity AMM built on its Whirlpools program, used for token swaps, liquidity provision and pool creation. It is merging with Loopscale under the Formation name while the Orca DEX continues to operate.

Cost: Orca charges no additional interface fee on standard swaps. Traders pay only the pool fee, from 0.01% to 2% by tier (0.30% on standard volatile pairs), and Adaptive Fee pools can rise during volatility. 87% goes to LPs, 12% to the Orca DAO treasury and 1% to a Climate Fund. A $1,000 buy-and-sell costs about $0.00 in Orca fees.

Checked 2026-10-16 · sources below
Round trip fee
0%
buy + sell, platform fee
$1,000 buy + sell
$0.00
before network + pool fees
Fees paid, 30d
$9.4M
DefiLlama, to 2026-10-17
US availability
Unverified
UK: unverified · EU: unverified
Open Orca
Custody
non-custodial
KYC
none
Platforms
web
Launched
2021-02

Users paid Orca about $9.4M in fees in the 30 days to 2026-10-17 (DefiLlama) — a rough measure of how much it is actually used.

Best for: Solana traders and LPs who want a concentrated-liquidity DEX with no interface fee and a wide range of pool fee tiers.

Orca fees

FeeTypeRateApplies toNote
Interface fee platform 0% Buy and sell Orca does not charge an additional interface fee for standard swaps
Whirlpool fee: standard volatile pairs lp 0.3% Buy and sell Tick spacing 64
Whirlpool fee tiers (full range) lp — Buy and sell 0.01%, 0.02%, 0.04%, 0.05%, 0.16%, 0.30%, 0.65%, 1.00%, 2.00%; Splash Pools 1.00%
Adaptive fee lp — Buy and sell Adaptive Fee pools raise the fee above the base tier during elevated volatility
Protocol share of pool fee protocol — Buy and sell 12% of each trade's fee to the Orca DAO treasury and 1% to the Climate Fund; 87% to LPs
Solana network fee network — Buy and sell About 0.000005-0.00001 SOL per standard transaction

How DEX fees work: instead of a platform fee, each swap pays the fee of the pool it routes through (listed above where published). The interface itself may add its own fee.

Platform fees only. On-chain network/priority fees, pool (LP) fees and price impact are extra and vary by trade.

Is Orca legit?

Users swap and hold LP position NFTs in their own Solana wallets.

Backers: Placeholder, Polychain Capital and Three Arrows Capital (leads; also Coinbase Ventures, Jump Capital) ($18,000,000), 2021-09.

Incidents on record

  • 2026-04-20: Front-end credentials rotated after Vercel breach. After hosting provider Vercel disclosed unauthorized access to internal systems, Orca rotated potentially leaked keys and deployment credentials for its front end. Orca said its on-chain protocol and user funds were unaffected. Source

Where Orca is available

RegionStatus
United StatesUnverified
United KingdomUnverified
European UnionUnverified

Orca's Terms of Use (last updated 2023-11-19) do not name prohibited countries; they require users not to be on sanctions lists and reserve the right to limit availability by geography. (source)

We report what the venue's own terms say. Don't use a VPN to get around restrictions; venues can freeze accounts that do.

Pros and cons

Pros

  • No additional interface fee on standard swaps; the pool fee is the only trading charge.
  • Fee tiers run from 0.01% for pegged pairs to 2% for exotic pairs.
  • Orca's FAQ says Whirlpools is double audited and has had no protocol-level smart contract exploits since launch.
  • The swap screen can route through Titan, DFlow or Jupiter as well as Orca's own pools.

Cons

  • Terms do not list which countries are restricted, so availability by region is unclear.
  • Adaptive Fee pools can charge more than the base tier during volatile periods.
  • The pending merger into Formation may change the company behind Orca.

Features

concentrated liquidityadaptive feesliquidity lockstoken creationpool creationaggregator routing

Alternatives to Orca

Uniswap

Traders and liquidity providers who want direct access to Uniswap pools across many EVM chains without an interface fee.

0%Round trip

Aerodrome

Base traders and LPs, especially those who lock AERO to vote and earn swap fees.

Meteora

Solana LPs who want dynamic-fee concentrated liquidity, and launchpads that need configurable bonding curves.

PancakeSwap

BNB Chain traders and LPs who want deep v2/v3 liquidity and lower fee tiers than a 0.30% default.

Where Orca ranks

Orca FAQ

Is Orca legit?

Orca is a Solana DEX that has processed over $550 billion in volume since 2021, per Formation. Its FAQ says Whirlpools is double audited and has had no protocol-level exploits since launch. Audits do not remove smart contract, token or phishing risk.

What are Orca's swap fees?

Orca charges no interface fee on standard swaps. You pay the pool fee, which ranges from 0.01% to 2% by tier; standard volatile pairs use 0.30%. Adaptive Fee pools can rise during volatility.

Who receives Orca's trading fees?

For every Whirlpool trade, 87% of the fee goes to liquidity providers, 12% to the Orca DAO treasury and 1% to the Climate Fund.

What is Formation?

Formation is the combined company from the merger of Orca and Loopscale, led by Loopscale co-founder Luke Truitt as CEO. Orca says the DEX keeps running, positions are unchanged, and ORCA holders see no dilution.

When did the ORCA token launch?

Orca's FAQ says the ORCA governance token launched on August 9, 2021.

Sources

Last checked . Fees and terms change often; the venue's own page wins if it disagrees with ours.

  1. Orca docs index: fee tiers and trading fee distribution — checked 2026-10-16
  2. Orca docs: FAQs (interface fee, audits, ORCA launch) — checked 2026-10-16
  3. Orca docs: How to swap — checked 2026-10-16
  4. Orca docs: Formation FAQ (Orca and Loopscale merger) — checked 2026-10-16
  5. Formation — checked 2026-10-16
  6. Orca Terms of Use (last updated 2023-11-19) — checked 2026-10-16
  7. CoinDesk: Orca raises $18M Series A — checked 2026-10-16
  8. The Block: Orca raises $18 million (launched February 2021) — checked 2026-10-16
  9. RootData: Orca rotates keys after Vercel incident — checked 2026-10-16