Key Insights
Raydium reported an impressive average daily trading volume of $3.6 billion in the first quarter of 2025, marking a 12.7% increase quarter-over-quarter (QoQ). This surge was largely driven by a record-breaking monthly volume of $195.8 billion in January, which translated to a daily average of $6.3 billion. On April 16, the platform introduced LaunchLab, a new token launchpad that allows for no-cost token launches. Creators can opt for a standard JustSendit mode or customize settings through the LaunchLab mode. In January, the platform also unveiled a public beta for perpetual futures trading, offering fee-free maker trades and a nominal fee of 2.5 basis points for taker trades during the beta period. Raydium Perps averaged $21.7 million in daily trading volume during Q1, featuring gas-free trading with leverage options of up to 50x across more than 110 trading pairs. Additionally, a record $76.2 million in USDC, which represented a 38% increase QoQ, was utilized to buy back an unprecedented 15.4 million RAY tokens, accounting for 2.8% of the total maximum supply. Notably, Q1 marked Raydium’s fourth consecutive quarter as the top decentralized exchange (DEX) in terms of daily volume on Solana.
Primer
Raydium (RAY) stands out as the leading automated market maker (AMM) decentralized exchange by volume on the Solana network. Launched in 2021, it enables users to create new liquidity pools, contribute to existing ones, launch tokens, exchange tokens, and engage in perpetual futures trading without requiring permission. Liquidity providers earn trading fees from each swap conducted in a pool, along with rewards in RAY, the platform’s native token, and potentially other tokens if the pool is incentivized. The RAY token can also be staked to generate additional RAY tokens. In May 2024, Raydium rolled out its V3 application, which included revamped Constant Product Market Maker (CPMM) pools that support the Token-2022 program and feature a built-in price oracle. In addition to the CPMM and traditional AMM pools (AMM V4), Raydium offers Concentrated Liquidity Market Maker (CLMM) pools designed for liquidity concentration at specific price points. While CLMM pools enhance trading efficiency and yield for liquidity providers, they also carry a greater risk of impermanent loss. The Raydium API also facilitates trading and routing options.
Volume and Market Share
As the foremost DEX on Solana, Raydium’s trading volume serves as a critical measure of the network’s activity. In Q1 2025, the platform’s daily average volume increased by 12.7% QoQ to $3.6 billion, driven by an all-time high of $195.8 billion in January. The daily trading volume reached a peak of $16 billion on January 19, coinciding with the launch of the TRUMP memecoin on January 17. This period also saw a broader uptick in token prices and trading across the cryptocurrency market. However, following this peak, Raydium’s daily trading volume gradually declined, ending the quarter with $709.6 million in volume on March 31, reflective of a broader market downturn. In January, Raydium averaged $6.3 billion in daily volume, a stark contrast to the $1.1 billion average in March, representing a 66% decline from the $3.2 billion average recorded in Q4 2024. Q1 marked Raydium’s fourth consecutive quarter leading Solana in daily DEX volume, with a market share of 46.9%, down from 56.0% in Q4. This dip indicated that Raydium did not command the majority of Solana’s DEX volume as it had in previous quarters.
Meteora surpassed Orca to become the second-largest DEX on Solana by volume during this period, largely due to a series of high-profile token launches, including Donald Trump’s TRUMP, Melania Trump’s MELANIA, and LIBRA. Meteora’s daily volume share peaked at 31.8% on February 14, shortly after the LIBRA launch. However, the project’s reputation suffered following a price collapse, claims of insider trading, and market manipulation, resulting in the resignation of Meteora’s co-founder on February 17. After this incident, Meteora averaged 11.8% of Solana’s DEX volume share until the quarter’s conclusion.
The volume share by token type is a significant metric for gauging trending tokens on Raydium. Year-over-year, meme token trading volume share on Raydium rose from 14.3% in Q1 2024 to 20.0% in Q1 2025, although it decreased from 27.9% in Q4. Other token categories saw increased volume share during Q1, with AI tokens experiencing a 130% QoQ surge in volume share, climbing from 1.2% in Q4 to 2.9% in Q1. This disparity in growth between trending categories like AI and other tokens underscores the notion that market attention drives trading dynamics in the crypto space, particularly on Solana. Noteworthy tokens that launched 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 the global DEX volume fell from 17.4% in Q4 to 15.1% in Q1, while PancakeSwap’s volume share rose from 11.5% to 17.2%, reclaiming its position as the second-largest DEX by volume. However, Raydium led global DEX volume share in January, surpassing Uniswap. Moreover, the year-over-year performance showed a significant 149% increase in Raydium’s share of global DEX volume, growing from 6.1% in Q1 2024. This long-term growth reflects Raydium’s relative strength against other DEXs on Solana, as well as the record volumes seen in January. During Q1, Solana led weekly DEX volume across all networks in January, but subsequently fell behind Ethereum and, on two occasions, BNB Smart Chain in February and March, contrasting with Q4 2024, when Solana had consistently led in DEX volume.
On January 9, 2025, Raydium introduced its public beta for perpetual futures trading—derivative contracts that allow speculation on asset prices without expiration dates. Raydium Perps, powered by Orderly Network’s liquidity layer, offers gas-free trading with leverage of up to 50x on over 110 trading pairs. The beta phase features no fees for maker trades and a minimal fee of 0.0025% for taker trades charged by Orderly Network. To participate, users can link a Solana wallet, register for an API key, and deposit USDC as the only accepted collateral. A future release is planned to allow users to swap and bridge assets to convert them into USDC collateral. Additionally, during the beta phase, participants can report UI/UX bugs for rewards in RAY, with various tiers of rewards available.
In Q1, Raydium Perps averaged $21.7 million in daily volume, peaking at $116.0 million on February 3 before declining, closing the quarter at $11.8 million on March 31. Notable perpetual futures contracts on Raydium Perps during Q1 included Donald Trump’s TRUMP, Melania Trump’s MELANIA, Zeus Network’s ZEUS, and Kaito’s KAITO.
Key Metrics
In January 2025, Raydium amassed a record $402.8 million in monthly fees, leading to a 6.4% QoQ increase in daily average fees, which reached $7.5 million in Q1, despite a subsequent decline in daily volume. Year-over-year, daily average fees rose more than fivefold from $1.4 million in Q1 2024. Notably, following the TRUMP token launch, Raydium surpassed Tether on January 18 in daily fees generated across the crypto space, with daily fees peaking at $29.7 million on January 19.
On January 23, the circulating market cap of RAY hit an all-time high of $2.4 billion, a 28% increase from the peak of $1.8 billion recorded in Q4. However, RAY’s circulating market cap fell 65% QoQ, dropping from $1.4 billion at the end of Q4 2024 to $495.1 million at the close of Q1 2025. Year-over-year, the circulating market cap decreased 23% from $640.4 million at the conclusion of Q1 2024.
RAY has several functions on the Raydium platform: Users can stake RAY to earn additional RAY tokens at an approximate annual percentage rate (APR) of 5%. Liquidity providers can earn RAY through allocations from incentivized pools. The protocol may also introduce additional methods to earn RAY at its discretion. During the public beta phase of Raydium Perps, participants can report UI/UX bugs for rewards of RAY, SOL, or USDC. Governance is managed off-chain through Realms, requiring users to deposit RAY to participate—1 million RAY is needed to create a proposal, with each token counting as one vote on active proposals. As of Q1’s close, two proposals had been brought forward.
Out of a maximum supply of 555 million RAY, 188.7 million RAY (34%) is reserved for mining, with approximately 1.9 million issued annually. By the end of Q1, around 290.3 million RAY (52.3% of the maximum supply) were in circulation. Documentation from the project indicates that the “Team” and “Seed” allocations, which together account for 25.9% of the total supply, were fully vested as of February 2024. The locked supply mainly corresponds to the Mining Reserve, Partnership & Ecosystem, and Advisors, accounting for 66% of the maximum supply (366.3 million RAY).
In the first quarter, $76.2 million in USDC (+38% QoQ) from protocol fees was allocated for RAY repurchases from the open market. This led to a record buyback of 15.4 million RAY (2.8% of the maximum supply), reflecting a 17% QoQ increase, despite the price of RAY dropping 65% from $4.87 to $1.70 by the end of Q1. Noteworthy is that on January 20, over 1.68 million RAY (0.3% of the maximum supply) was repurchased using $11.3 million USDC following a record daily volume of $16 billion the prior day. The price of RAY opened at $6.29 and closed at $7.35 on January 20. By the end of Q1, a cumulative total of 63.8 million RAY (11.5% of the maximum supply) had been repurchased at an average price of $2.78, using $177.6 million USDC.
On Raydium, liquidity pool creators can set the trading fee from various tiers depending on the pool type: Standard AMM (AMM V4): 0.25%, Concentrated Liquidity Market Maker (CLMM): 0.01%, 0.02%, 0.03%, 0.04%, 0.05%, 0.25%, 1%, 2%, and Constant Product Market Maker (CPMM): 0.25%, 1%, 2%, 4%. For all pool types, 12% of the fees are earmarked for RAY buybacks, which are automatically claimed when the accrued amount exceeds $10 and subsequently transferred to intermediary wallets for programmatic buybacks. In AMM V4, the remaining 88% of fees are shared among liquidity providers on a pro-rata basis, while for CLMM and CPMM, 84% goes to liquidity providers, with 4% allocated to the treasury. The treasury fees for CLMM and CPMM pools are automatically converted to USDC and stored in treasury accounts controlled by the protocol’s multisig. In Q1, a record $7.3 million USDC was deposited into the treasury, reflecting a 46% increase from the $5.0 million in Q4 2024 and 31 times the $233,000 deposited in Q1 2024.
To deter pool spamming, a trial pool creation fee of 0.68 SOL was introduced for standard AMM pools on January 1, 2024. This fee was reduced to 0.15 SOL on January 13, 2025, while a 0.15 SOL fee was also instituted for CPMM pools (CLMM pools do not incur a creation fee). Fees are managed in accounts under the protocol’s multisig and are reserved for infrastructure costs. In Q1, Raydium generated 37,210 SOL in pool creation fees, a decrease of 12.5% QoQ, with over 241,280 SOL accumulated since the implementation of pool creation fees.
LaunchLab
On April 16, Raydium launched LaunchLab, its dedicated token launchpad. Tokens introduced on LaunchLab are free, allowing token creators to select between a standard JustSendit mode or a customizable LaunchLab mode. In JustSendit mode, once a token’s bonding curve reaches a threshold of 85 SOL, the SOL and its equivalent liquidity in tokens are transitioned to a Raydium AMM pool, where LP tokens are burned, and trading continues in the Raydium environment. Before the introduction of LaunchLab, another leading Solana token launchpad, Pump.fun, had launched its own AMM named PumpSwap on March 20. Similar to other token launchpads, Pump.fun facilitates a streamlined process for deployers, who only need to specify a name, ticker, and image to begin trading on a bonding curve without incurring creation fees. Previously, tokens on Pump.fun that reached a market cap of $69,000 would add $12,000 to a standard AMM pool on Raydium, enabling asset pricing from zero to infinity. However, following the launch of PumpSwap, liquidity from Pump.fun is now migrated to PumpSwap rather than Raydium.
With the LaunchLab mode, users can determine the percentage of the total supply sold on the bonding curve, ranging from a minimum of 20% to a maximum of 80%, with any remaining supply transitioning to the AMM pool. Additionally, creators can lock and vest a portion of the token supply, specifying cliff and vesting periods. They may also opt for a post-migration fee share, which allows them to receive 10% of the LP trading fees from the AMM pool to which their token has graduated. This utilizes Raydium’s “Burn & Earn” feature, enabling creators to claim fees via a “Fee key” through Raydium’s portfolio page.
Moreover, LaunchLab incorporates a referral program, where each token page includes a “Share” button allowing Solana addresses to generate unique referral links. When trades are completed through these links, the referrer earns 0.1% (10 basis points) of the trade, with rewards distributed in SOL or the corresponding quote token from the specific AMM pool.
Finally, LaunchLab accommodates third-party integrations through a versatile Platform PDA (Program Derived Address) system, enabling external teams to establish and manage their own launch environments. By registering a Platform PDA, third parties can maintain their brand and platform while utilizing LaunchLab’s infrastructure and Raydium’s AMM for liquidity. On April 25, Bonk launched Letsbonk.Fun, the most prominent third-party token launchpad powered by LaunchLab, which also offers a software development kit (SDK) to facilitate interactions with LaunchLab bonding curves.
Integrations, Partnerships, and Upgrades
Raydium has made considerable progress in broadening its ecosystem and enhancing its utility through a series of strategic integrations, partnerships, and upgrades:
– **Opinions.fun Integration (Jan. 28)** – Opinions.fun introduced an opinion marketplace in which opinion coins that achieve a market cap of $69,000 transition to a Raydium liquidity pool, featuring locked liquidity and burned LP tokens.
– **Printr Integration (Feb. 16)** – Printr, a token launchpad set to launch, announced that all meme tokens launched on Solana via its platform would have their liquidity sourced from Raydium.
– **Symbiosis Integration (Feb. 19)** – Symbiosis, a cross-chain AMM DEX, integrated on-chain routing on Solana via Raydium.
– **Daos.fun Integration (Feb. 25)** – Daos.fun launched a DAO fundraising platform where creators can establish a token with liquidity transitioned to Raydium following a public sale.
– **Zypto App Integration (Feb. 26)** – Zypto, a mobile crypto wallet and payment application, integrated Raydium for trading on Solana.
– **Pumpkin Integration (Mar. 14)** – Pumpkin launched its token launchpad, which creates a CLMM pool on Raydium for each token whose bonding curve reaches 85 SOL.
– **Dripster.fun Integration (Mar. 19)** – Dripster.fun introduced its token launchpad, which locks $8,000 of liquidity on Raydium for each token whose bonding curve hits $40,000.
– **CUBE Integration (Apr. 9)** – CUBE, a digital asset marketplace, integrated Raydium as its initial on-chain route.
– **GREED Academy Contribution (Apr. 18)** – Raydium contributed 8,500 RAY to the GREED Academy’s reward pool, which is utilized for distributing prizes to participants.
– **FluxBot Integration (Apr. 21)** – FluxBot integrated Raydium’s LaunchLab, enabling the trading of tokens launched through the platform.
– **Maestro Integration (Apr. 23)** – Maestro upgraded its Telegram trading bot to facilitate trading of both pre and post-bonded LaunchLab tokens with its 2.0 version.
– **Letsbonk.Fun Integration (Apr. 25)** – Bonk launched Letsbonk.Fun, its token launchpad powered by Raydium’s LaunchLab.
Closing Summary
In the first quarter of 2025, Raydium achieved an average daily trading volume of $3.6 billion, reflecting a 12.7% increase QoQ, driven by a record $195.8 billion in volume during January. This quarter marked Raydium’s fourth consecutive period as the leader in daily DEX volume on Solana. Additionally, a record $76.2 million in USDC, representing a 38% Qo
