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Editorial policyRaydium is a decentralised exchange on Solana offering concentrated liquidity pools (CLMM), standard AMM pools, and permissionless pool creation. It is the primary liquidity venue for new Solana token launches graduating from Pump.fun and a core routing destination for Jupiter aggregator. The RAY token governs emissions and protocol fees.
Raydium is Solana's oldest major AMM, powering concentrated liquidity pools, yield farms, and the graduation path for Pump.fun token launches — one of the highest-fee DEXes in all of DeFi.
Market context
DeFiLlamaAs of 23 September 2026, What is Raydium? Solana's Leading AMM and Launchpad Explained reports approximately $1.34B total value locked in the dexs category across Solana.
Skip this What is Raydium? Solana's Leading AMM and Launchpad Explained explainer if you wanted a first wallet setup or a CEX account. It covers how the protocol works and who it is not for. How-tos and comparisons are linked where they exist.
Related comparisons
Raydium launched in 2021 as one of Solana's first automated market makers and remains among the highest-volume DEXes on any blockchain. Its concentrated liquidity market maker (CLMM) pools — similar to Uniswap V3 — allow LPs to set price ranges for capital-efficient liquidity provision on SOL, USDC, and memecoin pairs.
Raydium's role in the Pump.fun ecosystem made it a fee-generation powerhouse in 2024–2026: tokens launched on Pump.fun's bonding curve graduate to Raydium pools once they hit a market cap threshold, funnelling enormous launch volume through Raydium infrastructure.
Convex, Curve, Resupply, Inverse Finance and Frax share collateral, gauges and stablecoin rails. Read the flywheel first if you are new to the stack.
FAQ
Raydium is a decentralised exchange on Solana offering AMM and concentrated liquidity pools. It is a primary venue for new token launches and Jupiter aggregator routing.
RAY is Raydium's governance and emissions token, used for liquidity mining rewards and protocol governance votes.
Jupiter is an aggregator that routes through Raydium (and Orca, Meteora, etc.). Raydium provides the underlying liquidity pools; Jupiter finds the best price across them.
Tokens launched on Pump.fun graduate to Raydium liquidity pools when they reach a bonding curve threshold — making Raydium the default DEX for successful Solana memecoin launches.
Raydium has operated since 2021. Risks include smart contract bugs, impermanent loss on LP positions, and extreme volatility on memecoin pairs.
Kamino Finance is the largest lending protocol on Solana by TVL in 2026, offering automated liquidity strategies, CLMM management, and a full lending market comparable to Aave on Ethereum. This guide explains how Kamino works and how to use it.
Jupiter is Solana’s default DEX aggregator. Verdict-first guide on routing, when a single DEX is enough, and why Ethereum wallets should not start here.
Solana is the high-performance Layer-1 blockchain built for speed and scale — hosting a thriving DeFi ecosystem including Jupiter, Raydium, Marinade Finance, and the viral memecoin launchpad Pump.fun, powered by its unique Proof of History consensus mechanism and processing tens of thousands of transactions per second.