Sep 26, 2021
Orca Makes its First Debut in LBank: a Deep Dive into the DEX for People, not Programs
Author: Smile, Xiang Zhang
LBank is the first to launch Orca! In this article, we’ll unveil the mystery of this people-centered DEX in the Solana ecosystem. It’s reported that its token price surges significantly, over 500% to be more specific, after the launch in LBank.
High gas fee and slow transaction speed have plagued Ethereum for a long time, which sends a variety of public chains scrambling for innovative solutions that they hope will carve a niche for them in this new round of reshuffle. As the tide subsides, Solana emerges as the apparent overachiever, leading the pack with utterly convincing surges in value.
The past few months have seen Solana maintain quite a strong growth momentum, with SOL increasing by more than 400%, and the market value soaring from approximately $90 million to over $51 billion since July. The ecosystem really takes off.
So far, it has incorporated eight major areas covering Defi, NFT, games, and DApps, with more than 20 subdivisions including DEX, derivatives, borrowing and lending, and stablecoins. It has also successfully incubated some well-known projects such as Serum, Maps.me and Orca.
Orca is a user-friendly decentralized trading platform on Solana, providing a very competitive annual interest rate for a number of products within the system. What’s more, Its easy-to-use functions have also attracted lots of users to its DeFi protocol for extra token rewards. So far the locked positions have reached $300 million.
It is reported that Orca has recently secured $18 million in Series A financing through token sales, mainly pledged by Three Arrows Capital, Polychain Capital, Placeholder, and other institutions. Coinbase Ventures, Jump Capital, Sino Global Capital, and many others are quite optimistic about it and also make some pledges. So what is the charm of Orca that makes institutional investors fall head over heels? This article is to unveil the mystery behind Orca.
A people-centered DEX, not programs
Orca prides itself to be an AMM aggregator that’s centered on user experience instead of programs, providing simpler and more user-friendly services for the Solana ecosystem. When trading, users will enjoy extremely fast speed and ultra-low transaction fees. What’s more impressive is its fair price indicator which allows users to know whether the transaction is done at the best market price.
In addition, Orca is one of the first 12 projects funded by the Solana Foundation. But given its small team, only two people, a blockchain software development engineer and a software engineer/interaction designer, Orca hasn’t issued any tokens yet after the official launch of the product.
Ori, Orca founder, said in an interview that Solana is able to process 50,000 transactions per second and 400ms block packaging at an average transaction fee of only 0.01 US dollars, scoring high among other blockchain solutions. This is also the prime attraction for development experts.
As projects like Serum and Orca rise to fame, DeFi ushers in a new strategic beginning in Solana. Orca defines itself as a people-oriented DEX, providing three major functions, fair price indicator, aggregator, and token balances, paving the way for user-friendly experiences in the Solana ecosystem.
A brief analysis of Orca’s three major functions
Orca has always been upgraded according to real feedback from DeFi users. After a deep dive to the market, Orca found that one of the biggest pain points is determining whether a given pool currently offers a fair price. Users are left with no choice but to trust what market rates a DEX offers, or resort to time-consuming comparison with trackers or other exchanges.
Fair price index
In this regard, Orca proposes a set of fair price indicators to warn about a high slippage. When you input a trade on Orca, the system checks whether both of the following conditions are met: 1. The rate is within 1% of the listed market rate on CoinGecko; 2. Slippage is less than or equal to your tolerance setting (defaults to 1%).
If so, you can feel assured to trade; if not, the system displays a “Rate Warning” or “Slippage Warning”.
Aggregator
Orca also has the function of aggregator, which allows users to always enjoy the best price from the liquidity pool of Orca or Serum Swap every time they enter a transaction. And more well-credited AMMs are to be integrated in the future to ensure the best price is always available in Orca.
Token balances
In most AMMs on Ethereum, there’s no way to check your balances without having to open a browser extension. That’s why Orca added a Tokens panel directly into the interface. There, you can see your balance for all tokens listed on Orca, including live updates when you make a trade or provide liquidity.
Project Progress
Now that Orca is live, anyone outside the U.S. can visit orca.so and start trading SOL, BTC, ETH, USDC, USDT, SRM and FTT. Orca’s simple UI and smooth transaction experience prove to be quite an appeal to users.
Orca Aquafarms has been launched. It has added mSOL/USDC, LIQ/USDC, STEP/SOL pools, and issued a total of 300,000 ORCA as rewards. Then on September 23, Orca launched the Double-Dip pool which is more advanced than Aquafarms, because LPs in the Double-Dip pool not only earn ORCA and transaction fees but also tokens of partners’ projects.
Steps for the Double-Dip pool
1. Provide liquidity for Aquafarm
Users deposit Aquafarm in accordance with Orca liquidity guidelines. After it’s done, the user’s wallet will display Orca LP tokens corresponding to the added liquidity pool (Note: users can look for eligible Double-Dip pools under the “Double-Dip” tab)
2. Obtain Double-Dip Orca LP tokens
Click the “Double-Dip” tab and find the “Double-Dip” pool you’re interested. Click “Double-dip” as shown in the screenshot below. Click “APPROVE” to complete the wallet confirmation. Here you go! You can earn double rewards. You can also get rewards manually by clicking “Harvest”, or automatically get all the benefits when you remove liquidity from a pool.
3. How to withdraw tokens from the Double-Dip pool
Click “Harvest & Undip” in the “Double-Dip” tab, and users can view the acquired Orca LP tokens in the wallet.
The LBank Academy (LBK Labs) wastes no time facilitating the launch of Orca for the greater good of the SOL ecosystem. More Orca-related products covering a wide range of businesses, like wealth management, will be available, enriching users’ trading experiences with multiple currencies. So far, in terms of the SOL ecosystem, LBank has launched SOL, the token, Raydium, the automated market maker (AMM) and liquidity provider, Saber, the cross-chain stablecoin exchange, and Sunny, the DeFi capacity aggregator.
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