Orca:
Solana's security-first DEX, deliberately trading liquidity depth for a genuinely clean track record.
We tore apart Orca, live on Solana since February 2021 and founded by Grace Kwan and Yutaro Mori, across the same seven-category scorecard we've used throughout this series. From a genuinely distinctive, well-documented zero-hack security record over more than four years, backed by six audits from four named firms (Kudelski Security, Neodyme, OtterSec, and Sec3), disclosed founders, and a genuinely distinctive charitable fee allocation directing money to verified ocean conservation causes, to an honest, direct trade-off worth centering clearly: Orca deliberately prioritizes security and a cleaner user experience over the raw liquidity depth of its largest Solana competitor, Raydium, which we reviewed earlier in this series and which holds more than 60% of Solana's DEX market share; and landed on a score the marketing page won't show you.
Our take, up front: Orca launched in February 2021, founded by Grace Kwan and Yutaro Mori, two developers who set out explicitly to make DeFi feel less intimidating and more accessible than the category's typically dense, technical interfaces. Real, genuinely distinctive, well-documented zero-hack security record over more than four years of operation, consistently corroborated across multiple independent sources, including at least one that draws a direct, explicit contrast with Raydium's December 2022 $4.4 million exploit, which we covered earlier in this series. Real, genuinely extensive audit investment: six audits from four different named, credible firms, Kudelski Security, Neodyme, OtterSec, and Sec3, among the most audited smart contracts on Solana. Real, open-source, publicly verifiable Whirlpool contract with a disclosed, specific on-chain program ID. Real, genuinely distinctive Whirlpools concentrated liquidity design, described directly as Solana's most capital-efficient AMM architecture, letting liquidity providers concentrate capital within a chosen price range rather than spreading it across the entire curve. Real, genuinely competitive, precisely disclosed, tiered fee structure: standard pools at 0.3% (split 0.25% to LPs, 0.04% to the Orca treasury, and 0.01% to the Orca Impact Fund), and Whirlpools spanning four tiers from 0.01% to 1% depending on asset volatility. Real, genuinely distinctive, verifiable charitable allocation: the Orca Impact Fund has directed a disclosed $550,000 donation to Ocean Conservancy. Real, disclosed, functioning DAO governance, a hard-capped 100 million token supply, a 2025 buyback program, and Wavebreak, a human-first token launchpad with anti-bot protections. What we're weighing honestly: a real, direct trade-off multiple sources describe plainly. Orca deliberately prioritizes security and user experience over the raw liquidity depth of Raydium, which holds more than 60% of Solana's DEX market share; TVL for Orca sits in a reasonably consistent $260-400 million range across our sources, with daily volume exceeding $394 million, genuinely substantial but smaller than the category's largest Solana competitor. We weighted all of it below.
Real, genuinely distinctive, well-documented, zero-hack security record over more than four years of operation, consistently corroborated across multiple independent sources, including at least one that draws a direct, explicit contrast with Raydium's December 2022 $4.4 million exploit. Real, genuinely extensive audit investment: six audits from four different named, credible firms (Kudelski Security, Neodyme, OtterSec, and Sec3), among the most audited smart contracts on Solana. Real, open-source, publicly verifiable contract with a disclosed, specific on-chain program ID. Real, active bug bounty program. Real, honest, standard user-side risks remain: wallet mistakes, fake tokens, and malicious links sit outside the protocol's own code.
Pros
- Zero hacks in 4+ years, consistently corroborated across sources
- Six audits from four named firms (Kudelski, Neodyme, OtterSec, Sec3)
- Open-source, publicly verifiable contract with a disclosed program ID
Cons
- Standard user-side risks (wallet mistakes, fake tokens) remain outside the protocol's control
Real, genuinely modest but reasonably consistent TVL across our sources, cited in the $260-400 million range, without the severe discrepancies we've found researching some other platforms. Real, genuinely substantial daily volume exceeding $394 million, consistently ranking among the top three DEXs by volume on Solana. Real, honest, direct trade-off articulated by multiple sources: Orca deliberately prioritizes security and user experience over the raw liquidity depth of its largest Solana competitor, Raydium, which holds more than 60% market share.
Pros
- Reasonably consistent $260-400M TVL across sources, without severe discrepancies
- $394M+ daily volume; consistently a top-three Solana DEX by volume
Cons
- Meaningfully smaller than Raydium's 60%+ Solana market share
Real, genuinely non-custodial; Orca never holds user funds, with all trading conducted through self-custody wallets. Real, disclosed, credible founders (Grace Kwan, Yutaro Mori), a positive contrast to several anonymous-founder DEXs we've reviewed in this series. Real, functioning Orca DAO governance with a hard-capped, disclosed token supply.
Pros
- Genuinely non-custodial; disclosed, credible founders
- Functioning DAO governance; hard-capped, disclosed 100M token supply
Cons
- No named, independent audit of DAO voting-power concentration found in our research
Real, genuinely broad Whirlpools coverage across four fee tiers calibrated to different asset volatility profiles. Real, genuinely distinctive October 2024 expansion to Eclipse, an Ethereum L2 using the Solana Virtual Machine, though honestly still early-stage with meaningfully smaller TVL and volume than the core Solana deployment.
Pros
- Four fee tiers calibrated to asset volatility profiles
- Distinctive expansion to Eclipse (Solana Virtual Machine on an Ethereum L2)
Cons
- Eclipse deployment honestly still early-stage; small relative to core Solana volume
Real, genuinely, consistently described as one of the most approachable, beginner-friendly interfaces in the Solana DeFi ecosystem, a direct reflection of its founders' stated design philosophy. Real, genuinely distinctive built-in price-deviation warning system alerting users when a pool's price diverges meaningfully from the broader market. Real, honest, notable complexity: Whirlpools require active range selection and monitoring, genuinely more involved than a passive, full-range liquidity position.
Pros
- Consistently described as one of the most approachable Solana DeFi interfaces
- Distinctive built-in price-deviation warning system
Cons
- Whirlpools require genuine active management once you move beyond simple swaps
Real, genuinely competitive, precisely quantified, tiered fee structure: standard pools at 0.3% (with a disclosed, precise 0.25%/0.04%/0.01% split among LPs, the Orca treasury, and the Orca Impact Fund), and Whirlpools spanning four tiers from 0.01% to 1% depending on asset volatility. Real, genuinely distinctive, verifiable charitable allocation: a small fee share funds ocean conservation, including a disclosed $550,000 donation to Ocean Conservancy in November 2022.
Pros
- Precisely disclosed, competitive fee tiers across pool types
- Genuinely distinctive, verifiable Orca Impact Fund charitable allocation
Cons
- Standard 0.3% pool fee is slightly higher than Raydium's 0.25% comparable tier
Real, genuinely distinctive Orca Impact Fund directing a share of fees to verified ocean conservation causes. Real, Wavebreak, a human-first token launchpad with anti-bot protections, launched in 2025. Real, a DAO-approved 24-month token buyback program.
Pros
- Genuinely distinctive, verifiable ocean-conservation charitable fund
- Wavebreak anti-bot token launchpad; DAO-approved buyback program
Cons
- None significant found in our research
Access only through Orca's official app, and connect via Phantom, Solflare, or another trusted Solana wallet.
If you're providing liquidity through Whirlpools specifically, budget real time for range selection and monitoring; fee income alone isn't net profit once impermanent loss and out-of-range positions are factored in.
The security-first choice on Solana, and it's earned that reputation the hard way: by not getting hacked.
Orca deserves real, substantial credit for something genuinely rare across this entire series: a multi-year, meaningfully-scaled DEX with a consistently corroborated, zero-hack track record, backed by six audits from four different named firms and disclosed, credible founders. Having reviewed Raydium earlier in this series, we can say the contrast is genuinely instructive: both are excellent, Solana-native AMMs, but they made different bets. Raydium chased liquidity depth and memecoin infrastructure, and paid for it with two real, confirmed incidents. Orca chose to grow more conservatively around security and usability, and its record shows it. Neither approach is wrong, but if you're choosing between the two specifically for a large or important trade, we think the evidence points toward Orca being the safer bet, even at the cost of somewhat thinner liquidity.
The scorecard above is deliberately general. Whether Orca is right for you depends heavily on which of these you already are.
The Solana trader or newcomer who wants the category's cleanest security record and an approachable interface
This is genuinely where Orca's real strengths concentrate most heavily.
The liquidity provider willing to actively manage a Whirlpools concentrated-liquidity position
Real, higher yields are available here, but they genuinely require range selection and ongoing monitoring.
The trader comfortable accepting somewhat thinner liquidity than Raydium in exchange for a cleaner track record
This is a real, honest trade-off worth weighing directly against your own trade size and risk tolerance.
Traders needing perpetuals, order-book execution, or the absolute deepest memecoin liquidity
Orca's spot-focused, concentrated-liquidity AMM design isn't built for these specific use cases.
The scorecard covers the headline judgment calls. These four tables cover the specifics we didn't want to bury in prose; the clean-record contrast against this series, a direct Orca-vs-Raydium comparison, fees and the Impact Fund broken down, and Orca against the full field.
Orca's record, in context
| DEX | Confirmed security incidents |
|---|---|
| Orca | None found in our research (4+ years operating) |
| PancakeSwap | None found in our research |
| Hyperliquid | None (JELLY was a governance intervention, not a breach) |
| Injective / Osmosis | None found in our research |
| Uniswap / Aerodrome | One each |
| dYdX / Raydium / GMX | Two each |
| Curve | Three |
Orca sits among a small group of platforms in this series with no disclosed security incident found in our research, and its four-plus years of continuous operation make that record genuinely meaningful rather than simply a newer platform not yet tested.
Orca vs. Raydium, directly
| Orca | Raydium | |
|---|---|---|
| Security record | Zero hacks in 4+ years | Two confirmed incidents (2022, 2026) |
| Market share (Solana) | Smaller | 60%+ |
| Architecture | Concentrated liquidity (Whirlpools) | Hybrid AMM + order book |
| Best for | Security-conscious, normal-sized trades | Large trades, memecoins, launchpad activity |
| Standard fee tier | 0.30% | 0.25% |
Having reviewed both platforms independently, we think this is a genuinely fair, evidence-based framing: different priorities, different trade-offs, not one simply better than the other.
Fees and the Impact Fund, precisely
| Pool type | Fee split |
|---|---|
| Standard pools (0.3% total) | 0.25% to LPs, 0.04% to Orca treasury, 0.01% to Orca Impact Fund |
| Whirlpools | 0.01%, 0.05%, 0.3%, or 1.00% depending on tier |
| Impact Fund disclosed donation | $550,000 to Ocean Conservancy (November 2022) |
We haven't found a comparable, verifiable charitable fee allocation at any other DEX in this series; it's a genuinely distinctive, small but real differentiator.
Orca against the full field
| Orca | Raydium | PancakeSwap | Uniswap | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Since | 2021 | 2021 | 2020 | 2018 |
| Named audit count | Six (4 firms) | Five (+HashEx) | Three named firms | Nine (V4 alone) |
| Founding team | Disclosed (Grace Kwan, Yutaro Mori) | Disclosed | Anonymous | Disclosed |
| Confirmed incidents | None found | Two | None found | One |
Orca's combination of a disclosed team, an extensive audit count, and a clean incident record is genuinely one of the strongest overall trust profiles we've found in this entire series.
We don't just want to hand you our number; we want to show you how it sits next to what other review desks and comparison sites have published. Orca's clean, well-documented record gave us a genuinely strong, consistent set of independent sources to work from.
Our score lands close to the aggregated industry average, one of the smaller gaps we've found in this series; the genuinely clean security record and disclosed founders we weighted heavily are the same qualities most independent sources single out favorably.
| Source | Score | Type |
|---|
Scores compiled by our editorial team from publicly available reviews as of August 2026. "Editorial estimate" means the outlet didn't publish a single numeric score, so we converted their published verdict and sentiment into a comparable 100-point figure. Verify current figures directly with each source before citing them elsewhere.
No confirmed hack found in our research, across more than four years of operation, consistently corroborated by multiple independent sources.
Different priorities: Orca has a cleaner security record and a more approachable interface but a smaller share of Solana's liquidity; Raydium holds more than 60% market share and deeper liquidity for large trades and memecoins, but has two confirmed security incidents on record.
Orca's concentrated liquidity pools, similar in spirit to Uniswap V3, letting liquidity providers focus capital within a specific price range rather than spreading it across the entire curve, improving capital efficiency for active LPs.
Grace Kwan and Yutaro Mori, who launched the platform in February 2021 with an explicit goal of making DeFi feel more accessible than typical, technical-feeling DeFi interfaces.
A small share of standard pool fees (0.01% of the total 0.3%) that funds ocean conservation causes, including a disclosed $550,000 donation to Ocean Conservancy in November 2022, a genuinely distinctive feature we haven't found matched at any other DEX in this series.
Standard pools charge 0.3%; Whirlpools use four tiers (0.01%, 0.05%, 0.3%, or 1.00%) depending on the specific pool's volatility profile.
Yes, since October 2024, Orca also operates on Eclipse, an Ethereum L2 using the Solana Virtual Machine, though this deployment is honestly still early-stage with smaller volume than the core Solana platform.
For simple swapping, yes, consistently described as one of the most approachable Solana DEXs. Providing liquidity through Whirlpools specifically requires more active management and genuine understanding of concentrated-liquidity mechanics.
More Reviews
THORChain – DEX Review
Score: 46/100. Unmatched native cross-chain swaps, carrying 2021 hacks, a $200M 2025 crisis, and use as a laundering conduit.
Read More
Hyperliquid – DEX Review
Score: 73/100. Dominant perp DEX, but closed-source code and the JELLY delisting controversy are real, unresolved trust questions.
Read More
Vertex – DEX Review
Score: 62/100. Sophisticated cross-margin trading, reviewed mid-migration to a new chain with conflicting founder accounts.
Read More
Raydium – DEX Review
Score: 68/100. Solana's liquidity leader, carrying two confirmed incidents and a real, wide gap in third-party security ratings.
Read More