Solana Founder Unveils ‘Percolator’ Perp DEX – A Direct Shot at Aster and Hyperliquid

Core Insights - Solana co-founder and CEO Anatoly Yakovenko has introduced a new decentralized perpetual exchange protocol named "Percolator," which is designed to operate natively on the Solana blockchain [1] - The launch of Percolator comes at a crucial time as Solana's DeFi ecosystem has been growing, but its perpetual trading sector has not kept pace with competitors like Hyperliquid [1][2] Market Context - Data indicates that the volume of Solana-based perpetual DEX has decreased by 24.19% week-on-week, with the total monthly volume now at approximately $63.24 billion, highlighting a decline in market momentum [2] - Yakovenko's initiative aims to enhance infrastructure to attract liquidity providers and high-frequency traders looking for decentralized alternatives to centralized exchanges [2] Technical Architecture - Percolator is designed with a two-program architecture that includes a Router program for managing collateral and portfolio margining, along with modular "Slabs" that function as independent trading engines operated by liquidity providers [3] - The protocol aims to achieve centralized exchange (CEX) level execution speeds through multi-shard order books, allowing different trading pairs to operate simultaneously without resource competition [4] Development Status - The project's GitHub files indicate that the system is nearing stress-testing, which is a significant milestone for Solana's DeFi sector [6] - Although the codebase is still under development, many core data structures are already complete, with some processes like account validation and funding rate updates pending finalization [5]