RAY is the native token of Raydium, the dominant AMM and DEX infrastructure on Solana. Raydium V1 made history by being one of the first AMMs to integrate with a central limit order book — specifically Serum (now OpenBook) — sharing liquidity between pool-based and order-book-based trading simultaneously. This dual-model made Raydium the deepest liquidity source on Solana. Today, Raydium CLMM (Concentrated Liquidity Market Maker) handles the majority of Solana’s DEX volume, including the vast majority of new token launches via its permissionless pool creation.
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | RAY |
| Price | $0.67 |
| Market Cap | $180.15M |
| 24h Change | +3.8% |
| Circulating Supply | 268.70M RAY |
| Max Supply | 555.00M RAY |
| All-Time High | $16.83 |
| Contract (Solana) | 4k3Dyj...kX6R |
How It Works
Raydium AMM V4 (standard pools):
- Standard constant-product AMM pools (x*y=k)
- Liquidity shared bidirectionally with OpenBook order book
- LPs earn 0.25% swap fees
Raydium CLMM (Concentrated Liquidity):
- Liquidity providers concentrate liquidity in specific price ranges for higher capital efficiency
- Multiple fee tiers: 0.01%, 0.05%, 0.25%, 1%
- The primary venue for new Solana token launches (memecoin season 2023–2024)
Raydium LaunchLab / Permissionless Pools:
- Any user can create a pool for any SPL token pair instantly
- Used by virtually every new Solana token launch — from serious projects to memecoins
- When Pump.fun tokens graduate to DEX liquidity, they primarily go to Raydium
RAY staking:
Users stake RAY to earn a share of protocol fees (0.03% of every transaction goes to buyback-and-burn, another portion to stakers).
Tokenomics
| Allocation | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Mining reserve (liquidity) | 34% | Distributed over 3 years |
| Ecosystem | 10% | Partnership and grants |
| Team | 20% | 3-year vesting |
| Seed investors | 3.75% | Vesting |
| Advisors | 2.25% | Vesting |
| Community | 30% | Farming and protocol incentives |
Max supply: 555,000,000 RAY. Token emissions primarily distributed through liquidity incentives.
Use Cases
- Liquidity provision — Earn fees from Solana’s highest-volume DEX
- Protocol governance — RAY holders vote on protocol parameters and new features
- Fee revenue — Staked RAY earns a portion of Raydium’s trading fee income
- Token launch infrastructure — Raydium CLMM pools are the standard destination for new token launches on Solana
History
- Feb 2021 — Raydium launches as the first AMM on Solana; integrated with Serum CLOB from day one
- 2021 — Becomes the largest DEX on Solana; launches AcceleRaytor, a token launchpad for Solana projects; IDOs raise millions
- Nov 2022 — FTX collapse devastates Solana ecosystem; Serum (FTX-linked) becomes unusable; Raydium migrates to OpenBook (a Serum fork)
- 2023 — Solana ecosystem recovers; Raydium’s CLMM adoption grows; memecoin season drives billions in new token creation
- 2024 — Raydium processes over $1B in daily volume on multiple occasions during Solana memecoin peaks; the Pump.fun → Raydium pipeline becomes a primary cultural phenomenon in crypto
Common Misconceptions
“Raydium was replaced by Orca after CLMM.” Both Raydium and Orca operate CLMM pools. Raydium dominates in volume due to its position as the landing pad for new token launches; Orca captures stable pair and SOL/USDC volume efficiently.
“Raydium is just for memecoins.” While Raydium hosts most new token (including memecoin) liquidity, it also handles the majority of Solana’s DeFi trading volume including serious DeFi protocols and blue-chip pairs.