Solana's Proprietary AMMs Command Over 60% of SOL/USDC Volume, Reshaping On-Chain Trading

Proprietary Automated Market Makers (Prop AMMs) have emerged as a dominant force on the Solana blockchain, capturing a significant share of trading volume and driving innovation in on-chain liquidity. Zaki Manian, co-founder of Celestia, recently highlighted this development, stating on social media, > "Prop AMMs and all the Helius infra that enables them are the main interesting thing that happened on Solana." This sentiment underscores the growing impact of these specialized trading venues on the network's ecosystem.

Prop AMMs, also known as "Dark AMMs," are distinct from traditional AMMs as they are operated by professional market makers using private liquidity pools and sophisticated, active pricing strategies. Unlike public AMMs with transparent bonding curves, Prop AMMs embed trading logic directly into smart contracts, continuously adjusting prices based on external market data. This approach aims to provide users with lower slippage and better execution prices, while minimizing adverse selection for market makers.

Solana's high-throughput, low-cost architecture, coupled with its continuous transaction processing model, is uniquely suited for the operation of Prop AMMs. The network's efficient Compute Unit (CU) pricing and the Jito auction engine allow for extremely cheap and prioritized oracle updates, which are critical for these AMMs to refresh quotes many times per second. This enables market makers to maintain tight spreads and execute trades efficiently, rivaling the performance of centralized exchanges.

Infrastructure providers like Helius play a crucial role in enabling these advanced AMM designs, offering developer tools and insights that optimize on-chain operations. Furthermore, Prop AMMs heavily rely on aggregators such as Jupiter, which routes a substantial portion of Solana's decentralized exchange (DEX) volume. Over 40% of Jupiter's routed volume flows through Prop AMMs, providing them with consistent and high-quality order flow.

The market impact of Prop AMMs has been substantial, with daily trading volumes consistently exceeding $1 billion across these platforms. For the highly liquid SOL/USDC trading pair, Prop AMMs have routinely captured over 60% of the market share, peaking even higher at times. Key players in this space include SolFi, HumidiFi, Tessera V (operated by Wintermute), Obric, and Lifinity, among others.

This paradigm shift represents a significant evolution in on-chain market making, moving towards active liquidity provision by sophisticated participants. By leveraging Solana's unique technical capabilities, Prop AMMs are redefining efficiency and execution quality in decentralized finance, offering competitive pricing that often surpasses traditional venues. Their continued growth signals a maturing DeFi landscape on Solana, driven by innovative market microstructure.