What is Orca?

Orca is the easiest way to exchange cryptocurrency on the Solana blockchain. Here, you can exchange tokens with minimal transaction fees and lower latency than any DEX on Ethereum, all while knowing that you’re getting a fair price. Additionally, you may provide liquidity to a trading pool to earn a share of trading fees.

What are Orca Whirlpools?

Orca Whirlpools are a way to provide concentrated liquidity in specific price ranges on Orca (the leading decentralized exchange on Solana). This allows for higher capital efficiency than a standard AMM design. For more information click here.

Introduction:

Welcome to the Orca Whirlpool dashboard, where we track the growth and activity of Orca Whirlpools, the leading decentralized exchange on Solana. Orca Whirlpools offer a unique way of providing concentrated liquidity in specific price ranges, resulting in higher capital efficiency than traditional AMM designs like Uniswap V3. Here, you'll be able to see the pools that have gained popularity and track how often LPers are moving in and out of positions to adjust for price ranges. Additionally, we'll be monitoring the impact of the launch of $BONK on the popularity of these pools and whether users are experimenting with other pools. We'll also show if LPers are adjusting liquidity more frequently on Orca than on Uniswap. Stay tuned for updates on the growth and activity of Orca Whirlpools.

Methodology:

To track the growth and activity of Orca Whirlpools on the Orca Whirlpool dashboard, we will gather data from the Orca decentralized exchange on Solana. This data will include information on the popularity of different pools, the fees generated for liquidity providers, and the frequency of LPers moving in and out of positions to adjust for price ranges. We will also track the impact of the launch of $BONK on the popularity of these pools and whether users are experimenting with other pools. Additionally, we will compare the frequency of liquidity adjustments on Orca to those on Uniswap. We will present this data in a clear and concise manner for easy interpretation and understanding.

Swaps:

Swaps by Pool:

The Orca Whirlpool dashboard has been tracking the growth and activity of the most popular whirlpools on the decentralized exchange. According to our data, the two most popular pools for swapping are USDC-SOL and SOL-USDC, which together make up over 55% of the total swaps on the top ten pools. These two pools have a combined total of 1.3 million swaps. We also observed that the weekly swaps on the top 10 whirlpools peaked early on between March and July of 2022, where they were receiving roughly 100k swaps each day. However, after July, we see a significant drop in swaps that has continued to the current date, with around 10K a week between the top 10 pools. The popularity of USDC-SOL and SOL-USDC has been increasing over time and they make up a larger percentage of the total swaps between the top 10 pools as we get closer to the current date. Additionally, the weekly unique swappers also saw a downturn after July of 2022, but much less so than total swaps, highlighting that during the March to July period, swappers were each making multiple swaps. Our data also shows that individual swappers almost always swap in the SOL-USDC pool or the USDC-SOL pool.

Swaps Pre/Post Bonk:

The Orca Whirlpool dashboard has been tracking the growth and activity of the most popular whirlpools on the decentralized exchange. Our data shows that the average swaps per week is more than double that of the median swaps per week, highlighting that the distribution is severely right-skewed, likely as a result of a few weeks with a very large amount of swaps. This means that the median is likely a better indicator of the typical swaps per week on these Orca Whirlpools. Additionally, after the release of BONK, both the weekly swappers and swaps spiked. Although the weekly swappers saw a much more significant spike, as many different users were interested in swapping BONK. We observed that there were more unique swappers a week after the release of BONK than at any other time on the Orca Whirlpools.

LP Activity:

LP Event by Pool:

The Orca Whirlpool dashboard has been tracking the growth and activity of the most popular whirlpools on the decentralized exchange. Our data shows that the two largest Orca Whirlpools by LP events are the SOL-USDC and ORCA-USDC pools, which make up over 310K LP events and 43.5% of all LP events by the top 10 Orca Whirlpools. LP events remained somewhat stagnant until the introduction of BONK which saw a massive spike in the amount of LP events and LPers, mostly going to the Orca BONK-USDC pool and the Orca BONK-SOL pool. During that week, those two pools combined made up over 75% of all the LP events which occurred between the top 10 pools. On most days, the amount of LP events is roughly 10x that of the LPers, highlighting that each LPer is making on average 10 LP events. The SOL-USDC pool continues to remain the most popular pool over time. Starting around November 14th, the USDC-MEDIA pool saw a massive spike making up 50% of all LP events at one point.

LP Frequency:

The Orca Whirlpool dashboard has been tracking the growth and activity of the most popular whirlpools on the decentralized exchange. Our data shows that the average LPs by LPer is much larger than that of the median, highlighting that the distribution is right-skewed and thus the median is likely a better indicator of the typical amount of LPs per user. The largest amount of LPs by any user is 50.7k, which suggests that these users are likely bots. This shows that LPers are likely using bots to perfectly time their deposits and withdraws to maximize profit. Nearly 75% of users have made between 0 and 25 LPs. Additionally, the majority of LPers appear to LP again between 0 and 1 days, which highlights that in order to make a profit on Orca Whirlpools, you have to constantly be updating your positions. As the amount of days goes up, we can see less and less individuals, as it is more profitable to continually readjust your position as the market changes.

Pool Search Tool:

In order to use this tool put the name of the pool you want into the variable at the top of the page labeled “Pool_Name:” , you can see a list of the pools in order from most to least popular at the top of this page. When you put in your selected pool it will adjust the metrics above to show you the average, median, and max LPs per LPer in your specified pool. It will also show you the distribution of LPs per LPer in both a percent format and a overall format for your specified pool.

Uniswap LP Activity:

Uniswap LP Frequency:

In this section, I looked at Uniswap v3 pools over the same time period as the Orca pools in order to get a fair comparison of the two. As we have seen before, the average is much larger than the median, thus the distribution is right-skewed, meaning the median is likely a better indicator of the typical LPs per LPer. This tends to happen as a few LPers, which are likely bots, are making an enormous amount of LPs and skewing the average. Over 88% of LPers on Uniswap have made between 0 and 10 LPs. It appears that users on Orca make a significant amount more LPs than users on Uniswap, with the median being 4x higher on Orca than that of Uniswap. The majority of users on Uniswap make LPs with only 1 day in between one another, highlighting once again the importance of consistently updating your position in these pools. It seems that a lot of users on Uniswap are inactive as well, though, as 27.1% have not changed their LPs in more than 5 days.

Conclusion:

1. The most popular pools by total swaps are SOL-USDC and USDC-SOL which together make up over 1.3M swaps and over 55% of swaps from the top 10 whirlpools.
2. Weekly swaps have dropped significantly over time going from around 100k weekly between March and July of 2022 all the way down to less than 10K weekly over the past several months.
3. Weekly Unique swappers and weekly total swaps saw a massive spike with the introduction of bonk, although unique swappers saw its largest value in a single week of over 14k.
4. The number 1 pool by LP events is SOL-USDC which make up over 30% of all LP events by the top 10 pools
5. The week after the introduction of BONK there was a massive spike in LPs and LPers with ocra bonk-sol and orca bonk-usdc making up over 75% of the LP events that week.
6. 75% of LPers have made between 0 and 25 LPs
7. nearly 62% of LPers make an LP every day highlighting the importance of constantly readjusting your positions in orca whirlpools in order to make a profit.
8. Over 88% of Uniswap LPers have made between 0 and 10 Lps
9. 58.5% of LPers on Uniswap LP again between 0 and 1 days while 27.1% take 5 or more days.
10. LPers on Ocra whirlpools are consistently more active both in overall LPs and time in between LPs than LPers on Uniswap.