Solana’s co-founder drops Percolator Perps DEX, dares devs to ‘steal’ it
Yakovenko’s open-source project could give Solana the edge it needs.
Key Takeaways
What is Percolator, and why is it gaining attention?
It’s a high-speed, open-source perps DEX on Solana. Yakovenko has invited developers to copy and compete with it.
Is Percolator ready to launch?
Not yet. Core parts are functional, but key components like liquidation are still in progress.
Solana [SOL] co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko just dropped a surprise.
On the 19th of October, detailed GitHub docs revealed Percolator, a decentralized perpetuals exchange (perps DEX) that Yakovenko has been building.
The open-source protocol is already drawing attention… and not just for its design.
What is Percolator?
Percolator is built natively on the Solana blockchain, and aims to deliver lightning-fast performance through a unique “slab” system; a sharded matching engine that processes trades in parallel.
It also features on-chain tools for managing positions, tracking collateral, and calculating margin, all without relying on centralized services.
It was released as an open-source, implementation-ready prototype on GitHub.
Is this the next big thing?
While platforms like GMX, dYdX, and Hyperliquid dominate the perpetuals trading space, Solana has yet to claim a clear leader in this $210 billion market.
Percolator, with its supposed high-speed architecture and on-chain, user-focused design, has the potential to give Solana a serious edge.
If it delivers on its promise of performance and capital efficiency, it could become a core piece of Solana’s DeFi stack.
This would help Solana evolve into a real competitor in the perps race.
Open source or open season?
Here’s where it gets interesting. Percolator is openly being offered up for the community to fork, copy, and compete with.
Yakovenko even encouraged developers to “steal” the idea, framing it as a push for open innovation in DeFi. The response was instant, with many submitting pull requests or announced plans to build their own versions.
But who owns an open-source protocol? And if someone else profits off a fork, does the original creator get credit or compensation?
Perhaps we’ll find the answers in real time.
Where does the project stand now?
Percolator is getting attention, but it’s still a work in progress. GitHub shows that core parts like the Router and slab matching engines are already working.
Other features, like the liquidation engine, are still being built. Yakovenko even used the AI tool Claude to help write the first version of the documentation.
It’s not ready to launch yet, but the basics are there… and interest in the project is growing quickly.
