In a market where thousands of tokens promise to revolutionize AI, memecoins or the next narrative of the moment, Percolator takes a much more pragmatic approach: solving a problem that traders encounter every day.
Today, if a new token explodes on Solana, investors usually have two options: buy... or do nothing. Unlike large cryptocurrencies, the majority of SPL tokens do not have any derivatives market to sell short, hedge or provide liquidity on a perpetual market.
It is precisely this gap that
@PercolatorTrade seeks to fill.
Turn any token into a perpetual market
The idea is simple but ambitious: to allow the creation of perpetual markets (perpetual futures) on virtually any SPL token, without depending on the goodwill of a centralized platform.
The goal is to make these markets permissionless, i.e. accessible without a central team deciding which assets deserve to be listed.
In theory, a creator could launch a token, then quickly open his own perpetual market so that other users can take long, short positions or provide liquidity.
This approach brings Percolator closer to a financial infrastructure than to a simple trading protocol.
A risk engine developed by
@toly
One of the most attention-grabby aspects is the involvement of Anatoly Yakovenko (“Toly”), co-founder of Solana, in the development of the risk engine used by the protocol.
Public GitHub repositories show several months of work on this software brick, with many improvements in security, liquidation management and mechanisms that prevent certain attack vectors.
@PercolatorTrade developers also publicly stated that this engine is currently being externally audited. To date, however, the audit firm has not yet been publicly announced.
A philosophy close to Hyperliquid
Many already compare Percolator to Hyperliquid.
The comparison is not about the exact technology, but about philosophy.
Hyperliquid has profoundly changed the derivatives market by offering a particularly effective user experience.
Percolator seeks to bring a different innovation: to open this type of market to much more assets, including native Solana tokens that today have no derivative market.
If this approach works, it could create a new layer of infrastructure for the ecosystem.
A potentially self-reinforçant model
The protocol is based on an interesting economic idea.
The more a market is used, the more fees it generates.
Active markets can attract more liquidity providers.
Better liquidity then improves the experience of traders, which in turn can attract more volume.
This dynamic is often called flywheel liquidity.