Anatoly Yakovenko, a co-founder of Solana, quietly announced that he’s working on a new perp DEX. The project, called “Percolator,” will be L1 native to the SOL blockchain.

While the perp DEX market keeps growing, platforms like Aster and Hyperliquid are competing fiercely for dominance. A new wild card like Percolator could seriously disrupt the equation.

Solana’s New Perp DEX

Solana has recently been losing a little ground in the meme coin sector, but its recent successes in infrastructure investment show that it’s prepared to expand to new markets.

This morning, one Solana co-founder quietly announced that he was working on Percolator, a new perpetuals DEX native to the SOL blockchain.

Anatoly Yakovenko, the co-founder in question, doesn’t have a huge social media presence, so he only publicized this via GitHub.

However, the corresponding page reveals a lot of information about this Solana DEX. It’s a little hard to parse all the raw code, but he also shared a text file summing up Percolator’s development.

Although a few key steps like account validation, position closure, funding rate updates, and more remain uncompleted, Yakovenko has already finished many core data structures and capabilities. Percolator may begin serious stress-testing soon, depending on future progress.

Disrupting the Market

So, how could a Solana perp DEX impact the crypto market? Perp DEXs are a rapidly growing market, and that’s bringing new competition.

Aster, a CZ-backed project, recently displaced Hyperliquid’s market share, but then suffered several major setbacks. Hyperliquid, for its part, is determined to regain its upper hand.

A new contestant, however, could become a total wild card:

In other words, there might be a major disruption in the future. If the perp DEX market keeps growing without a clear leader, a new L1 from Solana could make a big splash.

That all depends on Percolator’s technical features and the timing of its launch, but the project is worth keeping an eye on.