Solana co-founder is building a DEX for perpetual futures
Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko is working on a new decentralized perpetual futures exchange called Percolator. According to GitHub, the protocol is already "implementation-ready" and could become a serious competitor to existing derivatives DEXs.
A high-performance decentralized perp exchange called Percolator will operate on the Solana blockchain, with development directly involving one of Solana's creators, Anatoly Yakovenko, according to documentation published on GitHub on October 19, 2025.
The project is already implementation-ready and will be a platform for futures trading. The design includes non-custodial storage for user assets.
The protocol will use an onchain routing program (Router) that allows users to track their positions, manage their collateral, and calculate their portfolio margin. A key feature of Percolator is the "slabs" system – separate order books for different tokens.
"Slabs" are designed to boost competition among liquidity providers through "sharded matching engines," where the order book is split into multiple small, independent engines that run in parallel. According to Yakovenko, this ensures the autonomy of each slab, while the Router guarantees atomic routing and security.
"This design keeps each LP's slab fully self-contained and innovable, while the Router guarantees atomic routing, portfolio netting, and capability-scoped safety." Yakovenko wrote. He added that testing ensures no single malicious or buggy slab can impact users who never interacted with it.
According to the GitHub repository, the core protocol components – Router, Slab, memory pools, order book systems, and other key operations – are already completed. Meanwhile, Percolator's liquidation engine remains on the "to do" list.
At least two developers have already submitted pull requests to contribute to the project. The launch date for Percolator has not yet been announced, though the development process is at an advanced stage.
Percolator could become a serious competitor to existing decentralized derivatives exchanges such as dYdX, GMX, and Hyperliquid, especially given Solana blockchain's high throughput and Yakovenko's authority.
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