Executive Summary: Raydium’s Q3 2025 – Maturing Into a Multi-Product Powerhouse
Raydium, the Solana-based decentralized exchange (DEX) and automated market maker (AMM), made significant strides during the third quarter of 2025, establishing itself as a central pillar in Solana’s fast-growing DeFi landscape. This period saw the full emergence of Raydium’s multi-product identity, with the introduction and operational scaling of LaunchLab—a robust platform for token creation and launch—transforming revenue streams and solidifying Raydium’s influence in both token issuance and liquidity provision.
During Q3 2025, Raydium generated $24.3 million in net revenue, a 69% increase quarter-over-quarter, and captured a rising 15.9% share of the Solana DEX market. Its dominant new product, LaunchLab, was the primary revenue driver and underscored Raydium’s role as a launchpad and liquidity provider for the next wave of Solana projects. The integration of issuance, secondary trading, and versatile liquidity solutions helped the protocol process $51.9 billion in trading volume, marking a 31% quarter-over-quarter increase.
LaunchLab: Redefining Raydium’s Revenue Engine
This quarter represented the first full operational cycle for LaunchLab after its mid-April debut. LaunchLab quickly became Raydium’s most significant revenue stream, generating $12.8 million (220% increase QoQ) and accounting for over half of total protocol revenues. This was a decisive shift from previous quarters, where trading (swap) fees dominated. LaunchLab’s integration enabled Raydium to participate across the entire Solana project lifecycle—token creation, primary liquidity, and secondary market trading—which, in turn, amplified swap volume and activity across the protocol’s AMM, CPMM, and CLMM pool architectures.
Early adoption by major communities, such as the Bonk Foundation, led to sustained throughput and secondary trading activity, especially evident in July’s exceptional performance. Notably, half of the swap revenue during the quarter was derived from LaunchLab tokens, demonstrating the powerful network effects of coupling token launches with DEX liquidity in a unified platform.
Swap Segment Dynamics: Balancing Speculation and Stability
While LaunchLab was the new headline act, Raydium’s swap engine continued to evolve, delivering $10.5 million in revenue (+18% QoQ). The protocol’s hybrid liquidity model utilizes three main pool architectures:
- AMMs – The high-beta engine, tied to speculative and meme-token activity, with the highest fee structure (0.25%).
- CPMM Pools – The fastest-growing segment, now contributing nearly half of swap revenue.
- CLMM Pools – Concentrated liquidity pools, offering more efficient and consistent fee generation for liquidity providers.
The combination of stable base liquidity (from CPMM and CLMM pools) and cyclical, high-upside activity (from AMMs) provides Raydium with resilience and flexibility in changing market conditions.
Financial Performance: Cash Flow, Capital Allocation, and Growing Treasury
Strong Cash Flow and Disciplined Allocation
Q3 2025 saw Raydium generate $27.5 million in operating cash flow, a robust 62% increase from the previous quarter. Of this, $14.6 million was allocated to protocol buybacks and treasury, maintaining disciplined capital management while allowing some deferral of inflows for future strategic deployment. The consistent operating cash flow supports Raydium’s ongoing upgrades, development, and incentives ecosystem.
Robust Treasury Growth Supported by RAY Alignment
Raydium’s treasury closed the quarter at $239.9 million, reflecting a 34% QoQ increase driven by both RAY token price appreciation and increased accumulation. The treasury remains highly concentrated in RAY (79% of total assets), with USDC and SOL reserves providing operational liquidity and exposure to broader ecosystem growth. On a year-over-year basis, treasury assets more than doubled, reinforcing Raydium’s bet on native token alignment and on-chain capital compounding.
Revenue and Volume Drivers: LaunchLab, DEX Growth, and Market Trends
LaunchLab’s Immediate Impact and Strategic Importance
LaunchLab’s explosive growth (up 220% QoQ) affirmed Raydium’s successful pivot into token origination services. By integrating primary issuance and swap liquidity, Raydium is embedded at the heart of Solana’s hottest new launches, capturing fees not just on trading but across the project lifecycle. However, the platform’s revenue was notably concentrated and front-loaded—most of Q3’s LaunchLab income arrived in July, with activity moderating by quarter-end as competition increased and the initial launch frenzy tapered.
Trading Volume: Healthy Mix but Sustained by Speculation
Raydium processed $51.9 billion in trading volume, with growth distributed across direct trading, aggregator routes, and new trading platforms. The trading category mix remained dominated by meme tokens (53% of volume, $27.5B), but core pairs like SOL-stablecoin and project tokens gained share as the quarter progressed, illustrating growing market maturity and the beginnings of diversification beyond speculative mania.
Liquidity Growth and TVL: Delivering on Depth and Market Leadership
Raydium closed Q3 as Solana’s largest liquidity hub with $2.5 billion in total value locked (TVL), up 35% QoQ. Liquidity distribution by pool type tells a nuanced story:
- Traditional AMMs — Anchored the vast majority of total liquidity (83%), scaling sharply with speculative inflows.
- CPMM Pools — Grew 82% QoQ and punched above their weight in fee generation, showing superior capital efficiency.
- CLMM Pools — Provided steady, predictable revenues and professional-grade execution for more institutional liquidity providers.
This balanced liquidity structure gives Raydium the capacity to capture both speculative surges and consistent, institutional activity—a rare combination in DeFi.
Liquidity Provider (LP) Participation and Fee Generation
Q3 was highly lucrative for Raydium’s LPs, who earned $87 million in fees, averaging almost $1 million per day. Unsurprisingly, 90% of these fees originated from meme-token trading activity spearheaded by LaunchLab launches—mirroring the speculative energy that characterized the Solana ecosystem for much of 2025. SOL-stablecoin pools and other categories provided a stable revenue floor, buffering the protocol against volatility-driven cycles.
Protocol Analysis: Growing, Diversifying, and Adapting
Volume Growth and Healthier User Engagement
Raydium’s total trading volume increased 30% quarter-over-quarter, with direct trading volumes nearly doubling to $20.5B (40% of overall activity), reflecting improved user experience and sticky engagement driven by LaunchLab visibility. Stable aggregator volumes and rapid growth from new trading platforms showcased Raydium’s importance as both a liquidity endpoint and an infrastructure provider.
Trade Categories: Signs of Market Maturity
While memes still drove the bulk of activity, the share of more “fundamental” categories—SOL-stablecoin pairs and project tokens—grew as the quarter progressed. This points to a slow but important shift toward a more institutional-grade and diversified trading base. July was the zenith for meme tokens, but by September, SOL-stablecoin pairs had overtaken memes as the top volume driver.
TVL Leadership and Evolving Pool Mix
Growth in TVL was bolstered by rising price action, capital inflows, and Raydium’s continued buildout of innovative pool architectures. CPMM and CLMM pools, though smaller in absolute liquidity, demonstrated exceptional efficiency and became the workhorses for protocol fee stability.
Product and Ecosystem Innovations
Raydium’s development pace continued unabated during Q3:
- Launch of Swap V2 interface, improving routing and user experience.
- Rollout of permissioned asset trading (including real-world assets, or RWAs) through CLMM upgrades.
- Expansion of LaunchLab functionality to support Token-2022, new fee share mechanisms, and launch parameter locking.
- Industry-first fully-functional Devnet UI for seamless developer and user testing.
These product enhancements further entrenched Raydium as the core liquidity layer on Solana and laid the groundwork for deeper institutional integrations, as evidenced by new partnerships and compatibility with asset tokenization platforms.
Risk Factors: Concentration and Seasonality in LaunchLab Revenue
While LaunchLab’s rapid ascent is a monumental achievement, the revenue and activity remain heavily concentrated in tokens launched via the LetsBonk ecosystem (over 98% of launches). Such dependence exposes Raydium to risks if user trends shift suddenly or if competing platforms siphon off flow. The front-loaded performance in Q3—over 70% of LaunchLab revenue arrived in July—points to potential seasonality and the crucial need for platform diversification.
Market Share and Competitive Dynamics
Raydium’s market share ebbed and flowed during Q3. While the protocol outpaced the broader Solana DEX market on an absolute volume basis, competition from new AMMs and launch platforms led to share compression—from a peak of 24% in July down to 15.9% by quarter close. This dynamic is a hallmark of a maturing DEX landscape, where differentiated architectures and fee structures are reshuffling liquidity flows and user allegiances.
Strategic Outlook: Building for Durability and Sustainable Growth
Looking ahead, Raydium enters Q4 with a strong foundation but pressing priorities:
- Market Differentiation: Defend share and continue innovating at the protocol and UI levels to lead as Solana’s full-stack liquidity platform.
- Diversifying LaunchLab: Expand issuer base beyond a single dominant funnel (LetsBonk), broadening access and stabilizing revenue.
- Balancing Volatility and Depth: Maintain the advantage of AMM-driven spikes while ensuring core liquidity and fees through CPMM and CLMM pool robustness.
Q3 2025 validated Raydium’s multi-pool, multi-product approach and the power of vertical integration in DeFi. The key challenge will be ensuring that the recent acceleration in revenue and volume is not a transient boom but the start of sustainable, recurring growth. Success here would entrench Raydium not just as a liquidity hub, but as Solana’s go-to infrastructure for token origination, trading, and institutional-grade growth.
Appendix: Raydium Fundamentals
What Is Raydium?
Raydium is a leading decentralized exchange (DEX) and automated market maker (AMM) on the Solana blockchain. It supports multiple pool types—AMM, CPMM, and CLMM—enabling diverse liquidity strategies for projects and traders. Its hallmark LaunchLab platform allows seamless token launches and integrates issuance directly with secondary trading and liquidity bootstrapping. As an open, permissionless protocol, Raydium is fundamental to DeFi on Solana.
Revenue Streams and Structure
- Swap Revenue: Fees from trades executed via AMM, CPMM, and CLMM pools.
- LaunchLab Revenue: Collected from trading activity on tokens launched through LaunchLab. Raydium collects a 0.25% fee across all platforms, with its native LaunchLab charging an additional 0.75% fee.
- Pool Launch Fees: Projects pay a 0.15 SOL fee for each new AMM or CPMM pool created on Raydium.
Cash Flow Management and Treasury
- Buybacks: Part of protocol revenue is used to buy back RAY tokens from the open market.
- Treasury Accumulation: USDC and SOL are regularly added to protocol reserves to maintain operational and developmental flexibility.
Liquidity Provider Incentives and Protocol Fees
Raydium rewards liquidity providers through trading fee allocations. AMM pools direct 0.22% of trade volume to LPs, while CPMM and CLMM pools allocate 84% of trading fees to LPs, with the balance split between buybacks and the treasury.
Methodology and Data Integrity
Raydium and Solana DEX volumes are measured with filtering to exclude wash trading and unknown-token pools, ensuring accurate reporting and comparison across platforms and timeframes.
Conclusion
Raydium’s Q3 2025 performance demonstrates the platform’s ability to scale, adapt, and innovate in a rapidly evolving DeFi landscape. With impressive revenue growth, deepening liquidity, and a strong product pipeline, Raydium is well-positioned for continued leadership. However, to ensure long-term defense against competitive pressures and changing user behaviors, broadening LaunchLab participation and maintaining balanced, high-quality liquidity across pool types will be essential. As Solana DeFi matures, Raydium stands poised to bridge new asset classes, maintain revenue stability, and serve as the backbone of token origination and exchange for the blockchain’s next era.
