Solana DEXs have grown fast and now handle large sums, yet they still face problems that could break them. In July 2025 they moved 124 billion dollars, ran 42% quicker than Ethereum and charged far smaller fees. Liquidity suppliers and coders care about those savings because cheap and quick trades decide whether people use the chain and believe it endures.
Solana’s design—Proof-of-History besides Proof-of-Stake—lets it burst past 65 000 transactions each second and keeps fees low, which makes both high speed funds and small users feel welcome. This mix underpins the network’s appeal across retail and professional flows.
The chain has halted more than once or clogged under load, and each hiccup chips away at trust. Too few validators hold large stakes, so control looks lopsided and concentration worries linger among market participants.
Solana’s speed helps arbitrage bots and “sandwich” attackers—especially during new token launches or wild price swings—and everyday traders lose out.
Market responses, lessons and governance
Among the exchanges, Raydium, Jupiter and Orca run tighter liquidity pools and smarter order routing, so prices stay closer to fair value and slippage shrinks. These product shifts aim to convert raw throughput into better execution for users.
Low cost and fast blocks pull volume, but deep books only appear if suppliers have simple tools to park capital where it earns the most fees, such as single tick liquidity pools.
Outages and hidden MEV raise both operational and reputational danger, so funds and banks hesitate to enter while those risks stay high.
Exchanges add anti-bot rules—for example a tax that drops linearly for early snipers during a launch—and they rewrite contracts in Rust next to Anchor to close security holes.
Governance and spread of power remain central: active communities must vote to patch faults, add redundancy or widen the validator set so no small group decides the fate of the chain.
Solana’s edge on price and speed is genuine, yet the chain keeps that edge only if it hardens its infrastructure, locks in deeper liquidity and tames MEV. The next big checkpoint is the Alpenglow upgrade, which data expects to cut finality to about 150 milliseconds and give the network room to host markets that stay open and fair even under stress.
