Foundation targets orderbook-based derivatives without offchain sequencers
The Solana Foundation announced support on June 1 for teams building fully onchain perpetual futures protocols, positioning itself to challenge Hyperliquid’s dominance in decentralized derivatives. The initiative prioritizes execution models where order submission, matching, and settlement occur entirely onchain without offchain sequencers.
“Perpetuals are one of the most important financial primitives in crypto. Solana makes it viable to run them fully onchain, without sacrificing the performance real participants and institutions require,” the Foundation said in the announcement.
Hyperliquid has emerged as the reference point for onchain derivatives and a strong product-market-fit story in crypto. Most perpetual futures volume currently flows through centralized exchanges or hybrid architectures using offchain sequencers and matching engines. The Solana Foundation’s push signals a structural bet that fully onchain models can capture meaningful volume on the chain.
The Foundation intends to support teams building pricing models based on two-sided flow, such as orderbooks and request-for-quote systems with competing makers, rather than pool-based models. “We view that as a transitional state, not a permanent one. We want to support teams building onchain perps, other derivatives, and the applications around them, that prioritize price discovery infrastructure. Our support takes several forms: distribution, technical assistance, and above all, capital,” the Foundation stated.
Support extends beyond core perpetuals protocols. The Foundation seeks complementary infrastructure including frontend integrations, vaults, structured products, aggregators, trading interfaces, market making operations, and social trading applications. Grants may be available through Solana Foundation funding channels or local Superteam chapters.
The Foundation will prioritize existing teams with live products willing to explore a fully onchain, Solana-first model. “We’ll support existing teams with a live product that are willing to explore a fully onchain, on-Solana model,” the announcement said. The Foundation also expects application revenue to route back to the chain at protocol level.
Code transparency underpins the initiative. “Onchain integrity means little if the code behind it can’t be inspected. Contributing to Solana culturally means contributing in the open,” the Foundation said.
SOL traded at $79.54 at press time.
