Orca

Exchanges

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What it is

Orca was the Solana DEX that decided the interface mattered. It shows you what a trade will actually do in plain language before you confirm, which sounds minor and is the reason a lot of people learned to swap onchain here rather than somewhere else. Its Whirlpools are concentrated liquidity pools in the style of Uniswap v3, so liquidity providers choose a price range instead of spreading capital across every possible price. Most routing on Solana now goes through Jupiter, which sends a large share of its volume into pools like these, so you may be trading against Orca without ever opening it. No relation to Orca Crypto, which is this site.

The ORCA token

Live figures load from CoinGecko when the page opens and refresh when you reload. Prices move constantly and are for orientation only.

A governance token is not the exchange, and holding one is not required to use the other.

Using it safely

1. Reach it from a bookmark

   Type the address or use a saved bookmark. Fake front ends served through search ads are the single most common way wallets get drained.

2. Check the network

   Your wallet and the site must be on the same chain, or your balance will appear to be zero.

3. Verify the token contract

   For anything other than a household name, paste the contract address from an official source rather than picking from a search list.

4. Set slippage tight

   0.1 to 0.5 percent on major pairs. If a token demands far more, that is information about the token.

5. Approve the exact amount

   Avoid unlimited approvals where the interface lets you choose. Review old ones periodically.

6. Read the transaction on an explorer

   Every time, at first. It builds the instinct that catches problems later.

What it costs

Two separate costs apply to every swap, and beginners often only notice one.

• The pool fee, typically 0.01 to 1 percent depending on the pair and the tier. This goes to liquidity providers.
• Network gas, which depends entirely on which chain you are on and has nothing to do with the DEX.

On Ethereum mainnet gas usually dominates. On Base or Solana it effectively disappears, and the pool fee is the whole cost.

Honest risk assessment

• Smart contract risk. Even audited, heavily used contracts have been exploited before.
• You are responsible for every approval you grant, and they persist until revoked.
• There is no support, no reversal and no recovery for a mistake.
• Prices come from pools, so thin liquidity means severe price impact on larger trades.
• Anyone can list any token. A matching name and logo proves nothing.

Common questions

Where to go next