DEX Development on Solana: The Ultimate Guide

The crypto exchange wave has not gone away from the market; it increases every year by year, gradually increasing the number of people's usage in a centralized or decentralized way. At the battleground, Solana blockchain is an important player in the segment of developing crypto exchanges using their technology. DEX development on Solana is gearing up fast and more applications are being launched. This all because of Solana’s nature to handle higher transactions at a blazing speed with lower gas fees, potentially incorporating innovative things into it, and being developer-friendly.

If you are an entrepreneur looking to build a decentralized exchange and confused on whether Solana based DEX development is the best choice then this is the right article for you to read on. In this blog, we will explain why the Solana ecosystem is best for developing DEX platforms and steps to create a DEX on the Solana blockchain.

Solana for DEX Development: Why It's the Ideal Choice

Solana is a renowned blockchain network specifically designed for speed, security, and incorporating scalable dApps. At the beginning of Solana, Ethereum dominated the entire market. When it is comparable to Ethereum, Solana takes one step ahead in terms of availing features and opportunities for the users from some perspectives, such as the proof-of-history mechanism and a lower transaction fee, which is approximately $0.00025 per transaction.

Why should entrepreneurs consider their DEX platform development on Solana?

There are peculiar reasons that might be changing the mind of the Solana DEX platform, such as being highly scalable, lower transaction fees, liquidity pools, and lower transaction fees. These compiling features have easily attracted users and ultimately built a large user base on your platform. So overall, you should gain a lot of profits and attain DEX on Solana.

Benefits of Building a DEX on Solana

When you compare the parallel CEX platform with DEX, it has the same level of exposure and desire for all crypto enthusiasts in the market. But what matters most importantly is that it is considered a decentralized exchange. Here we go Let’s see the entrepreneurs considering the point of creating their own DEX platform using Solana

Scalability and Speed

Solana handles 65,000 transactions per second on paper and at maximum potential. However, based on demand, it handles 5,000 to 10,000 transactions per second with lower latency. These trading behaviors depict faster trading execution at the higher peak time so that users get a smoother trading experience at any congested peak hours and transact their assets at blazing speed without any interaction.

Minimal Transaction Fees

Solana’s nature is different from that of other blockchain networks because it provides lower transaction fees than others. Approximately, Solana charges a minimal transaction fee; the average is $0.00025 per transaction. However, it attracts cost-effective trading in the DEX platform and overall reduces operational costs.

Emerging Ecosystem

Solana is an emerging ecosystem of people who use their projects and integrate them into various DeFi platforms. DEX development on Solana, which potentially has the opportunity to collaborate with other projects in the same ecosystem that utilize your platform to get into innovation growth and cater to your DEX.

Developer Friendly

The Solana platform leverages familiar programming languages for developers to build their platforms, such as C++ and Rust. Furthermore, Solana uses its tools for simplifying and streamlining processes to build DEX applications, like the Solana Web3.js SDK. To leverage these tools, you’ll reduce the development cost and time.

Create Potentially Innovative

Solana is a distinctive architectural threshold for multiple innovative features on your DEX platform. To leverage this Solana ecosystem to create more new emerging functionalities, improve the overall experience, and give competition to other DEX platforms. Here are the top Solana-based DEX platforms; they are Jupiter, Raydium, and Orca

Step-by-Step Guide to DEX Development on Solana

If you plan to create your decentralized exchange on Solana, grasp the client's requirements to build a successive blockchain development team and have strong technical knowledge to proceed with your project. Here, we list the steps to create your DEX platform on Solana.

Planning and Design

Initially, when you get your DEX project, you’ll draft your project white paper, which includes what purposes you have to create, what value you give to your audience, and what problems your platform solves compared to existing DEX platforms. Take time for market research to determine which features and functionalities are already available in the market, figure out the market's missing features or functionalities, identify potential backlogs, and figure out other ways to provide a unique value proposition for your users. Lastly, finalize your target audience and market segment. 

Refer to an intuitive platform design for your DEX platform that has the simplest and easiest way to reach all options without any mess. Before finalizing your user interface that is easy to fit for your website, mobile app, and desktop client that connects to the Solana blockchain to execute trades,

Research Existing DEX Platforms on Solana

After that, your business plan and goal setting require proper business research for your DEX platform to analyze the existing DEX platform on Solana. determine which one is suitable for your business development and speculate which offers intrinsic value for the users and in the long-term. These are the names of existing famous DEX platforms available on the Solana platform 

1. Raydium

2. Jupiter

3. Serum

4. Orca

5. Marginifi

DEX Development Stage

Secondly, choose your platform architecture for your DEX. Familiarly, people use the Automated Market Maker (AMM) model or research existing open-source DEX projects on Solana like Serum [serum dex] or OpenBook DEX [openbook dex on GitHub] for your reference.

Smart Contract Development

Fixing your smart contract functionalities on DEX for forthcoming Solana-supported programming languages like C++, Rust, or other compatible languages. This smart contract will handle the platform's core functionalities for multiple purposes, like order matching, token swaps, and liquidity pool management.

Token Integration

Establish your supported DEX tokens. This process involves creating your platform token on the Solana blockchain so that users can deposit, withdraw, and trade their tokens flawlessly.

Liquidity Provision

Set up your DEX platform liquidity pools for different trading pairs. Users can lock up their liquidity pools for trading and earning rewards from their investments.

Integrate Front-end and Back-end

Combine the front-end assets, such as UI, trading tools, account management, responsive design, and back-end assets, like trading engines, liquidity pools, blockchain, API, wallet integration, blockchain, and smart contracts, to make your DEX platform well-packed in all functionality-wise.

Security Audits

Conduct necessary security audits and testing for your DEX platform to make it more secure and check that functions are integrated. Periodically conduct bug bounty programs to identify your platform's security flaws.

Deployment and Maintenance

Once your platform has passed the testing and security audits, it is ready to deploy your DEX platform on the Solana Mainnet or Testnet. Must follow up on security audits and performance optimization during the deployment stage. After that deployment, consistently monitor your platform for any security issues or, if updates are needed, take points from the user’s feedback and market technological emergence.

Marketing your DEX Platform

Actively create promotions for your DEX platform to attract users and liquidity providers. DEX platform owners should concentrate their product marketing in many ways, such as engaging their audience to participate in or conduct events in the Solana community and webinars to increase their platform exposure and adoption. Not only that, but in many ways, it could potentially grab the attention of your DEX platform, like an influencer partnership. 

Indulge your business in creating high-quality and engaging content through blog posts, articles, videos, and social media, and publish your content on appropriate, potentially engaging platforms for your audience. Optimize your platform on your website or app strongly, SEO-wise, and invest in paid advertising on relevant platforms.

Generally, if your startup business wants to attract an audience by conducting airdrop and reward programs to get incentives to attract new audiences and engage your users,

The Cost of DEX Development on Solana: A Breakdown

The development of decentralized exchange on Solana has depended on several factors based on complexity, resource usage, expertise level, technology stacks, time frame for development, integration of third-party services, and other factors depending on the user requirements. We comprehend this kind of development cost and will categorize it into four parts as

Basic Level of DEX

A basic level of the DEX platform consists of limited features such as simpler user interface, options, security, and features. Overall, it takes around $10,000 to $40,000.

Mid-Level of DEX

It is a mid-level DEX platform that includes nearly advanced features and functionalities, a sophisticated user interface, and a robust level of security. This Mie-Level DEX plan costs around $50,000 to $150,000.

Advanced Level of DEX

This category of DEX platform is the best option to consider for all entrepreneurs because it covers all aspects, such as high-performance trading engines, advanced risk management systems, and sophisticated security measures. Development costs will start at around $250,000 to $500,000.

Enterprise Level of DEX

At this enterprise level, there are extremely customized features like institutional-certified trading functionality, pro-level analytics, and top-tier security features. This package's cost starts at around $500,000, depending on the user's needs.

DEX Development on Solana: Conclusion and Next Steps

In this heavily competitive DEX market, most entrepreneurs should focus on building their DEX platform on Solana because of the uncompromising level of features, security, instant transaction settlement, markedly lower gas fees, being highly interoperable with any technology, and a growing DeFi ecosystem. These are places people should consider for their DEX on Solana. If you are an energetic entrepreneur who wants to adapt to your business, then you reach the one-stop solution provider Appticz.

Appticz is the leading Crypto exchange software development company that has developed and deployed 150+ crypto exchanges to clients worldwide. We are capable of creating your DEX platform on Solana from scratch to achieve your desired business goals and future-proof it. We have 5+ years of experience in the crypto field, handling crypto and Defi platforms. So don’t make a mess of it, actually you can check out our past portfolio, which will clarify your view.