Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko known as Toly has been developing an open-source framework called Percolator, a high-performance, on-chain perpetual futures decentralized exchange (perps DEX) designed specifically for the Solana blockchain.
The project first surfaced publicly in October 2025 when Yakovenko published detailed documentation and code on his GitHub repository. He described it as an experimental, “implementation-ready” design for a self-custodial perps protocol.
Key features include: Sharded matching engines (“slabs”) that split the order book into multiple independent, parallel engines. This leverages Solana’s high throughput and parallel execution to enable sub-millisecond latency and efficient trade matching.
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A Router program for managing collateral, portfolio margin netting, position tracking, and atomic cross-slab routing. A Slab program handling per-token or per-market order books, risk management, and settlement — each LP (liquidity provider) runs a self-contained slab that can innovate independently.
Emphasis on formal verification for the accounting and risk engine to ensure users cannot withdraw more value than they deposit (preventing over-withdrawals or exploits). Fully on-chain execution, aiming to compete with dominant perps platforms like Hyperliquid, dYdX, or Aster by offering Solana-native speed, low fees, and decentralization.
Yakovenko has framed it as an experiment, partly involving AI tools like Claude for code generation, and encouraged developers to fork, build on, or even “steal” the ideas to foster competition and innovation in Solana’s DeFi ecosystem. He clarified it wasn’t an immediate product launch but a test of concepts like prop AMM-style competition for perps with shared risk pools.
The core framework remains in development and experimental stages on GitHub, with ongoing updates and community discussion. No full mainnet launch has occurred yet, but it has inspired community forks and related experiments, including memecoin integrations on devnet.
Toly has engaged in recent conversations about these ideas, including oracle price manipulation risks in thin markets and potential for per-token perps markets. This aligns with Solana’s push to strengthen its DeFi offerings, especially in the booming perpetuals segment, where on-chain volume has exploded.
If fully realized, Percolator could significantly boost Solana’s derivatives trading capabilities by making high-performance perps native to the L1.
Sharded matching engines, as introduced in Anatoly Yakovenko’s (Toly’s) Percolator perpetuals framework for Solana, represent an innovative architectural approach to building a high-performance, fully on-chain perpetual futures decentralized exchange (perps DEX).
Traditional Matching Engine vs. Sharded Approach
In a conventional centralized or on-chain exchange like many CLOB-based perps platforms, there’s typically a single, monolithic matching engine:It maintains one unified order book or a small set of them. All incoming orders — for every trading pair/market — are processed sequentially by this central engine.
This creates a bottleneck: high order volume can lead to delays, increased latency, higher fees in congested conditions, and systemic risk (one market crash or exploit can affect the entire platform). Percolator flips this model by sharding (partitioning) the matching process.
Percolator divides the overall trading system into multiple independent, parallel “slabs” — each slab functions as its own self-contained matching engine (a mini-order-book + execution logic): Each slab is typically dedicated to a specific token, market, or set of related perpetual futures contracts.
Slabs operate independently and in parallel, taking full advantage of Solana’s parallel transaction execution model where unrelated instructions can run simultaneously without contention. This sharding enables sub-millisecond latency potential and massive throughput, as orders for different assets don’t queue behind each other in a single engine.
Slab program — Deployed and run by liquidity providers (LPs). Each LP can operate their own slab(s), which includes: Its own order book logic like price-time priority CLOB, or even pluggable AMM/RFQ-style matching. Independent matching and settlement rules. Risk checks and position management limited to that slab’s scope.
The central coordinator that sits above the slabs. It handles: Collateral deposits/withdrawals. Portfolio-level margin netting (cross-margining across different slabs/markets for the same user). Atomic cross-slab order routing.
Solana can process many unrelated slabs/markets at once ? dramatically higher TPS for perps trading compared to single-engine designs. Problems (bugs, liquidity dries up, oracle issues) in one slab/market stay contained ? doesn’t cascade to the entire exchange.
Different LPs can run different slabs with custom matching logic, fees, incentives, or even experimental features ? fosters a competitive, evolving ecosystem (Yakovenko explicitly encourages forking and “stealing” ideas). As more markets are added, you just spin up more slabs rather than overloading a central engine.
Cross-slab coordination via the Router must be perfect to maintain atomicity and correct portfolio margining. If too many competing slabs exist for similar markets, liquidity might split ? though the design aims to let the best slabs attract flow naturally.
Percolator are essentially parallel, independent mini-exchanges (slabs) coordinated by a secure router — a deliberate adaptation to Solana’s strengths in parallelism, aiming to deliver CEX-like speed and decentralization in on-chain perps while avoiding single points of failure or congestion.
This contrasts with more monolithic designs on other chains and positions Percolator as a potential high-performance contender in the perpetuals space.