FAQs - Orca

What is Orca?
Orca is the easiest place to exchange cryptocurrency on the Solana blockchain. On Orca, you can exchange tokens cheaply, quickly, and confidently (thanks to our Fair Price Indicator). Additionally, you can provide liquidity to one of our liquidity pools, including our concentrated liquidity pools (Whirlpools) to earn trading fees and token emissions.
What is the difference between an AMM and a traditional exchange?
There are two major types of cryptocurrency exchanges: traditional orderbook exchanges and automated market maker (AMM) exchanges. In the former, the orderbook matches users looking to buy with users looking to sell similar amounts of tokens. In the latter, users trade with a pool of tokens, rather than directly with other users. For blockchain applications, we believe that AMM-based exchanges are the superior approach because of their simplicity and composability.
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Why Solana?
Of the solutions competing to scale the blockchain ecosystem, Solana's performance stands out: 50,000 transactions per second, 400ms block times, and $0.01 average transaction fees. What’s more, we've been continually impressed by the value, vision, and engineering chops of the Solana team. For these reasons, we believe that Solana is the best choice to support the next generation of DeFi apps.
Do you have a governance token?
The ORCA governance token was launched on Monday, August 9, 2021. Details on the ORCA token can be found on the Tokenomics page.
ORCA token mint address: orcaEKTdK7LKz57vaAYr9QeNsVEPfiu6QeMU1kektZE (Solana Explorer)
For details of our governance process please see the Govenance v0 User Guide.
Was there an airdrop?
The ORCA token was Fair Launched (retroactively airdropped) to liquidity providers and traders on Monday, August 9, 2021. Read more about Orca's tokenomics and airdrop details on the Tokenomics page.
Several of our collectibles have already been distributed. If you are lucky enough to have earned one, you can view it here.
Was there a public sale?
No, there has not been any public sales of the ORCA token. 
There was a private fundraising round that took place in September 2021, during which 9.6% of the ORCA token was allocated. All investors are subject to a three-year vest and a linear unlock after the one-year lockup.
Public information about the fundraise can be found here:
Orca raises $18M from Polychain, Placeholder, Three Arrows, and more
Medium
Which wallets can I use with Orca?
To connect to Orca you will need a compatible wallet, we currently support: Phantom (available on desktop and mobile); Solflare (a multiplatform wallet available on desktop and mobile); Math Wallet (a multichain wallet available on desktop and mobile); Coin98 extension (a multichain wallet); Slope (available on desktop and mobile); or Sollet.io (the Solana wallet created by Project Serum). 

We plan to integrate other wallets that support Solana program execution, as they are released.
Can I use Orca on my phone?
You can use Orca on the phone with Phantom, Solflare, Math Wallet or Slope.
Is the Orca smart contract open-source?
Yes! The code for our Constant Product pools are here, our Stable curve pools are here, and Whirlpools are here. Note that the Orca smart contract uses the token-swap program developed by the Solana team. The Constant Product pool and Whirlpool smart contracts have undergone formal audits.
Has Orca been audited?
We use the Solana team's token-swap program. Orca's Constant Product pools use a version which was audited by crypto security firm Kudelski. This deployment uses the commit hash: 3613cea3c.
Orca's Stable curve pools use a more recent version which has not been through a formal audit. However, it has been reviewed by Orca and Solana's engineers. The deployment uses the commit hash: 813aa3.
Orca's Concentrated Liquidity product Whirlpools has been double audited by Kudelski and Neodyme. 
What is the Orca Treasury wallet address?
Orca strives for transparency and in that spirit we disclose relevant wallet addresses as follows:
Orca Treasury and Orca Impact Fund https://solscan.io/account/2YM8LrJGRtsDcWeqsjX2EQwJfhArxyDdtDzgt7vrwwbV​
ORCA token initial source wallet (see our most recent Treasury Report for more details): https://solscan.io/account/GjKxauMroc9MT27xXYyjLYNfy9nSS5EuHTmzhdkjCAR1​
What are the risks of using Orca?
Orca is a new application on a relatively new blockchain. There are a number of risks to using Orca:
1. Smart contract vulnerabilities: The Solana mainnet is still in beta, and there is always the possibility of an exploit in the smart contract. To mitigate these risks, Orca's smart contract uses the Solana Foundation's token-swap program, which has been audited by crypto security firm Kudelski. It is also very similar in structure to well-understood AMMs on Ethereum, such as Uniswap. Nonetheless, we strongly encourage taking the time to understand the risks before trading.
2. Divergence loss (impermanent loss): As token prices diverge from their prices at deposit your liquidity becomes lower in value when compared to its value if tokens were held outside the pool. Depending on volatility, your liquidity stake may become lower than your deposit when you withdraw. Though this has historically been rare on Uniswap, large price swings could cause liquidity providers to lose money. For more information, this blog post from the Uniswap team is a great primer on impermanent loss. The risk of divergence loss is amplified in Whirlpools, please see here.
3. Wallet providers: Orca is compatible with a wide range of wallets, including Phantom, Solflare, MathWallet, Coin98, Slope and an open-source Solana wallet called Sollet.io. A wallet exploit could affect the user.
What does "Not Enough SOL" mean?
SOL is required to pay network fees. The actual fees are likely to be lower, but for simplicity, a small minimum balance of SOL is required to transact on Orca.
(For more details, see the below FAQ: What fees do I pay when I exchange tokens?)
What fees do I pay when I exchange tokens?
Liquidity provider fee: When swapping, you pay a percentage of the trade value as a fee. These fees vary depending on the route the AMM uses, see below for details of the fees. (NOTE: a "double-hop swap" such as SOL -> USDT -> ETH would pay 0.3% to swap SOL -> USDT and a further 0.3% to swap USDT -> ETH.) 

Regular Pools have a swap fee of 0.3%, composed of 0.25% paid as earnings for liquidity providers and the remaining 0.05% split 80/20 into the Treasury and Impact Fund respectively.

Stable Pools (such as USDC/USDT or SOL/mSOL) have a lower swap fee, 0.07%, than other Constant Product pool, composed of 0.06% paid to liquidity providers and the remaining 0.01% split 80/20 into the Treasury and Impact Fund respectively.

Whirlpools have a 0.25% swap fee, of which 0.24% goes to liquidity providers and the remaining 0.01% to the Impact Fund.
Stable Whirlpools have a swap fee of 0.01% which goes to liquidity providers.
Network fee:  when trading a nominal amount of SOL is also paid in the form of Solana network fees. The exact amount varies depending on the parameters of the trade; when trading a token for the first time, more SOL is required to add that token to your wallet. In the past, we've found that most trades cost between 0.0001 — 0.001 SOL.
Orca does not charge any additional fees.
How does the Fair Price Indicator work?
When you enter a trade, there are two factors that determine whether we show a Fair price label:
1.Is the price per token within 1% of the rate quoted by CoinGecko?
2.Is the price impact caused by this trade less than 1%?
If either of these two conditions is not met, you'll see either the "Rate Warning!" or "Great Price!" alert in the UI. When a Rate Warning label is displayed you can still trade after acknowledging the warning.
What is price impact?
The price you get on Orca depends on the size of the order. As the amount of tokens you buy from the pool increases, the price of the token increases as well. This increase in price is called price impact. 
Which curves do your trading pools use?
Our Pools use the Constant Product curve (x * y = k) popularized by Uniswap, as well as the stable curve popularized by curve.fi for Stablecoin pools (currently USDC/USDT). 
Our Whirlpools are concentrated liquidity pools, similar to Uniswap v3. Each liquidity provider chooses the range within which they want to provide liquidity and swaps are executed using the combined liquidity of all individual curves currently in range. 
If you have ideas for other curves, please don't hesitate to reach out!​
Why did my exchange fail?
The exchange will fail if the price of the underlying pools moves past your Slippage Tolerance setting. Increasing the tolerance in your local settings will raise the chances of your exchange succeeding, but also increase the probability of another party front-running your trade.
Due to current limitations of the smart contract, exchanges that route through multiple pools have a higher likelihood of failing due to slippage. The transaction may succeed if sent again. We recognize that this could be frustrating, so we have plans in the works to improve the logic for trades that use multiple pools.
During periods of Solana network congestion there is an increased likelihood of transaction failure.
How do you decide which tokens to list on Orca?
Orca's team will list tokens based on information provided by the project and demonstrated community demand (e.g., volume or interest). Orca protocol is a DEX and and will aim to support every asset that is tradable on Solana.
Are tokens on Orca wrapped?
Some tokens on Orca are wrapped, including BTC, ETH, AVAX, LUNA, LidoDAO, Celo, FTM and UST. There are several source protocols for wrapped tokens, you can find more details in our Tokenpedia.
I have ERC-20 tokens in MetaMask. How can I trade them on Orca?
To trade ERC-20s on Orca, you’ll need to convert them to SPL tokens by transferring them from MetaMask to your native SPL wallet. For a step-by-step guide, see How to Exchange Tokens.
Why should I provide liquidity on Orca?
Users typically provide liquidity to Orca’s pools to earn trading fees. 

Example: you provide liquidity to the SOL/USDC Pool and receive liquidity tokens (LP tokens) in return, these act like a receipt for your deposited tokens.
Each time a swap routes through the SOL/USDC pool, 0.3% of the trade value is added to the pool. Over time these fees accumulate increasing the Pool's value relative to the value of its original deposits.
When you redeem your liquidity tokens, you will receive the share of the SOL/USDC Pool that you LP tokens represent, this will include your share of any accumulated fees. (Note: due to divergence loss, you are not guaranteed a positive return).
NOTE: in Whirlpools fees are not added to the pool and can be harvested at any time.
How do I earn fees on Orca?
Trading fees are automatically added to Pools after each swap. These fees increase the amount of tokens that you get back when you withdraw liquidity. While you cannot harvest trading fees, without withdrawing at least some liquidity, you can harvest ORCA rewards from Aquafarms and other tokens from eligible Double-Dip pools at any time.

All earned yields are harvestable from Whirlpools at any time.
How do I track trading fees earned from Pools?
For now, we recommend manual tracking. To do this, record how many of each token you've deposited, along with how many tokens you're able to currently withdraw, then use the following formula:
growth=currentTokenA∗currentTokenBinitialTokenA∗initialTokenBgrowth = \dfrac{\sqrt{currentTokenA * currentTokenB}}{\sqrt{initialTokenA*initialTokenB}}growth=initialTokenA∗initialTokenB​currentTokenA∗currentTokenB​​
This number represents the percentage growth of your deposit from trading fees. 

NOTE: you will need to subtract divergence loss to determine net earnings.
What are liquidity tokens?
Liquidity tokens (also called LP Tokens) represent a share of a liquidity pool. For instance, if you contribute to the SOL/USDC pool, you will receive SOL/USDC liquidity tokens. If you have deposited liquidity, you will be able to see liquidity tokens in your wallet.
How are projected earnings and APY calculated?
Given a pool with: pool token supply, token A, and token B: we use the following formula to calculate the ratio: (token A * token B)^(1/2) / (pool token supply). This ratio increases when trading occurs in the pool, regardless of how the pool size changes. We sample this value every 10 minutes and the data is used to calculate the ratio growth over time. This allows us to project an APY value for any sampled time period.
Can I withdraw my liquidity at any time?
Yes, Orca allows you to redeem liquidity tokens for your share of tokens at any time.
Why aren't stable pool pairs balanced like other Pools?
The deposits and withdraws for stable pools are often imbalanced, but this is intended behavior. 
Stable pools are designed to maintain a relatively stable price despite large imbalances in the pool. For example, the mSOL/SOL pool may contain far more mSOL than SOL, but the exchange rate will remain close to even (e.g. 1 mSOL for 1 SOL). However, this means that liquidity providers will deposit and withdraw more mSOL than SOL, since the amount they provide must be proportional to the amount of tokens currently in the pool.
This is in contrast to other Constant Product pools where changes in the balance of the pool directly effect the price of the tokens. Since the balance of the pool is proportional to the price of the tokens, liquidity providers can generally expect the value of each token to be the same when depositing or withdrawing.
Can I yield farm / stake on Orca?
Yes, Aquafarms are Orca’s yield farming program. View the How to Provide Liquidity on Orca page for a step-by-step guide on how to participate as an LP.
Aquafarm LPs earn both trading fees and ORCA emissions. You will see ORCA rewards accrue continuously and can harvest any time with no lock-ups. Trading fees accrue directly to your LP tokens and are available when you withdraw.

Double-Dip Pools are a special kind of Aquafarm that allow LP holders to earn additional tokens, please see How to Use Double-Dip Pools. 
Update: For a limited time between 28th September and 12th October 2021, ORCA holders were able to stake their ORCA in single-sided pools and earn a share of 65k ORCA in total rewards. Over 2m ORCA were staked by ORCA holders, earning roughly 72% APR.
To learn more about how to stake on Orca.so, check out our video tutorial.
What are Collectibles?
Collectible tokens, featuring creatures from our marine ecosystem have been given as a token of appreciation to users at various times. They have no intrinsic value, but can be transferred like any other SPL token.

On desktop when connecting to Orca using a wallet that contains collectibles you will enjoy an enhanced background with more abundant sealife. 
I previously staked ORCA or a Collectible. How do I unstake?
Visit https://www.orca.so/staking and toggle to "Ended." You'll be able to unstake from that screen!
Can I exchange programmatically on Orca?
Of course! You can interact with our pools using the token-swap Javascript client from the Solana engineering team. You can also view the deployed program on the Solana Explorer. 
Can I integrate with Orca?
Yes! You can read more in Integrations, but also check out #integrate-with-orca.
How can I report a bug?
Please tell us about it in #bug-reports.
I have feedback or an idea for a feature, how can I share it with Orca?
We value your feedback! Share it directly with us in #feedback.
How can I get in touch?
You can find us on Discord, Telegram, or Twitter (@orca_so). We look forward to chatting with you!
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