Solana developers are forking Serum DEX after FTX crisis
The Solana development team is working to fork the liquidity hub Serum in response to the hack that siphoned off over $600 million from the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX.
Given that FTX created Serum, many developers believe the FTX hack may have had an impact on the decentralized network.
Solana developers to fork Serum
Anatoly Yakovenko, the founder of Solana, stated that developers are currently forking the Serum code and will resume the protocol independent of FTX.
This is essential because someone at FTX possesses a private key that could manage the original code, and it is possible that this key has been compromised.
Yakovenko noted this to address Adam Cochran’s concerns that Jump Trading is attempting to fork Serum despite the fact that it may be experiencing liquidity issues. He stated:
“This has nothing to do with SRM or even Jump. A ton of protocols depend on serum markets for liquidity and liquidations.”
Mango Max, the developer in charge of the fork, has also provided more details about what prompted the decision to fork. According to him, the serum program update key was controlled by a private key linked to FTX rather than its own organization. No one can confirm at this time who controls this key and therefore has the ability to update the serum program, potentially deploying malicious code.
Serum is one of the pillars of the Solana DeFi infrastructure, as it is the protocol and ecosystem that enables Solana DeFi to operate at high speeds and with low transaction costs. It implements an on-chain central limit order book and matching engine, letting institutional and retail investors share liquidity and access powerful trading features.
Serum is asset-neutral. It gives developers complete control and flexibility in order to create trading applications that take advantage of Serum’s liquidity and ecosystem benefits.
As stated on its website, Serum’s ultimate goal is to “drive the global mass adoption of DeFi” by achieving 1 billion users and $10 trillion in on-chain value.
According to the data site Nomics, it has processed more than $32 billion in volume this year.
There is no way to overstate the importance of the Serum protocol for Solana. Several projects, including Phantom, Magic Eden, Mango Markets, and Jupiter, have ceased utilizing Serum as a source of liquidity due to security concerns.
Serum SRM price plunges 70%
In the meantime, the events of the past week have caused SRM’s price to plummet. In the past week alone, its value has dropped by more than 70%.
The news that it might be vulnerable to the FTX hack caused its value to drop by more than 34% today. The value of its SRM cryptocurrency is currently $0.247. Reports indicate that SRM coins account for $2.2 billion of FTX’s total assets.
According to DefiLlama data, Serum TVL has also dropped to just under $467,435. The metrics are down significantly year on year. It had a TVL of $1.7 billion at this time last year. The recent FTX crash has precipitated a steeper decline in a number of tokens connected with the cryptocurrency exchange.
