TIP-192: Launch speed markets on Solana

id	Title	Status	Author	Description	Discussions to	Created
TIP-192	Launch Speed Markets on Solana mainnet	Draft	alex81sg	Launch Thales Speed Markets on Solana mainnet		2023-12-11

Simple Summary

Launch SpeedMarketsAMM on Solana.

Abstract

Speed Markets has been proving to be a profitable feature for THALES but volume and users have been stale in recent weeks. Over the course of Q4 2023, transaction fees have seen a material spike on EVM chains where Speed Markets is deployed (Base, Optimism, Arbitrum).

At times, such fees can reach the $1.50-$2.50 range, which can be off putting to new users and existing users, especially for the most "casual" traders who spend less than $30/trade. It is reasonable to believe that as the bear market comes to an end, transaction fee will only continue increasing, which will severely hinder adoption.

Polygon does not always represent a viable alternative as during congested times transactions on Speed Markets time out or fail.

While EIP-4844 is in the works and is expected to dramatically reduce gas fees, timing for implementation is uncertain.

Motivation

A deployment on Solana will bring the following benefits:

• Transaction fees, even during congested time windows, are usually fractions of pennies
• Transactions are instantaneous, as TPS is significantly higher than any EVM
• Deploying Speed Markets on Solana will provide access to a potential new user base of non-EVM users: active addresses on Solana have been surpassing Base, Arbitrum and Optimism combined in the past 6 months (data is understated as EVM may not be unique addresses). (source https://defillama.com/compare?chains=Optimism&chains=Arbitrum&chains=Solana&chains=Base&chains=Polygon&tvl=false&addresses=true&txs=false)
• The Solana ecosystem lacks protocols offering short-term binomial options such as Speed Markets

Specification

This TIP entails the Thales Protocol DAO to deploy the following contracts and their supporting infrastructure on Solana mainnet network with timelines under the pDAO discretion:

• SpeedMarketsAMM

For MVP, consider the following:

• Only use USDC as collateral
• Support Phantom and Solflare wallets

The SpeedMarketsAMM will be funded by treasury initially for POC phase and can move towards external LPing like others AMM once battle-tested.

Rationale

While Solana experienced outages in the past, subsequent improvements to the chain seem to have had a good impact. The last outage occurred over 9 months ago (source https://status.solana.com/uptime) and has since proved to be able to withstand network congestions.

TVL on Solana has increased over 300% in the past 6 months (source https://defillama.com/chain/Solana), showing that the ecosystem is primed for the bull market.

As user base and volume expansion shoul be key focus for any protocol, access to liquidity in a thriving ecosystem such as Solana could represent a great opportunity for Thales.

Copyright

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.