The "ghosts" manipulating the Solana market: The story of the "under-the-table" volume of 6 billion USD

Last week, an unfamiliar name unexpectedly rose to the leading position in the Solana ecosystem: HumidiFi – a faceless, nameless exchange without a public website – but has processed nearly 3 billion USD in transactions, accounting for 15% of the total trading volume of Solana.

However, its success is tied to an unsolved mystery: Who is behind it?

"We have no information about the HumidiFi development team," a representative of a competing exchange shared.

On social media, many veteran crypto experts also seem confused. Meanwhile, HumidiFi and similar exchanges continue to quietly dominate most of the capital flow on the Solana blockchain.

The "dark AMM" wave sweeps through Solana

According to data from Blockworks Research, over 30% ( equivalent to about over 6 billion USD ) total trading volume on Solana last week came from underground exchanges – known as dark AMM ( anonymous automated market makers ).

Source: Blockworks ResearchWithout a user interface, not calling on the community for liquidity provision, these AMMs only interact with trading aggregator platforms like Jupiter, where the algorithm prioritizes exchanges with the best prices.

This is causing efficiency to gradually overshadow transparency – a principle that was once at the core of DeFi.

"Dark AMM is on the rise due to its ability to optimize better prices. Traders now prioritize efficient execution over transparency," said Amir Hajian, a researcher at Keyrock.

Underlying competition, money flows into the pockets of the best

The mechanism of dark AMM makes the game a purely technical stage, where every millisecond and every percentage point determines victory or defeat.

In that environment:

As a result, they can offer the best prices and are prioritized by platforms like Jupiter for sending transactions – thereby attracting huge capital inflows.

"If I were a Solana engineer wanting to prove my true abilities, then building a dark AMM is the only place worth playing," Edgar Pavlovsky, a DeFi developer on Solana shared.

Anonymity: Strategy or Avoiding Responsibility?

Not just HumidiFi, prominent names like ZeroFi and GoonFi also operate in silence. No one knows who their team is, where they come from – and they seem to want to keep everything in the dark.

However, there are still exceptions:

The opposition between anonymity and transparency is no longer an ethical issue – it is a competitive strategy.

According to Benedict Brady, the founder of the Meridian data platform, dark AMM is dominating the entire volume of stablecoins on Solana. And this trend shows no signs of slowing down. Because:

"It may just be a matter of time before active liquidity completely surpasses passive liquidity," Brady commented.

Blockchain has been hailed as a tool for creating an open, transparent, and decentralized financial system. But now, a large portion of transactions on Solana are taking place in the dark – where traders do not know who they are trading with, and market makers do not need to appear publicly.

HumidiFi is just the tip of the iceberg. And with the current growth momentum, dark AMM is not only reshaping DeFi on Solana – but also raising a big question for the entire cryptocurrency industry: "What are we willing to sacrifice for better prices?"

Lilly