Key Takeaways: Exploring Solana’s Liquidity Layer with Orca

SOL Strategies CTO Max Kaplan recently hosted an X Spaces with Michael Hwang (tmoc), CEO at Orca, for a discussion on Solana’s evolution, the changing structure of on-chain markets, and how Orca is positioning itself for the next phase of DeFi. The conversation traced Orca’s origins, explored innovations like Prop AMMs, and looked ahead to a future shaped by RWAs and AI-driven economic activity.

Date: February 19, 2026
Format: X Spaces Conversation Recap
Participants: Max Kaplan, CTO, SOL Strategies Inc. (CSE: HODL, NASDAQ: STKE) | Michael Hwang, CEO, Orca

From Early Conviction to Market Leader

Kicking off the conversation, Michael reflected on Orca’s beginnings at a time when Solana was largely unknown:

“When we first started building at Orca, no one had really heard about Solana yet. It was late 2020, early 2021, and everyone was really focused on Ethereum DeFi.”

The turning point came through direct experience:

“Upon using Solana for the first time by sending a transaction and feeling the speed and the good UX, I was immediately hooked and I could tell Solana had a really bright future.”

That early conviction, driven by speed, cost efficiency, and user experience, positioned Orca as one of the earliest and most trusted liquidity layers on Solana.

A More Serious Phase for Crypto

Michael highlighted the broader crypto ecosystem is entering a new chapter:

“Now, we’re entering another phase for not just Solana, but the broader crypto ecosystem, where things are really taking a more serious turn, where there’s a lot of capital seeking to come on chain.”

Rather than purely speculative cycles, this phase is increasingly defined by institutional capital, asset issuers, and long-term allocators looking for reliable on-chain infrastructure.

Orca’s strategy reflects that shift. The team now views AMMs as just one part of a broader mission: becoming a trusted venue for capital allocation and asset creation on-chain.

Prop AMMs and the Evolution of Market Structure

One of the most notable evolutions in Solana DeFi has been the rise of proprietary AMMs. Michael described them as a meaningful innovation:

“Prop AMMs are such a cool innovation in market structure. Overall, it resulted in blockchains being able to quote equal or tighter spreads than centralized exchanges.”

By incorporating off-chain pricing mechanisms and improved quoting models, Prop AMMs are pushing on-chain trading performance to new levels:

“It’s a very exciting and innovative movement of pushing the boundaries of what’s possible for on chain trading, and really proving that capital on chain will be able to perform equal or better than the traditional rails people are more familiar with.”

At the same time, Michael emphasized that AMMs remain uniquely powerful, especially for long-tail assets and price discovery for emerging markets. Rather than replacing one structure with another, Solana’s market design is becoming increasingly layered and specialized.

The Blurring Line Between CEX and DEX

Michael also highlighted a subtle but important shift happening behind the scenes:

“There is an interesting case where certain CEXs are using DEXs as backend infrastructure to facilitate trading.”

This reflects a deeper convergence happening in real time:

“There’s a merge of on-chain and off-chain finance that’s happening in real time. Going forward, it’ll evolve into something that we don’t necessarily recognize today, or will take on a different form.”

In this view, DeFi doesn’t just compete with centralized exchanges, it increasingly becomes infrastructure for them.

DeFi, AI, and the Agent Economy

Looking further ahead, Michael pointed to AI and autonomous agents as an unpredictable but compelling growth vector:

“With the AI landscape rapidly developing and the agent economy taking off, there will be a lot of agent to agent interactions. Blockchains are a uniquely powerful ecosystem to facilitate that.”

As economic activity becomes more programmatic, blockchain rails could serve as the coordination layer for machine-to-machine commerce:

“I think this is a really interesting area to watch as an unpredictable growth path.”

The Bigger Picture

From its early days as one of Solana’s first DEXs to its current focus on capital allocators and asset creators, Orca’s evolution mirrors Solana’s own trajectory. As market structures mature, spreads tighten, RWAs expand, and AI-native use cases emerge, the ecosystem is moving beyond experimentation and toward institutional-grade financial infrastructure.

The conversation underscored a central theme: on-chain capital is no longer just an alternative, it’s increasingly competitive with, and integrated into, traditional financial rails.

 

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