Raydium AMM

Raydium is a Solana exchange spanning constant-product and concentrated-liquidity pools. It held about $1.31B across more than 1,300 pools at the 2026-08-14 survey. Raydium’s own documentation defines impermanent loss as the shortfall against simply holding and shows that tighter CLMM ranges magnify it. Its December 2022 admin-key compromise is relevant operating evidence, but not the decisive reason here. The memo applies the amm-lp rule to the inventory payoff and does not claim an individual protocol review.

Review triggers: events that reopen the verdict
• Ships a product line without impermanent-loss exposure that merits its own review

Watched nightly: a warning on its venues or files, or a cited document that changes, reopens the memo. The first confirmation is due 2026-11-15.

The research file

The mechanism

Raydium offers CPMM pools using the x*y=k inventory curve and CLMM positions that allocate liquidity to selected price ranges. In either design, arbitrage rebalances the LP toward the relatively weaker token. CLMM positions earn fees only while their range is active and can finish single-sided; token extensions, transfer fees and farm rewards add pool-specific behavior that headline APY does not capture.

Control and operating record

Pools are permissionless, so token issuer, mint authority, freeze authority and pool configuration must be assessed separately from Raydium’s programs. On 16 December 2022, an attacker gained control of the legacy AMM v4 Pool Owner authority and withdrew pool funds. Raydium’s post-mortem says concentrated-liquidity pools and RAY staking were not affected and documents the authority remediation. The event establishes real key-management history; it does not make every current pool equivalent.

The exit

A CPMM LP burns its pool token for its pro-rata inventory; a CLMM owner removes active liquidity and collects the two-token result. Neither path promises the original token mix or dollar value. During a token collapse, thin liquidity or a frozen token can make the nominal withdrawal economically unusable even when the program executes correctly.

Why the class rule decides

The amm-lp class rule rejects the two-sided inventory exposure before any pool-level ranking can qualify it for client use. Raydium’s throughput, mature products and incident response are not ignored; they simply cannot remove the payoff the rule excludes. A non-AMM Raydium product with distinct cash flows and exits would reopen review.

Class rule

The amm lp class is outside the approved structures, so every protocol in it is not approved until the rule changes. The rule is about the structure, not an adverse finding about this protocol, and it is not a client instruction. The events that would reopen it are listed with the memo.

Sources

The claims above trace to these. Where a number could not be independently verified, the thesis says so.

• Raydium Docs — impermanent-loss mechanics · primary · accessed 2026-08-14
  Supports: impermanent-loss mechanics
• Raydium Docs — protocol and pool references · primary · accessed 2026-08-14
  Supports: protocol, pool references
• Raydium — December 2022 exploit post-mortem · primary · accessed 2026-08-14
  Supports: December 2022 exploit post-mortem
• Raydium Docs — AMM attack vectors · primary · accessed 2026-08-14
  Supports: AMM attack vectors

Inherited controls

The research above describes the protocol layer. Every position also inherits the asset it holds and the chain it settles on. The layer with the most administrative power sets the position’s effective control; that describes control, not quality or suitability.