Serum exchange rendered ‘defunct’ following the collapse of Alameda and FTX

The Solana-based decentralized exchange (DEX) has notified its community that the collapse of its backers — Alameda and FTX — has rendered its program “defunct”. 

The team behind the project shared that “there is hope”, in spite of its ongoing challenges, because of the community option available to “fork” Serum. 

What’s next for @ProjectSerum

With the collapse of Alameda and FTX, the Serum program on mainnet became defunct.

As upgrade authority is held by FTX, security is in jeopardy, leading to protocols like @JupiterExchange and @RaydiumProtocol moving away from Serum.

— Serum (@ProjectSerum) November 29, 2022

According to the announcement, “a community-wide effort to fork Serum is going strong”. OpenBook, the community-led fork of the Serum V3 program, is already live on the Solana Mainnet with over $1M daily volume, supported by continuous efforts to expand it and grow its liquidity. 

The existence of OpenBook however poses a threat to Serum, because “with Openbook’s existence, Serum’s volume and liquidity has dropped to near-zero” as users and protocols prefer Openbook because it’s a safer option following the security risks associated with the “old Serum code” which was compromised in the FTX hack. 

When it comes to its SRM token, the DEX shared that the “future of SRM is uncertain”, as community members appear divided on the subject. Some believe it should still be used “for discounts”, while others believe it should not be used at all due to its exposure to FTX and Alameda. 

Related: BlockFi bankruptcy filing triggers a wide range of community reactions

On Nov 12, Cointelegraph reported that FTX was hacked with wallets tied to FTX and FTX US drained of $659 million in cumulative outflows, as reported by Nansen. 

Following the FTX hack, ​​Solana’s developers forked the widely used token liquidity hub, Serum, after it was compromised in the series of unauthorized transactions. On Nov 12, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko tweeted that developers depending on Serum were forking the code after the upgraded key was compromised, sharing that many “protocols depend on serum markets for liquidity and liquidations.”