Overview
Meteora is a decentralized exchange (DEX) on Solana. It grew out of Mercurial Finance after the FTX collapse in 2022, led by co-founder Ben Chow, and focuses on giving liquidity providers better tools to earn fees.
Meteora became the main venue where new Solana tokens launch their trading pools, including the official TRUMP meme coin in January 2025.
How it works
- DLMM (Dynamic Liquidity Market Maker): liquidity is placed in price “bins”, and fees can rise automatically when the market is volatile, so providers earn more when risk is higher.
- Dynamic pools and vaults: idle funds are lent out to earn extra yield.
- Launch pools: tools for projects to launch tokens with controlled starting liquidity.
Traders often use Meteora through Jupiter, Solana’s main trading aggregator.
Controversy
In February 2025, the LIBRA token, promoted by Argentina’s president, crashed within hours, wiping out investors. Ben Chow, who helped set up its liquidity on Meteora, stepped down. A later lawsuit accused him of running a scheme around several meme coins with the firm Kelsier Ventures, separate from Meteora’s DEX business.
When MET launched in October 2025, critics found that wallets linked to the MELANIA meme coin received about $1.2 million in the airdrop, despite the team’s screening.
The MET token
| MET at a glance | |
|---|---|
| Maximum supply | 1 billion MET |
| In circulation (Oct 2026) | about 564 million |
| Price (29 Oct 2026) | about $0.30 |
| All-time high | about $0.69 (October 2025) |
| Market cap | about $170 million |
About 48% of MET was released at launch, much of it to users and liquidity providers. MET is used for governance.
Risks
- Reputation. Links to LIBRA and MELANIA weigh on trust.
- Meme-coin dependence. Much volume comes from speculative new tokens.
- For liquidity providers: pools of volatile tokens can lose value quickly.
- Competition. Raydium, Orca and Pump.fun’s own DEX compete for volume.
Meteora vs. the competition
| Meteora | Raydium | Orca | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chain | Solana | Solana | Solana |
| Known for | DLMM, token launches | Volume, LaunchLab | Concentrated liquidity |
| Token | MET | RAY | ORCA |
Our verdict
Meteora is a technically strong, heavily used part of Solana’s trading infrastructure, especially for new tokens.
But its association with the LIBRA scandal and meme-coin launches is a real reputational risk, and MET has fallen about 56% since launch. MET is a high-risk investment: invest only what you can afford to lose.
This review is for information only and is not financial advice.