Serum (SRM) Admits "No Longer Operational," Urges Users to Transition to Forked Solutions
Serum (SRM), the once-popular DEX on Solana closely tied to Sam Bankman-Fried and the FTX exchange, has declared itself "no longer operational" following the FTX collapse and is advising users to migrate to alternative solutions.
On November 29, Serum's official Twitter account, with over 215,000 followers, announced that the Serum project on the Solana mainnet is defunct. The announcement was made as follows:
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
The tweet explained:
“What’s next for Serum?
After the collapse of Alameda and FTX, the Serum project on the [Solana] mainnet is no longer operational. Since the upgrade authority is controlled by FTX, the project’s security is at risk, prompting other protocols such as Jupiter and Raydium to move away from Serum.”
On November 12, FTX was reportedly attacked, resulting in a loss of up to $400 million. With FTX's internal information now exposed, concerns have arisen about potential threats to Serum.
Serum also addressed the future of its native token, SRM, which FTX/Alameda reportedly held in significant quantities despite its low liquidity on the market:
What about SRM token?
The future of SRM is uncertain. There are community proposals suggesting it should still be used for discounts, while others recommend abandoning it altogether due to FTX/Alameda's substantial holdings.
Feel free to participate at @openbookdex
— Serum (@ProjectSerum) November 29, 2022
Despite the uncertainty surrounding SRM, Serum has recommended that the community support OpenBook, a new DEX on Solana. OpenBook’s daily trading volume is approximately $1 million, whereas Serum’s volume has dwindled to near zero.
Serum also mentioned that efforts are underway to fork the project to eliminate FTX/Alameda's influence, spearheaded by Mango Max, the developer of Mango Markets:
What does this mean for Serum?
Unfortunately, with Openbook’s existence, Serum’s volume and liquidity have dropped to near-zero. Users and protocols are safer using an alternative fork such as Openbook after identifying security risks in the old Serum code.
— Serum (@ProjectSerum) November 29, 2022
In light of Serum’s difficulties, Binance decided on November 28 to delist most SRM trading pairs, retaining only the SRM/BUSD pair. However, SRM’s daily trading volume on Binance is also extremely low.
SRM/BUSD Daily Chart on Binance as of 09:45 PM, November 29, 2022
