Raydium Soars 53% in a Week—Is Solana’s DEX Darling Heading for $5?

Raydium just pulled a crypto moon shot—up 53% since May 8—while Wall Street hedge funds scraped single-digit gains. Solana’s top DEX is eating centralized exchanges’ lunch, but can it smash the $5 barrier next?

The rally defies the usual ’buy the rumor, sell the news’ cycle. Liquidity pools are deepening, and yield farmers are piling in like it’s 2021 again. Even the SEC’s usual saber-rattling hasn’t spooked traders this time.

Watch the order books: if RAY flips its April high of $4.20 into support, that $5 target isn’t just hopium. Just don’t expect the suits in pinstripes to admit DeFi’s outrunning their legacy systems.

This latest upswing brings Raydium’s year-to-date (YTD) gains to an impressive 138.78%, showing consistent performance across all timeframes.

However, it remains 77.6% below its all-time high of $16.93, reached during the 2021 bull cycle.

Raydium Dominates Solana with $2.1B TVL, Record Trading Surge

Launched in 2021, Raydium lets users swap tokens, provide liquidity, launch new assets, and trade perpetual futures.

Liquidity providers earn trading fees and may also receive $RAY tokens or other incentives, depending on the pool. Additionally, users can stake $RAY to earn more of the same token.

As Solana’s top DEX by volume, Raydium averaged daily trading volumes of $3.6 billion in Q1 2025.

This growth was largely driven by a record-breaking $195.8 billion monthly volume in January, which peaked at $16 billion on Jan. 19, fueled by the frenzy around Trump’s TRUMP memecoin ahead of his presidential return.

According to DeFiLlama, Raydium currently boasts over $2.15 billion in Total Value Locked (TVL), surpassing the TVL of other prominent chains like Sei, Aptos, and Polygon.

Raydium’s dominance is supported by its robust staking model and strong fee/revenue generation. Currently, over $125 million worth of $RAY, about 11.85% of its market cap, is staked.

On an annualized basis, Raydium generates over $460 million in fees and records $91.2 million in revenue, outperforming even some Layer-1 networks like ethereum in this metric.

Nonetheless, competition in the Solana ecosystem has intensified. As Pump.fun enters the DEX trading ecosystem with PumpSwap, Raydium counters with LaunchLab, its token launch platform gaining rapid traction.

Raydium’s LaunchLab has flipped PumpFun’s graduation rates todaypic.twitter.com/0I7Z1l3Qgc

Telegram trading bot Maestro has integrated support for LaunchLab tokens, and Bonk launched its own launchpad, Letsbonk.fun, powered by Raydium’s infrastructure.

Bullish Gartley Pattern Points to Potential $RAY Rally Toward $5

The $RAY/USDT daily chart has formed a classic bullish Gartley pattern, identified by legs X-A-B-C-D, suggesting a potential rally toward the D-point around the $4.90–$5.00 range.

The pattern reflects ideal symmetry and aligns well with standard Fibonacci retracement levels.

The 9-day Simple Moving Average (SMA) has turned upward, currently sitting at $2.999, indicating a strengthening short-term trend.

Meanwhile, the RSI stands at 75.75, placing $RAY in overbought territory. This suggests the possibility of a short-term cooldown or consolidation before another leg upward.

$RAY – Raydium

Watching for a rounding bottom formation here on Raydium

Neckline at $4.20

Still some work left to do, but if it can make its way to neckline, I see a path to $7 range (more than a 2x from current range)

Trade #RAY on Bitunix: https://t.co/Uf6nMuona5 (no KYC) pic.twitter.com/q99eopBQNL

A convincing breakout above the $3.00 level could pave the way for a continued MOVE toward the $4.90–$5.00 region. Traders should keep a close watch on the $3.70–$4.00 zone for signs of resistance or trend continuation.