Serum was a decentralised exchange on Solana built around a fully on-chain central limit order book. SRM was its governance and fee token. On 29 November 2022 the project said that "the Serum program on mainnet became defunct." This came after the program's upgrade key, which was held outside the Serum DAO, was exposed in the collapse of the centralised exchange that had backed the project. Solana developers moved to a community fork. SRM still trades, but in very thin volume: CoinGecko showed about $4,200 of 24-hour volume on 25 October 2026.
The newest state of SRM (as of 25 October 2026)
CoinGecko figures for 25 October 2026:
- Price: about $0.0050
- Market capitalisation: about $1.85 million, ranked #2369
- Circulating supply: about 372.8 million SRM
- Total supply: about 9.99 billion SRM (maximum 10 billion)
- 24-hour volume: about $4,200
- All-time high: $13.78
CoinGecko flags three of the listed SRM markets as inactive. Daily volume is tiny compared with market capitalisation, so the quoted price may not hold for any meaningful trade size.
What Serum was built to do
An on-chain order book on Solana
Most decentralised exchanges of the period used automated market maker pools. Serum instead matched bids and asks in a central limit order book that ran on-chain, as a Solana program. A Consensys explainer (25 February 2022) describes it as "built natively on Solana", using the network's "high throughput and low transaction costs."
Other Solana applications could plug into that shared order book instead of building their own. That is why it became a liquidity hub, and why its failure spread so quickly.
Transaction costs
Solana's fees are set in lamports, not dollars, so their dollar cost moves with SOL's price. Solana's documentation sets the base fee at 5,000 lamports per signature. Half of that is burned and half goes to the validator. Priority fees can come on top.
The code was never audited
The Serum DEX repository on GitHub states: "The code is unaudited. Use at your own risk."
SRM from launch to a defunct program
Step through the dated events that took SRM from a $0.11 launch to a token with thin trading and no live product behind it.
- 11 August 2020SRM launchesdone
SRM was released at an issue price of $0.11 and reached $1.40 within an hour. Launch terms offered trading-fee discounts of up to 60% and a 4% annual staking return.
- 25 February 2022Token design in early 2022done
Total supply was 10,000,000,000 SRM. 20% of exchange fees went to SRM stakers and the other 80% funded weekly buybacks, with the bought tokens burned. Holders could get up to 50% off trading fees.
- 13 November 2022Upgrade key exposeddone
Only one private key could update the on-chain order-book program, and it was linked to a collapsing exchange group that had just lost more than $400 million in unauthorised withdrawals. Developers began forking the program.
- 29 November 2022Program declared defunctdone
The project said its mainnet program had become defunct, called the token's future uncertain and said volume and liquidity had dropped to near zero. By its own account, the community fork was handling over $1 million in daily volume.
- 25 October 2026Thin market todaycurrent
Price was about $0.0050, with about $4,200 of 24-hour volume and a market capitalisation of about $1.85 million. About 372.8 million SRM circulated against a total supply of about 9.99 billion.
This lists only the dated events in the article: it does not show SRM's price between these dates or the fork's current activity, and the October 2026 figures are a one-day snapshot, not a forecast.
SRM token design
According to Consensys (February 2022):
- Supply: 10,000,000,000 SRM in total.
- Fee distribution: 20% of exchange fees went to SRM stakers. The other 80% funded weekly SRM buybacks, and the bought tokens were burned.
- MSRM: staking 1,000,000 SRM let a holder redeem 1 MSRM. MSRM supply was capped at 1,000, and holders got boosted fees and could run a node.
- Fee discounts: holders could get up to 50% off trading fees.
The terms were not the same at launch. On 11 August 2020, CryptoSlate reported discounts of up to 60% and a 4% annual staking return. The 80/20 split describes the design in early 2022, not a fixed rule.
Launch
CryptoSlate reported that SRM was released on 11 August 2020 at an issue price of $0.11, and reached $1.40 within an hour. CoinGecko says the project was created by a group that included Alameda Research and the Solana Foundation.
How Serum became defunct (November 2022)
The upgrade key problem
The Block reported on 13 November 2022 that only one private key could update the Serum program, and that key was linked to the collapsing exchange group, not to the Serum DAO. The group had just suffered unauthorised withdrawals of more than $400 million. Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko wrote: "Afaik, the devs that depend on serum are forking the program because the upgrade key to the current one is compromised."
According to The Block, nobody could say for certain who held the key. Whoever did could have changed the program that held users' orders and funds.
The fork
Developers deployed a verified build of the same code under a new program. The upgrade authority and fee revenue were moved to a multisig run by a group of developers. Wallets, NFT marketplaces and trading aggregators on Solana said they would stop using the original Serum program for liquidity.
Serum's own statement
On 29 November 2022, Serum told its followers that the mainnet program "became defunct". It called the SRM token's future "uncertain", and said that after the fork "Serum's volume and liquidity has dropped to near-zero." According to Serum's own account, reported by The Block, the community fork was handling over $1 million in daily volume at the time.
What this means for anyone looking at SRM now
- No live product behind the token. By its own account, the original program has been defunct since November 2022, and its liquidity moved to a fork.
- Thin markets. About $4,200 of daily volume (25 October 2026) means a single trade can move the price sharply.
- Most supply outside circulation. CoinGecko counts about 372.8 million SRM in circulation against a total of about 9.99 billion.
- Single point of control. Serum shows that a program is only as decentralised as whoever holds its upgrade key. Before using any on-chain protocol, find out who holds that key: a DAO, a multisig, or nobody.
This is a history of the project, not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold SRM. The fee and staking terms changed over time, and the market figures are a one-day CoinGecko snapshot.
