Orca

ORCA lets holders take part in protocol proposals. A Whirlpool position NFT authorizes changes and withdrawal for liquidity placed inside a price range. xORCA is a separate pro-rata receipt for an ORCA buyback vault. Holding one does not convey the rights of the others.

Higher exchange volume does not send income to every ORCA wallet. Swap fees first flow to in-range liquidity providers and designated protocol destinations; the economic effect of buybacks reaches holders only through the xORCA vault.

ORCA launched on 2021-08-09 with a 100 million supply base. A proposal approved on 2025-04-14 burned 25 million treasury tokens and established the 75 million figure now called fixed. Review-date supply was 74,999,541.145543.

The mint account had no freeze authority, but its mint authority was still GwH3Hiv5mACLX3ufTw1pFsrhSPon5tdw252DBs4Rx4PV. No published automatic emission curve forces new issuance; pool rewards are separately funded. Yet “fixed” ultimately depends on the authority not minting.

Whirlpools concentrates deposits between lower and upper ticks. The position NFT authorizes changes and withdrawal, while fees accrue only when market price is inside that interval. More capital efficiency comes with out-of-range inactivity, rebalancing costs and divergence loss.

Pool token vaults are PDAs controlled by program logic. Documentation states that neither the program owner nor config owner can withdraw them directly. That protects the present path, though an upgrade of the mutable program can alter future execution.

The mutable config records defaultProtocolFeeRate 1,300, meaning 13% of the swap fee is withheld from LPs; Orca describes that economic split as 12% protocol treasury and 1% Climate Fund, leaving 87% for LPs. Fee and collection authorities are separate keys.

The next split is unclear. The trading-fee page assigns the 12% as 50% initial team, 30% DAO and 20% xORCA. Tokenomics says 40% xORCA and 60% treasury. The 2025 proposal supports a 50/30/20 structure. Readers should follow onchain transfers and treasury reports rather than merge the pages.

Orca governance uses Realms, token thresholds, Council actions and veto windows. Foundation bylaws require institutional execution for specified votes. Governance is a process with gates, not a universal instruction signed by every ORCA unit.

The April 2025 package expressly relinquished tokenholder control of mutable Whirlpools to the initial development team. On the review date its ProgramData and xORCA ProgramData both pointed to GwH3Hiv5mACLX3ufTw1pFsrhSPon5tdw252DBs4Rx4PV. Docs characterize control as 3-of-5 multisig, but ordinary holders cannot sign those upgrades directly.

The SDK now lists a second official program, iwhrLHdsgrvmnwU8GF2FSmyabSMjfHwFGJAX2ufJ3ZN, whose ProgramData upgrade authority is null. A pool on that deployment cannot have its executable code replaced through the loader.

Its config 8pm8erUsaMpmZ47LttHAPgnDx7xGZUvxY4q47vTCs5Nj still assigns fee, fee-collection and reward authority to r21Gamwd9DtyjHeGywsneoQYR39C1VDwrw7tWxHAwh6. Immutability freezes code, not every fee tier, reward setting or treasury collection decision. The pool address must reveal which security model applies.

The xORCA program StaKE6XNKVVhG8Qu9hDJBqCW3eRe7MDGLz17nJZetLT accepts ORCA and mints xorcaYqbXUNz3474ubUMJAdu2xgPsew3rUCe5ughT3N according to the vault ratio. When protocol-funded purchases add ORCA without issuing xORCA, each receipt becomes redeemable for more ORCA. A seven-day exit cooldown locks the rate; no validator slashing creates the yield.

Buybacks can slow, stop or change by governance and program control. ORCA price can also fall faster than the ratio grows. This is a pro-rata vault mechanism, not a promise of dollar return or corporate dividend.

Orca Foundation supplies the bylaws and board/Council process. Orca Management Company S.A. identifies itself as the software licensor under Cayman Islands law. The 2025 package also gave funds and upgrade discretion to the initial development team.

A passed vote changes the service only when Foundation execution, movement by the collection key and a development-team code upgrade align. If those actors disagree or delay, holders have no documented shareholder or creditor right to compel performance from a single counterparty.