Before launching on mainnet, Solana’s perpetuals platform Bulk attracted significant capital. After opening pre-deposits for 10 days, the locked value exceeded $25.9 million, rapidly rising in Solana DeFi rankings and reigniting market interest in liquidity competition within on-chain perpetuals.
In 10 days, attracted over $25.9 million
Bulk launched a pre-deposit campaign on June 1, allowing users to deposit funds into the platform in advance. As designed, once the mainnet launches, these funds will be automatically converted into margin, enabling users to use them immediately on the exchange.
The project team has linked this campaign to the AURA points system, allowing users to earn points by participating. The market generally believes that such points are typically tied to future token distributions. Previously, Bulk co-founder Kobie McGlashan stated that the protocol plans to allocate 30% of the token supply to the community at the time of the token generation event.
This arrangement enabled Bulk to accumulate a high TVL in a short period, bringing its liquidity closer to that of similar Solana platforms like Pacifica and GMTrade. However, it still lags significantly behind Jupiter and its JLP product.
The pre-deposit model has sparked security discussions.
As funds flowed in rapidly, some community members raised questions about the pre-deposit model. The concern centers on users depositing funds on the platform before the mainnet product has officially launched, a practice that has sparked greater worry amid recent frequent security incidents.
In response, McGlashan stated that Bulk has implemented appropriate security measures around the pre-deposit campaign and has publicly outlined the associated protection design. The project team believes that the pre-deposit initiative not only incentivizes early users but also helps establish deeper liquidity on the first day of launch, avoiding the common cold-start issues faced by new platforms.
For a perpetual contracts platform, insufficient early liquidity often directly impacts trading depth and user retention. Bulk’s early collection of margin is primarily aimed at reducing this barrier upon the official launch of trading.
Solana perpetual futures trading sees a rebound
Beyond a single platform, the overall Solana perpetuals market is also rebounding. According to data cited from Blockworks, weekly trading volume for Solana-based perpetual contracts has reached near this year’s highs, at approximately $23 billion. Meanwhile, open interest is also rising in tandem.
However, Solana’s perpetual futures market still lags behind leading industry platforms. The report notes that several platforms on Solana exhibit high turnover rates, meaning the notional trading volume is significantly larger relative to open interest. This typically indicates that traders favor short-term strategies rather than holding positions long-term.
Under this context, whether Bulk can convert its pre-deposits into consistent trading volume still depends on its actual performance after the mainnet launch. With funds and users already in place, the market will now closely monitor its liquidity depth and trading activity following the official launch.