Zeta Markets Overview – Check NOW

Zeta Markets was an orderbook perpetuals exchange on Solana that chased centralized-exchange responsiveness while retaining self-custody and on-chain transparency. 

The protocol ceased operating in May 2025. The team’s path forward is Bullet, a specialized trading network that extends Solana for low-latency execution with settlement verified on Solana.

ZEX emissions ended. The circulating supply is designated to migrate to the BULLET token, which is intended for gas, node operations and staking within the Bullet network.

For readers the practical shift is simple. You can no longer trade on Zeta. If you care about the Zeta trading experience, you now evaluate Bullet on its own merits.

What Zeta was when live

The 2025 pivot and what shut down

• Operations ceased in May 2025 with a clear discontinuation notice in the docs and a homepage that redirected attention to Bullet.
• Trading campaigns and rewards ended. Markets entered reduce-only and then full halt and settlement.
• From a reviewer’s perspective, Zeta is now a completed chapter. Treat all parameters fees, rewards, markets, leverage as historical context.

Bullet at a glance

What it is: a trading network extension that processes orders on a specialized execution layer and verifies outcomes on Solana. The claim is single-digit millisecond execution while maintaining on-chain settlement guarantees.

Why it exists: to insulate matching and order life cycle from L1 congestion and variability, giving traders faster and more deterministic cancel-replace behavior.

What changes for users: you will interact with Bullet’s front end and wallet flows rather than Zeta’s retired app, and you should evaluate proof publication, uptime and latency with real usage data.

Token migration and incentives

• ZEX and the Zeta protocol are discontinued. The circulating ZEX supply is designated to migrate one-to-one into BULLET.
• BULLET’s intended roles include gas, staking and node operations in the network, and it is positioned to be tied into the flagship exchange that runs on Bullet.
• Action item for holders: monitor official migration instructions and timelines. Because the original protocol is off, any token utility now sits in Bullet’s ecosystem rather than the retired Zeta app.
  

Fees and funding in historical perspective

 Zeta’s headline fees were 2 bps maker and 10 bps taker, later adjusted by volume-tier discounts and maker rebates to reward liquidity provision.

Funding calculations and settlement rules were documented and programmatic. These mechanics explain how PnL moved even when price was flat and are useful to understand for any Bullet-based successor venue.

Trading experience

What it looked like on Zeta: connect a Solana wallet, deposit collateral, open perp positions, monitor funding and PnL, and withdraw to the same wallet. Order protection features like post-only supported maker strategies.

What to expect on Bullet: a familiar flow that prioritizes faster order life cycle and reduced jitter. Expect wallet abstraction and streamlined funding to lower friction, plus eventual proof anchoring on Solana so fills are verifiable. The exact sequence can evolve, so always check the latest user guide before funding.

Liquidity, performance and markets

Zeta’s market list expanded over time, with deliberate delisting of low-activity pairs to concentrate liquidity.
Bullet’s value proposition is throughput and latency. The marketing and docs emphasize millisecond-class matching, cancel prioritization and a pipeline to publish verifiable results on Solana.

Risk, security and trust boundaries

• Architectural risk: moving execution into a network extension adds new components sequencers, bridges, proof systems that must be trusted until verification happens. This is a different risk profile than pure L1 execution, even if settlement is ultimately verified on Solana.
• Economic risk: perpetuals remain inherently risky. Funding rate swings and liquidation rules drive outcomes more than headline fees. The speed of execution can mitigate slippage but cannot remove leverage risk.
• User safeguards to look for: documented fault and recovery modes, timetables for proof publication, audits of the bridge or wallet abstraction, and transparent incident reporting.
  

Competitive landscape

On Solana you will find a spectrum from pure L1 CLOB derivatives to venues that also offload matching into specialized layers. Outside Solana several ecosystems are pursuing app-specific execution layers to capture CEX-grade speed with self-custody.

Differentiators to benchmark against peers: measured latency under burst, determinism of matching, custody model and recovery, proof cadence, fee shape, available pairs, uptime history and maker program economics.

Who Zeta served and who Bullet targets now

• Power traders: benefit from fast cancel-replace and consistent book state if the network extension delivers advertised latency and if verification is timely.
• API funds and market makers: gain from predictable matching throughput and maker incentives. The presence of transparent rebates and clear priority rules matters.
• Retail self-custody users: look for an interface that explains wallet abstraction clearly, including key management, approvals and recovery.
• Regions and eligibility: Zeta’s web disclaimers were standard for DeFi front ends. Any current access constraints or KYC requirements will be defined by Bullet’s front end policies, so check them before onboarding.
  

Pros

• Strong historical execution and documentation culture carried over to a focused trading network.
• Clear public communication that Zeta is discontinued and the future lives on Bullet, which reduces user confusion.
• A simple migration story for token holders if they choose to move into the new network.
• Maker and fee design that historically respected liquidity provision and professional flow.

Cons

• The original Solana L1 venue is gone, so newcomers cannot try the Zeta experience.
  A network extension introduces new moving parts that expand the operational trust surface.
• The ultimate value of migration depends on Bullet’s real-world latency, reliability and proof cadence, which users must verify in practice.
  

Conclusion

Zeta helped prove that serious orderbook perps could live on Solana. The shutdown in May 2025 closes the L1 chapter but clarifies the ambition. The team is betting that a specialized network can deliver the responsiveness that heavy traders demand while anchoring truth on Solana.

For traders and ZEX holders the rational path is to evaluate Bullet as a new venue. Confirm what is live today, measure latency and cancel-replace behavior during peak load, track verification artifacts on Solana and read the latest eligibility terms. 

If Bullet meets the bar, it can win order flow from users who want CEX-like speed with on-chain settlement. If it falls short, diversify execution across venues and keep risk sizing conservative.