Solana decentralized exchange Orca and on-chain lending protocol Loopscale are merging into a single company called Formation, the two teams announced Wednesday. The New York-headquartered firm will be led by Loopscale co-founder Luke Truitt as chief executive and plans to bring decentralized financing to companies in sectors including artificial intelligence, energy, robotics, and defense.

Financial terms were not disclosed in either announcement. Truitt will be joined by fellow Loopscale co-founder Mary Gooneratne as chief operating officer, alongside Orca's Christopher Montagano, who takes the role of chief strategy and legal officer.

Formation pairs Orca's trading infrastructure with Loopscale's credit order book and vaults, so an issuer can launch an asset with trading and credit live from day one, according to Loopscale's FAQ. The aim is a full stack of decentralized financial services that integrates liquidity solutions, credit, and vaults into one platform.

Orca has processed more than $550 billion in trading volume since its February 2021 launch, while Loopscale reports more than $150 million in deposits and over $2 billion in loans facilitated, according to the companies' own figures. Together, those numbers give the merged company established usage across both trading and credit from the outset.

Orca launched in February 2021 and raised an $18 million Series A that September. Loopscale, formerly known as Bridgesplit, raised $4.25 million in 2021 from CoinFund, Jump, Coinbase Ventures, Solana Ventures, and Room40.

Formation is targeting companies in the AI, energy, robotics, and defense sectors whose financing needs, it says, traditional markets serve poorly. Truitt cast the merger as a bet that capital markets have to keep pace with the industries they fund.

"Every major technological revolution has been paired with a financial one," he said in the press release.

A central pillar of Formation's business is the SEC's Sept. 17 innovation exemption, a five-year order that lets tokenized securities venues trade tokenized U.S.-listed stocks through permissioned automated market maker pools without registering as exchanges. Formation says it plans to operate such a venue and pursue additional licenses, building on Orca's nearly two years of engagement with securities and commodities regulators. For the merged firm, the order supplies the regulatory footing for its central proposition: public-market equities trading alongside DeFi-native liquidity and credit under one brand.

The company's press release adds that its planned products remain subject to legal and regulatory requirements and may not be available to U.S. persons.

In the near term, existing users will see no changes: Loopscale's lending, borrowing, vaults, and order book keep running as before, and current positions are unaffected. ORCA will serve as the token for all of Formation, so Loopscale will not launch a token of its own, per the FAQ. Loopscale points continue accruing and are set to convert later this year.

Over the next 12 months, Formation plans to introduce tools for issuers and new capital allocation strategies alongside its existing trading, lending, and vault products, according to the announcement. The nearest milestones for observers are the Loopscale points conversion later this year and Formation's progress on licenses under the five-year exemption.