The concept of a "prop AMM" may seem like a contradiction. AMMs by design are open, deterministic systems. Their role is to offer clear pricing curves, transparent pool balances, and trustless access to liquidity. Prop AMMs operate completely opposite. They quote prices privately, don’t operate frontends, rely on vault-based liquidity, and only execute through aggregators. We can basically refer to them as onchain market makers.
The irony of all of this is that even on a permissionless chain, liquidity provision is trending toward centralization, not in terms of access, but in terms of operational control and execution quality. I don’t necessarily think this violates decentralization per say, but rather reshapes what “participation” looks like. And that’s ultimately the direction the market has decided on.
In the next ~6-12 months I could very well see this trend continue, with the long-tail of prop AMMs all competing to capture that same asymmetric upside currently held by the select handful today.
