This guide lists the best liquid staking platform for Solana tokens. We know that “liquid staking” when done with proper knowledge and diligence can amplify your staking returns. This is because unlike normal or native staking where your tokens are locked and inaccessible for a defined time period for any other usage, liquid staking gives you the freedom to use the staked tokens (derivative of the staked tokens) for trading, swapping and in other DeFi protocols like lending/borrowing, liquidity pools, etc. without compromising on the returns you get from staking the tokens.
This is made possible by the Liquid Staking Platforms which provide you the derivative/liquid tokens proportional to your staked tokens. The users can further invest these derivative tokens (like mSOL, stETH) in DeFi protocols like lending/borrowing, AMMs, or further stake them in an exchange to enjoy additional returns.
Now this guide will introduce you to the best liquid staking platform for Solana. Choosing the right liquid staking platform suited to your needs is imperative in maximizing your staking profits.
Table of Contents
Best Liquid Staking Platform for Solana
Marinade
- Marinade is, I can say the most popular liquid staking platforms for Solana tokens (SOL). It is the first liquid staking protocol or platform built on top of the Solana blockchain.
- It is an open source permissionless DAO. You can become a liquidity provider to the SOL-mSOL pool.
- When you stake SOL tokens in Marinade, it provided you the derivative tokens, i.e. mSOL.
- The value of mSOL increases relative to SOL tokens over time with the end of every epoch.
Price of mSOL=total staked/tokens minted - mSOL can be used in several Solana DeFi protocols to gain additional returns.
- Marinade delegates the staked SOL tokens to over 400 validators which fosters decentralization in the Solana blockchain.
- As of now,
total value locked on Marinade is ~7 million SOL=~$259.88 Million
APY is 5.83%
Number of validators 480
Check the current statistics here
Where can I use mSOL?
You can use your mSOL tokens in varied Solana DeFi protocols like staking, liquidity providers, lending/borrowing and leveraged farming.
- Marinade Staking: MNDE is the governance token of the Marinade DAO. By staking your mSOL tokens you will be allocated MNDE governance tokens. Your mSOL safely sits in the Marinade smart contract while you also enjoy rewards on your MNDE tokens.
- Liquidity Providers: You can deposit mSOL tokens to a Liquidity Provider (LP).
- Lending/borrowing: Lend your mSOL tokens to others to earn additional returns or use mSOL as a collateral to borrow other assets for yourself.
- Leveraged farming: Set of automated strategies allowing users to leverage their yield farming positions.
Lido
- Another popular liquid staking provider for Solana which also offers liquid staking of Ether tokens of the Ethereum 2.0.
- Lido provides stSOL as the derivative tokens in return of your staked SOL tokens. You can use them to explore additional rewards in DeFi protocols in Solana.
- Unstake anytime by swapping stSOL on the secondary markets
- Wallets supported: Phantom, Solflare, Ledger, Sollet and Solong
Where can I use stSOL?
You can use derivative stSOL in Liquidity Pools (check this), as collateral in lending/borrowing protocols and even to swap for another token in an exchange.
JPool
- JPool is next to Marinade and Lido in terms of the total value locked of staked SOL tokens. It was launched in late October of 2021 and is growing rapidly. It selects validators based on ranking/scoring of these validators.
- As of now JPool offers an APY of ~5.80% (source) with an additional ~6.89% of DeFi returns that you can expect from investing the synthetic/derivative token (JSOL) to DeFi protocols like lending/borrowing, AMMs and more.
- JSOL is the derivative or synthetic token given by JSOL.
Where can I use JSOL?
- As mentioned above you can use the derivative token JSOL in partner AMMs like Raydium, Saber, Orca, Atrix to provide liquidity to their LPs. Check the partner AMMs for JPool here.
- Besides you can also lend your JSOL or use it as a collateral to borrow other digital assets. Check this.
Socean
- Socean finance is a fully transparent liquid staking platform for Solana which algorithmically selects and delegates your SOL tokens to validators to maximize your returns.
- As said it is fully transparent with a real time dashboard which displays all the validators being chosen by the platform.
- The derivative token is scnSOL.
Where can I use scnSOL?
- You can invest scnSOl further in partner AMMs like Orca, Saber, Atrix, Saros to provide liquidity to their LPs. Check this.
- Besides you can also lend your scnSOL or use it as a collateral to borrow other digital assets in lending protocols like Solend, Apricot. Check this.
DAOPool
- Most unique Liquidity Staking Platform. It is created by MonkeDAO, a DAO project formed around the NFT project Solana Monkey Business.
- It only delegates to validators which support NFT projects. By this narrowing down of the chosen validators, DAOPool offers the least decentralization and currently delegates across a list of only 8 validators. MonkeDAO, Degen Ape Academy & Thugbirdz are the largest validators in the pool and the original three.
Eversol
Yet another liquid staking platform for Solana which gives you the opportunity to maximize your stake rewards by allowing you to invest your staked SOL tokens to DeFi platforms in the Solana network.
The liquid token or the derivative token provided is eSOL.
Where can I use eSOL?
eSOL to generate additional profits from adding liquidity, swaps, and trading with our DeFi partners like Raydium, Saber. Check this.
Liquidity Staking Platforms for Solana-Fees and Charges
Let us check a quick snapshot of the different fees being charged by these staking platforms.
| Liquidity Staking Pool | Manager Fee | Deposit Fee | Withdrawal Fee | Average Validator Fee |
| Marinade | 2% | 0% | 0.3%-3.0% instant withdrawal 0%-withdrawal after 1-2 epoch | 9.41% |
| Lido | 5% | 0% | 0% | 5.00% |
| JPool | 2% | 0% | 0.05% instant 0% withdrawal in next epoch | 1.72% |
| Socean | 2% | 0%-new fee 0.15%-legacy fee | 0.03%-new fee 0.30%-legacy fee | 5.49% |
| DAOPool | 2% | 0% | 0.30% | 6.47% |
| eSOL | TBD | 0.25% | 0% | TBD |
Source marinade FAQs, Lido, JPool, Socean, DAOPool, Eversol
Conclusion
Liquid staking in Solana started in the summers of 2021 and is yet a very small fraction of the total staked SOL tokens. Marinade has ~57% market share, Lido has ~29% and the rest are ~14% (source: delphidigital).
For at least now, it seems that Marinade Finance is way ahead of the other players in the space. But the game has just started and we can expect major turnarounds in the future.
Each of the liquid staking platforms is proceeding with its own objective and strategy (please check the table below). I can say it gives us ample space and options to choose the platform best suited to our specific needs. For instance, if we want to receive the highest yields we can go with Socean or DAOPool. But that also brings risks associated to it. If you want to do justice and strengthen the decentralization of the Solana blockchain then Marinade should be your platform of choice.
Please visit the table below to get a quick summarized snapshot of the best liquid staking platform for Solana.
| Primary Objective or Strategy | APY Offered | Total Value Locked | Primary Objective or Strategy |
| Marinade (mSOL) | 5.83% | ~284.31 million USD Source Defi Llama | Focused on strengthening the decentralization of the Solana network by delegating to over 480 different high performance, low commission, non-concentrated validators. This results in delegating to many medium and low performing validators. |
| Lido (stSOL) | 5.7% | 81.9 million USD Source Defi Llama | a) Focuses on market leading validators most of which have gone through a rigorous application process b) Supports multi-chain including Ethereum, Solana and Terra |
| JPool | 5.8% | 40.15 million USD Source Defi Llama | Delegate to the lowest fee/highest APY validators with a few conditions: a) must be outside top 20 b) must have website/logo c) and, must be active for at least 10 epoch’s |
| Socean | ~6.31% | 8.36 million USD Source Socean Finance | Choose a lower amount of validators with higher rewards/lower fees as opposed to Marinade’s focus on maximizing decentralization. |
| DAOPool | 6.92% | 1.7 million USD Source DAOPool Monke DAO | New ecosystem validators |
| eSOL | 5.57% | TBD | Funding ecosystem projects |
Source marinade FAQs, Lido, JPool, Socean, DAOPool, Eversol
Disclaimer: THIS CONTENT IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND YOU SHOULD NOT MAKE DECISIONS BASED SOLELY ON IT. THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE.
If you are sincerely looking forward to invest in cryptocurrency space and hold the investments for long, use a hardware wallet like Ledger or Trezor. These wallets store your cryptocurrencies (keys to cryptocurrencies) in an offline environment which is therefore cannot be the victim of an online hack or malware practice. Storing your digital assets in an Exchange or software wallet often attract online attacks and malwares.
Word of Advice
