Marinade

Marinade is one of the earliest liquid staking protocols on Solana, issuing mSOL in exchange for staked SOL. It was a foundational protocol in establishing liquid staking as a category on Solana and in building the delegation infrastructure that spreads stake across a broad, decentralized validator set.

What it’s for

Staking through Marinade gets you mSOL, which you can hold to accrue staking rewards passively or deploy elsewhere in DeFi — as collateral in lending markets, or in liquidity pools — while your underlying SOL remains delegated across Marinade’s validator set.

Reputation and track record

Marinade has operated since the early period of Solana DeFi and has placed particular emphasis on validator decentralization in how it distributes delegated stake, which matters for the health of the network as a whole and not just individual staker returns. mSOL has broad integration across Solana DeFi as an accepted collateral and liquidity asset.

Risk considerations

Standard liquid staking risks apply: validator and slashing risk, and depeg risk relative to SOL during stress periods. Read our liquid staking guide and depeg risk guide before staking meaningful amounts, particularly if you plan to use mSOL as collateral elsewhere — a depeg affects both the staked position and anything built on top of it.