What is Marinade Finance?

Marinade Finance is one of Solana's largest liquid staking protocols, letting you earn staking rewards while keeping your SOL available for other investments.

What is Marinade on Solana?

Marinade Finance is a liquid staking protocol built on Solana. It allows you to stake SOL without locking your assets, issuing a liquid staking token called mSOL that can be used throughout the Solana DeFi ecosystem.

Alongside liquid staking, Marinade has expanded to automated staking and lending products designed to make earning yield on Solana simple. Rather than choosing validators yourself or manually moving assets between protocols, Marinade automates much of the process while spreading stake across hundreds of validators to support network decentralization.

How does Marinade Finance work?

Marinade Finance automates Solana staking. When you deposit SOL, the protocol delegates it across a curated set of independent validators instead of a single validator. This helps improve decentralization while reducing concentration risk across the network.

In return, you receive mSOL, a liquid staking token that represents your staked SOL plus accrued staking rewards. Unlike traditional staking, your assets remain usable. You can trade mSOL, supply it to lending markets, provide liquidity, or use it throughout Solana DeFi protocols while continuing to earn staking rewards.

Marinade has also expanded into DeFi lending through Marinade Borrow. Instead of selling your mSOL, you can use it as collateral to borrow supported assets while maintaining exposure to your staking position.

The combination of automated validator delegation, liquid staking, and lending gives you more flexibility than traditional staking alone.

How do I use Marinade Finance?

Getting started only takes a few minutes. Connect a compatible Solana wallet, fund it with SOL, and you can immediately access Marinade's staking and lending products.

Depending on your strategy, you can choose between liquid staking, additional yield opportunities, or borrowing against your staked assets.

Marinade Finance liquid staking

Liquid staking is Marinade's core product.

You stake SOL through Marinade and receive mSOL in return. Your staking rewards accumulate automatically through the increasing value of mSOL relative to SOL, while you remain free to use mSOL throughout the Solana ecosystem.

This gives you the flexibility to earn staking rewards without giving up access to your capital.

Marinade Finance Earn

Marinade Earn automates yield strategies for SOL and USDC, offering APYs of around 5% currently. 

Supported assets are deposited into yield-generating opportunities on your behalf that build on Solana's wider DeFi ecosystem. Returns vary depending on market conditions and the specific strategy being used.

Marinade Finance Borrow

Marinade Borrow is a new product that lets you borrow assets without unstaking your SOL.

By using mSOL and other liquid staking tokens as collateral, you can access liquidity while your underlying staking position continues earning rewards. This can be useful if you need funds for trading, investing, or other DeFi strategies without selling your long-term holdings. The product is currently in BETA.

What is the Marinade Finance Solana staking APY?

Marinade currently offers a staking APY of approximately 6.06%.

This isn't a fixed rate. Staking rewards fluctuate based on Solana's inflation schedule, validator performance, network activity, and overall staking participation. As these factors change, Marinade's APY adjusts accordingly.

Which wallets work with Marinade?

Marinade supports most major Solana wallets, including:

• Phantom

• Solflare

• Leap Wallet

• Trust Wallet

Is Marinade Finance safe?

Marinade is considered one of the most established and trusted staking protocols on Solana. Its validator delegation system has been designed to improve decentralization, and the protocol has undergone multiple independent security audits.

Marinade is also one of the few liquid staking providers with significant institutional adoption, thanks to features like automated validator selection and native staking products.

The protocol has not suffered a major exploit that resulted in losses for liquid staking users. However, like every DeFi protocol, risks remain. Smart contract vulnerabilities, validator failures, market volatility, liquidation risks for borrowers, and phishing attacks are all factors investors should consider before participating.

What are the benefits of using Marinade Finance?

Some of the biggest advantages include:

• Earn staking rewards while keeping your assets liquid through mSOL.

• Automated validator delegation helps improve Solana's decentralization.

• Validator curation reduces reliance on a small number of large validators.

• Protected staking rewards through Marinade's carefully managed validator set.

• Use mSOL across lending protocols, decentralized exchanges, and liquidity pools.

• Borrow against your staked assets instead of selling them.

• Institutional-grade staking infrastructure trusted by funds, custodians, and other professional investors.

• No need to manually manage validator selection or redelegation.

What are the risks of using Marinade?

As with any DeFi protocol, Marinade carries risks, including:

• Smart contract vulnerabilities.

• Temporary price differences between mSOL and SOL.

• Variable staking rewards.

• Borrowing introduces liquidation risk.

• Risks associated with third-party DeFi protocols that support mSOL.

• Validator underperformance could reduce staking returns.

• Wallet security remains your responsibility.

What is MNDE token?

MNDE is Marinade Finance's governance token.

The token launched in 2021 to give the community control over the future development of the protocol. MNDE holders can vote on governance proposals covering treasury spending, protocol upgrades, validator policies, and ecosystem incentives.

Over time, MNDE has also become central to Marinade's incentive system. Through the protocol's buyback program, revenue generated by Marinade can be used to acquire MNDE from the open market, with those tokens distributed to participants who stake MNDE and take part in governance.

MNDE tokenomics

• Token: MNDE

• Blockchain: Solana

• Current price: $0.18 at the time of writing

• Total supply: 700 million.

• Circulating supply: Approximately 540 million.

• Primary utility: Governance and protocol incentives.

• Buyback mechanism: Marinade uses protocol revenue to buy MNDE from the open market for governance incentives.

• All-time high (ATH): $0.66

• All-time low (ATL): $0.016

Did Marinade Finance have an airdrop?

Yes. Marinade launched the MNDE token through a community airdrop in 2021, rewarding early users of the protocol.

While there are no further MNDE airdrops planned, token holders can continue earning additional MNDE by staking their governance tokens and participating in DAO governance. The protocol's buyback program purchases MNDE using protocol revenue before distributing those tokens as governance incentives.

How to buy MNDE on Solana

If you already own SOL or another Solana token, you can swap directly into MNDE through decentralized exchanges such as Jupiter, Raydium, or Orca.

Alternatively, MNDE is listed on several centralized cryptocurrency exchanges, allowing you to purchase it with fiat before transferring it to a compatible Solana wallet.

Marinade vs Jito

Marinade and Jito are both leading liquid staking protocols on Solana, but they prioritize different features.

Marinade is generally the stronger choice if you value broad validator diversification and automated stake delegation. Jito, on the other hand, is designed for investors who want to boost staking yields through MEV while accessing additional infrastructure such as restaking and validator auctions.

Don’t forget the tax bill…

Solana staking rewards are taxable. And liquid staking protocols can significantly complicate the tax implications depending on how your rewards are paid out. Learn more in our DeFi tax guide, or sign up for Koinly free to calculate your Solana staking taxes automatically.