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Sanctum · Jito · Marinade

Liquid staking: the category with the most locked value on Solana

Stake SOL with validators to earn a return, and receive a tradable "staking receipt" token you can also use as collateral. It is the category with the most locked value on Solana; Sanctum, Jito and Marinade are the leading examples.

Sanctum ↗JitoSOL ↗← Back to key players

Why “liquid” staking

Staking SOL directly earns an annual return, but the money is locked in a stake account; to use it you first have to unstake and wait an epoch (about two days).

A liquid staking protocol stakes your SOL for you and gives you a receipt token (such as JitoSOL or mSOL). The receipt represents your SOL plus the rewards it keeps accruing; you can sell it at any time or use it as collateral in lending protocols. You get the staking return without giving up liquidity.

Liquid staking protocols on Solana hold about $6.95B in total, the largest of any category.

Locked value of the main staking receipts
  1. Sanctum validator LSTs$1.81B
  2. JitoSOL$1.12B
  3. Binance BNSOL$1.10B
  4. Jupiter Staked SOL$557.0M
  5. Drift Staked SOL$296.7M
  6. Marinade liquid staking$244.0M

Data as of 16 Oct 2026, 01:45 UK time · source DefiLlama

Different approaches

  • Marinade: launched mSOL in 2021, one of Solana’s earliest liquid staking tokens, spreading delegations across many validators. It also offers “native staking” without a receipt token.
  • Jito: JitoSOL earns a share of MEV tips, so its yield is usually a little higher than ordinary staking (see Jito Labs).
  • Sanctum: builds infrastructure that lets any validator, wallet or exchange issue its own receipt token, with a shared pool so these receipts can be swapped for each other cheaply. Many “something-SOL” tokens run on Sanctum.
  • Exchanges and apps: Binance’s BNSOL, Jupiter, Drift, Helius and others also issue their own receipts, scaling through their own user bases.
Sanctum validator LST locked valueWeekly · DefiLlama
$800M$1.6B$2.4B20252026

Locked value is in US dollars and moves with the SOL price.

Controversies and risks

  • Depegs: a receipt’s market price can briefly trade below the SOL it represents, and selling in a hurry loses money.
  • Nesting: receipts get used as collateral to borrow, which buys more receipts to post as more collateral; leverage stacks up and a crash can trigger cascading liquidations.
  • Stake concentration: if large staking protocols delegate to a small number of validators, stake becomes more concentrated (see the Nakamoto coefficient on the special page).
  • Contract risk: receipts are managed by smart contracts, and a contract bug directly affects the underlying SOL.

What to watch

  1. Liquid staking’s share of all staked SOL.
  2. Whether the main receipts trade close to the SOL they represent.
  3. How many validators each protocol delegates to, and how evenly.

Sources

  • Each protocol’s website and docs; locked value from DefiLlama. This page is an educational summary and is not investment advice.