Solana liquid staking lets a holder delegate SOL to validators while receiving a transferable receipt token (an LST) that earns staking yield and remains usable in DeFi. As of September 21, 2026, DeFiLlama's liquid staking tracker puts the category at $58.6 billion across 271 protocols, and four issuers dominate Solana's slice: Jito (jitoSOL, $1.22 billion TVL), Sanctum (a combined $2.16 billion across its Infinity pool, Reserve, and validator LSTs), Jupiter (JupSOL, $605 million), and Marinade (mSOL, $275 million), with BlazeStake (bSOL, $107 million) rounding out the top tier. This guide compares them on live TVL, supply APY, fees, and unstake speed, then recommends a token per use case.
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Solana liquid staking converts staked SOL into a fungible SPL token that accrues validator rewards while staying tradable, lendable, and usable as collateral. Each LST tracks an exchange rate against SOL that drifts upward as epoch rewards land. Holders skip the native 2-3 day deactivation cooldown by swapping the LST on a DEX instead of unstaking through the protocol.
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The mechanism matters because Solana's native staking locks SOL until the end of an epoch (~2-3 days) and forfeits yield during deactivation. An LST sidesteps both costs: rewards compound continuously into the token's price, and exits route through liquidity pools on Jupiter, Orca, or Raydium in seconds. The trade-off is smart-contract risk and a protocol fee on rewards that, per DeFiLlama's tracked fee data, runs roughly 2.5-6% depending on issuer. See Solana's staking documentation for native-staking mechanics.
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A Solana LST is a stake pool: the protocol aggregates user SOL, delegates it across a validator set, and mints a receipt token at the current exchange rate. Validator rewards flow back into the pool each epoch, so one LST unit redeems for slightly more SOL over time. Withdrawals run through either a delayed unstake (waiting on epoch boundaries) or an instant DEX swap.
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Two design choices distinguish issuers. First, validator selection: some pools (Marinade) use an algorithmic delegation strategy that rewards decentralization, while others (Jito) concentrate stake on validators running MEV-aware clients. Second, revenue capture: Jito's validator set runs the Jito-Solana client that auctions block-building rights and distributes MEV tips back to jitoSOL holders. Marinade's docs describe its delegation logic; Jito's docs detail the MEV-tip flow.
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jitoSOL is the receipt token for Jito's stake pool, which delegates exclusively to validators running the Jito-Solana client. Those validators run an out-of-protocol block-building auction that surfaces MEV tips, which flow back to the pool. DeFiLlama records Jito at $1.219 billion in TVL as of Sep 21, 2026, the largest single Solana LST issuer, with a tracked average supply APY of 4.85%.
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Mechanics: Jito builds on the Solana Labs SPL stake pool program, which Jito's FAQ states has been audited by three firms, and its StakeNet system automatically selects the top 400 validators on performance, fees, and reliability. Unstake options are a delayed withdrawal of up to one epoch (about two days) or an instant swap on Jupiter; Jito's docs note a 0.1% fee on direct website unstakes that a Jupiter sale avoids. The protocol charges an annual management fee equal to 4% of total rewards, applied to staking rewards and MEV revenue after validator commissions, per Jito's general FAQs. jitoSOL is accepted as collateral on Kamino, MarginFi, Drift, and Solend, and is the dominant Solana LST in CEX listings.
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mSOL is Marinade Finance's stake-pool token and the original Solana LST, launched August 2021. Marinade delegates across roughly 100+ validators selected by an algorithmic scoring model that penalizes centralization, downtime, and commission spikes. DeFiLlama tracks Marinade Liquid Staking at $274.6 million TVL as of Sep 21, 2026 (rank 17 among liquid-staking protocols), with an average supply APY of 5.4%.
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Marinade offers two products. Marinade Liquid mints mSOL against pooled stake; Marinade Native (the marinadeAuto / "directed stake" liquid-validator-stake mode) lets a depositor keep direct validator ownership while still using the same delegation strategy, useful for users who want staking rewards without smart-contract custody. Delayed unstakes return SOL after the next epoch (~2-3 days, no fee); instant unstake via the protocol charges a 0.3% fee or routes through Jupiter. Per DeFiLlama's fee methodology for the protocol, Marinade collects 6% of staking rewards as revenue. Marinade publishes its delegation criteria in its delegation-strategy docs. mSOL is integrated across Kamino, MarginFi, Drift, Solend, and Orca.
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bSOL is the LST issued by BlazeStake. It is smaller than Jito, Sanctum, Jupiter, or Marinade by TVL, at $106.9 million per DeFiLlama's BlazeStake tracker (Sep 21, 2026; up 23.5% over the trailing 30 days), and distinguishes itself with a "choose your validator" flow plus BLZE governance-token incentives. DeFiLlama lists an average supply APY of 4.86% for bSOL.
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bSOL accepts unstakes through delayed withdrawal at the next epoch or instant swap on Jupiter. Per DeFiLlama's fee methodology, BlazeStake collects roughly 5% of staking rewards plus a 0.1% instant-withdrawal fee and a 0.1% delayed-withdrawal fee. Liquidity is thinner than jitoSOL, mSOL, or JupSOL, so large exits (over 10,000 SOL) typically slip more than at the bigger issuers. BlazeStake's docs cover validator-direct staking and the BLZE incentive program.
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Sanctum is not a single LST, it is the infrastructure layer that lets any validator or partner mint a "Sanctum LST" backed by their own stake, while sharing a unified liquidity pool. Combined across its Validator LSTs, Infinity pool, and Reserve products, DeFiLlama tracks Sanctum at $2.163 billion in TVL as of Sep 21, 2026, making it the largest Solana-native liquid-staking umbrella by that measure; the Validator LSTs product alone holds $1.873 billion. INF is Sanctum's flagship multi-LST index token (the Infinity pool). Partner tokens include JupSOL (Jupiter, $605.1 million TVL per DeFiLlama's Jupiter Staked SOL tracker), hSOL (Helius), HausSOL, and dSOL (Drift, tracked separately by DeFiLlama at $333.1 million).
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The mechanism: Sanctum's Infinity pool holds many LSTs and lets any pair swap at an algorithmically-derived fair price. Per Sanctum's own 2026 comparison post, instant unstaking through Infinity carries a 0.1-0.3% fee, well below waiting on an epoch boundary in opportunity cost for most holders. DeFiLlama's fee methodology for Sanctum's Validator LSTs product shows a 2.5% cut of staking rewards. APY ranges by token: JupSOL has historically posted a competitive LST APY (5.46% average supply APY per DeFiLlama) because Jupiter subsidizes validator commissions from protocol revenue; the combined Sanctum umbrella shows a 5.58% average supply APY. Sanctum's docs cover the Infinity AMM and partner-LST onboarding.
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The table below lines up TVL, supply APY, protocol fee, and unstake speed for the five production issuers, each sourced to a primary tracker or protocol doc fetched September 21, 2026. TVL and APY rotate with validator performance, MEV volume, and net flows, so check the linked source before staking.

The pattern: Jito remains the largest single-issuer LST by TVL, and Sanctum's combined umbrella (Infinity plus its validator-LST partners) is now the largest Solana liquid-staking complex overall by that measure. Marinade lags on both TVL and headline yield relative to Jito and Sanctum's tokens but keeps the widest, most explicitly decentralized validator set. BlazeStake is the smallest of the five by TVL and carries the thinnest exit liquidity at size.
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The right LST depends on the user's priority among yield, exit liquidity, decentralization, and DeFi composability. No single token wins every dimension. Pick the issuer whose trade-offs match the use case rather than chasing a headline APY, which moves with MEV volume and net flows and can shift materially quarter to quarter.

Solana LSTs carry three primary risks: smart-contract bugs in the stake-pool program, validator slashing or downtime that erodes returns, and a depeg between the LST market price and its underlying NAV during market stress. None has produced a major holder loss across Jito, Marinade, BlazeStake, or Sanctum to date, but small depegs have appeared during Solana network-congestion events.
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Smart-contract risk is mitigated by audit history and the SPL Stake Pool program (a Solana Labs-maintained reference implementation many issuers fork); Jito's FAQ cites three completed audits and BlazeStake's DeFiLlama listing confirms an audit on file. Slashing on Solana is currently limited to validator downtime penalties rather than the slashing-for-malicious-behavior model on Ethereum, so the downside from validator misbehavior is bounded. Depeg risk is the most acute: a leveraged LST position on Kamino or MarginFi can liquidate if the LST's market price diverges from its NAV faster than the oracle updates. See DeFiLlama's liquid-staking tracker for live TVL, APY, and fee data across issuers.
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Solana LSTs sit on the staking side of the chain's DeFi stack; Eco Routes operates on the stablecoin payments side. The connection is that the LSTs above are typically funded with USDC bridged from Ethereum, Base, or Arbitrum into Solana, then swapped to SOL through Jupiter. Eco Routes is the orchestration layer many wallets and apps use to bridge that USDC across the 15+ chains it supports, including Solana, with single-signature execution. For background on the broader Solana DeFi map, see the Solana DeFi apps guide.
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Sources and methodology. TVL, supply APY, and fee-methodology figures were fetched from DeFiLlama's liquid staking tracker and each issuer's individual DeFiLlama protocol page on September 21, 2026; live values rotate with validator performance, MEV-tip volume, and net flows. Protocol mechanics verified against Jito docs, Marinade docs, BlazeStake docs, and Sanctum docs, plus Sanctum's 2026 comparison post for the Infinity instant-unstake fee. Figures refresh quarterly.
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Among the five major issuers, Sanctum's combined umbrella shows the highest DeFiLlama-tracked average supply APY at 5.58%, with JupSOL close behind at 5.46% because Jupiter subsidizes its validator commission. jitoSOL and bSOL trail at roughly 4.85% and 4.86%. Check DeFiLlama's liquid staking tracker for live ranks, since these move with MEV volume and net flows.
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A delayed unstake on Marinade or Jito returns native SOL after the next Solana epoch boundary, typically 2-3 days. An instant exit through a DEX swap on Jupiter takes one transaction (under a minute) at the cost of pool-spread slippage, per Jito's FAQ and Marinade's docs.
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Both have multi-year operating histories and multiple audits, and neither has had a holder loss. Marinade's validator set is more decentralized; Jito concentrates on MEV-aware validators. Marinade has the longer operating record (launched August 2021); Jito has the larger TVL at $1.22 billion versus Marinade's $275 million, per DeFiLlama. Depeg risk applies to both during Solana network-congestion events.
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Sanctum is infrastructure, not a single LST. It lets validators and partners mint their own branded LST (JupSOL, hSOL, dSOL) while sharing the Infinity AMM pool for liquidity. A "Sanctum LST" is a single-validator stake-pool token routed through shared exit liquidity, so exits are near-instant via Infinity (0.1-0.3% fee) rather than waiting on an epoch.
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