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. The category clears tens of billions in deposits on DeFiLlama's LST dashboard, and four issuers dominate the supply: Jito (jitoSOL), Marinade (mSOL), BlazeStake (bSOL), and Sanctum, which underwrites a long tail of partner LSTs including INF, JupSOL, hSOL, HausSOL, and dSOL. This guide compares them on APY, unstake time, DEX liquidity, integration depth, and fee structure, then recommends a token per use case. Updated May 2026.
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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 small protocol fee on rewards (typically 4-10%). 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, lifting the headline APY versus pools without MEV capture. 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; tips flow back to the pool and lift jitoSOL's effective APY a few dozen basis points above non-MEV LSTs. By TVL, Jito is the largest Solana LST.
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Mechanics: the Jito Stake Pool program (audited by multiple firms per Jito's security page) auto-rebalances delegation across roughly 200 vetted validators. Unstake options are a delayed withdrawal at the next epoch boundary or an instant swap on Jupiter — typical slippage under 25 bps for trades under 5,000 SOL. The protocol charges a 4% fee on staking rewards. 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. It does not capture MEV, so headline APY trails Jito by ~30-60 bps, but the validator set is the most decentralized of the major LSTs.
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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. 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 or Marinade by TVL but distinguishes itself with a "choose your validator" flow (a depositor can direct their stake to a specific validator while still minting the pooled LST) and BLZE governance-token incentives that have at times pushed effective APY above headline staking yield. The pool charges a small management fee on rewards.
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bSOL accepts unstakes through delayed withdrawal at the next epoch or instant swap on Jupiter. Liquidity is thinner than jitoSOL or mSOL — large exits ( > 10,000 SOL) typically slip more than competitors. Integration depth on Kamino and MarginFi is partial: it is listed as a borrowable asset but with lower supply caps than the top two LSTs. 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 mint a "Sanctum LST" backed by their own stake, while sharing a unified liquidity pool. INF is Sanctum's flagship multi-LST index token (the Infinity pool), which holds a basket of underlying Sanctum LSTs. Partner tokens include JupSOL (Jupiter), hSOL (Helius), HausSOL, and dSOL (Drift).
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The mechanism: Sanctum's Infinity pool holds many LSTs and lets any pair swap at the algorithmically-derived fair price, plus a small spread. That makes Sanctum LSTs effectively near-instant to exit — a holder swaps into SOL through Infinity without waiting for an epoch. APY ranges by token: JupSOL has historically posted one of the highest LST APYs because Jupiter subsidizes validator commissions from protocol revenue; HausSOL and dSOL track standard validator yields. Fee on Infinity swaps is dynamic, typically 0.01-0.10%. Sanctum's docs cover the Infinity AMM and partner-LST onboarding.
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The table below summarizes APY range, unstake speed, fee structure, and integration depth across the four issuers. APY figures reflect typical 2026 ranges from DeFiLlama's LST dashboard and rotate weekly with validator performance and MEV tip volume; use the dashboard for live numbers before staking.

The pattern: Jito leads on raw APY among non-subsidized LSTs because MEV capture is real revenue, not an incentive. JupSOL prints higher headline yields but the spread reflects Jupiter's commission subsidy rather than incremental staking economics. Marinade lags on yield but leads on decentralization. Sanctum's tokens win on exit speed.
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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 the headline APY, which rotates by hundreds of bps over a year and converges across issuers once subsidies normalize.

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, or Sanctum to date, but small depegs of 1-3% 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). 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 Solana LST page for live peg ratios and supply trends.
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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. APY ranges and TVL figures reflect DeFiLlama's Solana LST dashboard as of Q2 2026; live values rotate weekly with validator performance and MEV-tip volume. Protocol mechanics verified against Jito docs, Marinade docs, BlazeStake docs, and Sanctum docs. Fee structures verified against each issuer's public fee pages. Figures refresh quarterly.
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JupSOL typically prints the highest headline APY (8-9%) because Jupiter subsidizes its validator commission, but that subsidy is protocol policy, not durable staking economics. Among non-subsidized LSTs, jitoSOL leads at roughly 7.5-8.5% because of MEV-tip capture. Check DeFiLlama's LST dashboard for live ranks.
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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, usually under 25 bps for trades under 5,000 SOL on jitoSOL or mSOL.
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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. Depeg risk applies to both during Solana network-congestion events.
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Sanctum is infrastructure, not an LST. It lets validators 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 rather than waiting on an epoch.
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