Solana’s Liquid Staking: Unveiling the Explosive Growth of LSTs

In the fast-evolving world of decentralized finance (DeFi), Liquid Staking Tokens (LSTs) have become a game-changing innovation on Solana. These tokens enable users to stake their $SOL while still maintaining liquidity, as they receive a tokenized version of their staked assets in return.

Thanks to Solana’s high-speed, low-cost infrastructure, the ecosystem is particularly well-suited for liquid staking to flourish. Protocols like Jito ($JitoSOL), Marinade Finance ($mSOL), and others offer users multiple ways to participate in staking without locking up their capital.

In this article, we take a data-driven look at the LST landscape on Solana, using onchain metrics to highlight adoption trends, user behavior, and protocol performance.

Explosive Growth in Liquid Staking Adoption

Based on Flipside data, the adoption of LSTs on Solana began accelerating rapidly in late 2023. Initially, in October 2023, the total LST supply stood around 10.4 million tokens, driven largely by LST pools. By the end of April 2024, this supply surged past 21 million, doubling within just six months.

One pivotal platform accelerating this expansion was Sanctum. Sanctum streamlined the launch of LST projects and secured strategic partnerships with industry giants such as Binance and Bybit. These collaborations brought substantial amounts of $SOL into the LST ecosystem, significantly boosting adoption. 

Currently, LSTs linked to centralized exchanges (CEXs), notably $bnSOL from Binance and $bbSOL from Bybit, account for about 9.4 million $SOL, representing 23.3% of the total LST supply.

Analyzing Total Value Locked (TVL)

Today, the total staked through popular LSTs exceeds 41.8 million $SOL. With the current $SOL price around $145, this results in an impressive Total Value Locked (TVL) of over $6 billion, highlighting the substantial economic significance of LSTs in the Solana blockchain.

Spotlight on $JitoSOL: Market Leader by TVL

The leading LST by TVL is $JitoSOL, launched by the Jito protocol in late 2022. With over 17.3 million $SOL staked, $JitoSOL has consistently reached new all-time highs since September 2023. Its growth has significantly shaped the LST market, highlighted by an extraordinary 61% increase in just eight days in October 2023, from around 3.35 million to over 5.4 million $SOL.

Interestingly, as JitoSOL surged, the Lido gradually lost its market position, eventually exiting the Solana ecosystem despite achieving over 4.3 million $SOL in TVL back in October 2022. Lido’s exit created opportunities for new entrants like BlazeStake’s $bSOL, which reached 2.89 million $SOL TVL by February 2024.

Sanctum's Year: $INF and $bnSOL

2024 became notably significant for Sanctum, whose flagship token $INF surpassed 2.5 million $SOL TVL, driven by strategic collaborations and streamlined launches. 

Sanctum’s notable success, $bnSOL (launched with Binance), quickly achieved over 8.45 million $SOL TVL, securing its position as the second-largest LST on Solana, even surpassing $mSOL from Marinade.

Jupiter Enters the LST Market with jupSOL

Another important Sanctum-supported launch was Jupiter's $jupSOL, introduced in April 2024. $jupSOL quickly claimed a substantial market share with a TVL surpassing 3.7 million $SOL, accounting for approximately 8.9% of the overall LST market—making it the fourth largest LST on Solana.

Overall Liquid Staking Landscape on Solana Vs Ethereum

The total amount of $SOL staked on the Solana network has now surpassed 398 million $SOL, with approximately 89.6% coming from native staking. Consequently, LSTs currently make up around 10.4% of the total staked $SOL—a portion that continues to grow steadily. 

Over the past month alone, the LST segment has expanded by more than 2.8 million $SOL in TVL.

When comparing the prominence of LSTs between Solana and Ethereum, it's noteworthy that although Ethereum introduced liquid staking earlier and saw quicker initial maturity, LSTs have grown notably prominent within the Solana ecosystem. 

Solana’s current 10.4% LST market share closely rivals Ethereum’s approximate 11%, highlighting Solana's rapid and impactful adoption of liquid staking solutions.

 

User Engagement and Wallet Activity

In terms of user activity, Jito leads with over 173,000 active stakers. Marinade follows closely with about 150,000 stakers.
Notably, Sanctum’s $INF token experienced substantial growth, reaching over 203,000 wallets by May 2024 and surpassing $JitoSOL in total users at that time.
Interestingly, despite its substantial TVL, $bnSOL holds a relatively low wallet count of just 9,428, suggesting heavy institutional investment rather than broad retail use.

Final Thoughts

Solana’s liquid staking ecosystem is thriving, driven by innovative protocols, strategic partnerships, and user-focused offerings. With platforms like Sanctum and leading tokens such as $JitoSOL, $bnSOL, and $mSOL continuing their impressive growth, the future of liquid staking on Solana looks promising, presenting ample opportunities for further expansion.

Stay tuned for further insights into how these platforms evolve and shape the future of DeFi trading on Solana.
This piece is part of our Solana Data Insights series. Make sure to subscribe to Solana Data Insights for weekly onchain analysis.

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