On this page8 sections
Who is behind Marinade
Marinade is run as a DAO with a legal wrapper for the website. The Terms of Use (last updated May 29, 2026) state that the website is made available by Medium Rare Foundation, established in Panama, that the Terms are governed by Panamanian law, and that disputes go to arbitration under Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre rules with Hong Kong as the seat. No street address is published.
According to Marinade's documentation, the project formed from a merger of two teams working on similar goals. mSOL launched on Solana mainnet in August 2021, MNDE was minted the same year as a fair-launch token with no ICO, on-chain DAO governance began in April 2022, and governance moved to Realms in July 2023 (MNDE token docs). Marinade's homepage also says the operation holds SOC 2 Type I and Type II certification; that is a company statement and covers operational controls, not smart-contract safety.
Native staking vs. liquid staking (mSOL)
The choice between the two modes decides who holds the stake account and what you can do with the position.
| Marinade Native | Marinade Liquid (mSOL) | |
|---|---|---|
| What you hold | Native Solana stake accounts in your own wallet | mSOL tokens |
| Who can withdraw | Only you — you keep the withdraw authority; Marinade holds stake authority to delegate, split and merge | Anyone holding mSOL can redeem or sell it |
| Smart-contract exposure | Delegation runs through Marinade's Native Staking Proxy program; no Marinade contract holds your SOL | SOL sits in the Marinade stake pool program |
| Use in DeFi | No | Yes — mSOL can be used as collateral or in liquidity pools |
| Minimum | About 1.0046 SOL; Marinade recommends 100 SOL or more so stake can be spread fully | No stated minimum to stake |
| How rewards arrive | Credited to each stake account every epoch | Reflected in a rising mSOL-to-SOL rate |
Source: Marinade Native docs, checked October 2026.
How mSOL's value works. mSOL does not rebase. Its protocol price is total staked SOL divided by mSOL minted, so each epoch's rewards raise the amount of SOL one mSOL represents. On DEXs and exchanges mSOL can trade below or above that protocol price when pools are imbalanced; Marinade's docs say arbitrage usually closes the gap quickly, but its risk disclosure is explicit that parity and liquidity are not guaranteed (mSOL token docs). The official mSOL mint address is `mSoLzYCxHdYgdzU16g5QSh3i5K3z3KZK7ytfqcJm7So`; check any "mSOL" you are offered against it.
How Marinade chooses validators
Marinade's main stake allocation now runs through the Stake Auction Market (SAM), marketed as Max Yield. Each epoch, validators that pass eligibility checks are ranked by the maximum yield they will deliver to stakers, combining their commission with a bid. Stake is filled from the top of the ranking down. The realized yield is set by the lowest-ranked winner, so higher bidders pay only what is needed to match that level (SAM docs).
Validators can bid a fixed amount per 1,000 SOL of stake per epoch, paid from a bond, or share a portion of inflation, MEV or block rewards with stakers. A single validator can receive at most 15% of Marinade's TVL, a cap adopted by governance proposal MIP-19.
Two other validator sets exist alongside SAM:
- Marinade Select is a curated set of verified validators aimed at institutions. Validators pay 20 basis points of TVL per year to Marinade, plus up to 10 basis points to the validator, under a bilateral agreement.
- Marinade Recipes lets users stake and earn a chosen token; it uses its own validator set.
Protected Staking Rewards
Validators in the auction must post a Protected Staking Rewards (PSR) bond. If a validator goes offline for extended periods or raises its commission mid-epoch, the bond compensates Marinade stakers for the lost rewards; since governance change MIP-23, validators cover the full downtime charge (PSR docs). PSR does not cover slashing. Solana has no slashing mechanism as of October 2026, so if one is introduced, principal could be at risk in ways the bond was not designed for.
Rewards and fees
Marinade states that it charges no deposit fee on any product and takes no performance fee on staking rewards; the stake pool's on-chain reward fee is zero as of October 2026 (Fees and Pricing). Costs appear when you leave, and they depend on speed:
| Exit route | Native, Select, Recipes | mSOL |
|---|---|---|
| Delayed unstake | Flat 0.003 SOL; SOL becomes claimable one epoch after deactivation | 0.2% of the amount; same epoch-based release |
| Instant unstake | Market-maker quote, typically 0.10%–0.40% below nominal balance; needs at least 1 SOL in stake accounts that are 2 or more epochs old | Swap through DEX routes with no Marinade fee, or the liquidity pool route at 0.03%–1.5%, rising as the pool drains |
The APY shown in Marinade's app is a 30-day moving average of a 14-day APY, so it describes the recent past rather than a promise. Actual rewards depend on Solana inflation, validator performance, MEV and the auction outcome each epoch. Marinade's homepage headline figure is a marketing estimate; the Risks page says APY figures are estimates and yields are not guaranteed.
Marinade also offers a Staking Rewards Report for exporting reward summaries, which helps with record-keeping for taxes.
Contracts, governance and security
Who can change the code. Upgrades to the main mSOL program require 6 of 13 signatures on an Ecosystem multisig whose signers include Jupiter, Orca, Phantom, Raydium, Solflare, Triton.one and three Marinade team slots, so Marinade alone cannot reach the threshold. Other programs, including Marinade Native, Select and Validator Bonds, are upgraded by MNDE holders through the Realms DAO with a 2% quorum. The documentation does not describe an upgrade timelock (Multisig governance).
MNDE. The token's only stated role is governance: holders lock MNDE to vote on fees, treasury and protocol parameters, with voting power tied to remaining lock time up to 30 days. Supply started at 1 billion; a governance-approved burn of 300 million (MIP-14) left about 700 million, and mint authority is disabled on-chain. Some allocations, including a team milestone tranche conditional on reaching 16 million SOL in TVL, remain undistributed.
Audits. Marinade lists audits by Kudelski Security and Ackee Blockchain and a Neodyme code review in 2021; audits by Neodyme and Sec3 after a November 2023 upgrade; a Neodyme audit of the Validator Bond program in 2024; and a 2026 Neodyme audit of May 2026 changes that reported no issues (Audits). Audits cover specific code versions at specific times and do not guarantee the absence of bugs.
Other risks. Marinade's own risk list includes smart-contract bugs, Solana network outages, validator underperformance, mSOL de-pegs on secondary markets, oracle failures and third-party protocol risk for the USDC Earn vault, which supplies liquidity to Kamino Lend. OBOL's liquid staking guide explains these trade-offs in general terms, and how staking works covers Solana delegation basics.
Who can use it
Marinade is a non-custodial protocol: anyone with a Solana wallet can interact with its contracts, and partners such as Phantom, Solflare, Ledger and institutional custodians (Zodia Custody, Copper, Anchorage, BitGo) list integrations. The marinade.finance website, however, is not offered to residents of a list of restricted countries in its Terms — including the United States, Canada, Japan, China, Russia and Iran — or to residents of countries sanctioned by OFAC, the EU or the US. Using a VPN to bypass those restrictions is prohibited by the Terms.
For OBOL's separate evaluation of Marinade against other Solana and Ethereum liquid staking options, see OBOL's Marinade review and the liquid staking ratings hub.
Getting help
Marinade's knowledge base at help.marinade.finance and its documentation at docs.marinade.finance are the official self-service channels; community support runs through the official Discord. Marinade staff will never need your seed phrase, and support offered through direct messages should be treated as a scam.
Official channels
Check these before connecting a wallet; scam sites frequently copy Marinade's interface.
- Website and app: https://marinade.finance/
- X: https://x.com/MarinadeFinance
- Discord: https://discord.gg/yTdH8YkYKg
- GitHub: https://github.com/marinade-finance
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@marinadefinance
- Governance forum: https://forum.marinade.finance/
- Stats dashboard: https://stats.marinade.finance/
How OBOL rates Marinade (Marinade Finance)
This page explains the company. The scores live in the reviews.