State of Marinade Q3 2025

Key Insights

• The proposed Canary Marinade Solana ETF, powered by Marinade Select, is the first to pass through 100% of staking yield to investors. It filed its sixth S-1/A amendment with the SEC on Oct. 10, 2025, outlining a 0.50% management fee, and continues to advance toward approval despite delays from the U.S. government shutdown.
• Marinade’s total TVL rose 29.6% QoQ to $2.2 billion. This growth was driven by SOL’s 34.7% appreciation, while maintaining a TVL of 10.4M SOL.
• Marinade initiated ongoing MNDE buybacks using 50% of protocol fees. MNDE buybacks began on Sept. 5, 2025, and repurchased 1.2 million MNDE worth $181,454 by the end of Q3’25.
• The Marinade DAO permanently burned 300 million MNDE. The DAO voted to reduce the total supply of MNDE from 1 billion to 700 million through MIP-14, aligning tokenomics with long-term sustainability and value accrual.
• Marinade enforced new validator accountability measures, blacklisting validators that manipulate block times to gain MEV advantages. Marinade is committed to ethical validation standards and network fairness across Solana.

Primer

Marinade (MNDE) is an automated staking protocol on Solana that offers three core products: liquid staking via mSOL, native Solana staking via Marinade Native, and Marinade Select, an enterprise-focused native staking solution that launched in Q2’25 and consists of a curated validator set that has been verified through KYC and is committed to ethical MEV practices.

Marinade Native and Marinade Select enable users to delegate SOL directly to top-performing validators while retaining custody of their SOL, thereby minimizing risks and providing consistently higher staking yields compared to any 0% fee validator. Marinade Native does not use any smart contracts, charges no management fees, and does not issue a liquid staked token. Institutional-grade features such as SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, integrations with custodians like BitGo, Zodia, and Copper, a staking rewards report tool for tax purposes, and instant liquidity via Native Instant Unstake have positioned Marinade Native and Select as a leading choice for institutional stakers.

Marinade’s liquid staking product, Marinade SOL (mSOL), is a tokenized version of staked SOL that can be freely used across DeFi protocols. Users receive mSOL when staking through Marinade’s liquid staking interface, allowing them to earn staking rewards while maintaining the flexibility to trade, lend, or use their assets within Solana’s growing DeFi ecosystem.

Marinade was founded during the March 2021 Solana x Serum Hackathon and launched on mainnet on Aug. 2, 2021. Marinade’s governance token, MNDE, was released a few months later, with a retroactive airdrop for mSOL holders. Marinade has not raised venture capital funding or conducted public token sales. Instead, Marinade’s token, MNDE, has mainly been distributed via various campaigns to reward users and contributors. Beyond incentives, MNDE is used for governance on Realms, and since Sept. 5, 2025, a portion of protocol fees has been allocated to onchain MNDE buybacks, aligning token value with protocol revenue.

Previously, Marinade delegated staked SOL to validators based on its algorithmic delegation strategy. After Q2’24, the delegation strategy was updated with the launch of the Stake Action Marketplace (SAM), where validators bid on stakers' SOL deposits, creating a market-based mechanism for validator competition and enabling stakers to earn optimized returns.

To participate in Marinade, validators must maintain a maximum effective commission of 7%, factoring in offsets from Stake Auction Marketplace (SAM) bids. A validator with a 25% public rate can still qualify if its bid reduces the effective rate to 0%. Under Protected Staking Rewards (PSR), launched in April 2024, validators also post a SOL bond as uptime insurance to protect stakers from downtime or commission changes.

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Key Metrics

Financial Analysis

Market Cap

During Q3’25, Marinade Finance’s market capitalization increased 30.5% QoQ, rising from $55.0 million to $71.8 million. This growth was driven by a rise in MNDE’s circulating supply as MNDE’s price declined 4.5% QoQ from $0.134 to $0.128. The circulating supply of MNDE increased 36.2% over the quarter, from 411.1 million to 559.9 million tokens. In mid-September 2025, market activity around MNDE accelerated following the activation of protocol-level MNDE buybacks through governance, which redirected 50% of protocol fees to repurchase MNDE on the open market. This coincided with the burn of 300.0 million MNDE from the DAO treasury under MIP-14 and heightened market attention surrounding Solana ETF approvals, drawing renewed investor focus to MNDE’s tokenomics.

Staking

Marinade is a non-custodial staking protocol that offers three distinct SOL staking products: liquid staking via mSOL, native staking via Marinade Native, and institutional-grade staking via Marinade Select, which adheres to stringent performance, uptime, and verification standards, including a KYC verification, and zero tolerance for malicious MEV behavior.

Marinade’s liquid staking product allows users to receive mSOL, a tokenized receipt of their staked SOL that is freely usable across DeFi applications. Marinade Native enables users to stake without receiving a token, retain full custody, eliminate smart contract risk, and earn staking rewards directly to their stake accounts with no management fees. Marinade Select, launched on June 5, 2025, offers a native staking service tailored to institutions with a curated KYC-verified validator set with a track record of reliability and commitment to ethical onchain behavior, which does not allow front-running or sandwiching.

Marinade Select has also been included as a staking provider in the proposed Canary Marinade Solana ETF filed by Canary Capital with the SEC in Q2 2025. The ETF filed its sixth amendment (S-1/A) on Oct. 10, 2025, indicating progress toward approval despite delays caused by the U.S. government shutdown. Marinade Select’s commitment to validator transparency and ethical validating practices continues to support its inclusion as the designated staking provider for the proposed Solana ETF.

Building on this institutional momentum, Nasdaq-listed VisionSys AI announced in early October a partnership with Marinade to launch a Solana-based digital asset treasury (DAT) initiative valued at up to $2 billion. Under the partnership, VisionSys will acquire and stake SOL through Marinade’s infrastructure, with an initial $500 million target in its first phase. Marinade serves as VisionSys’s exclusive staking and ecosystem partner, overseeing delegation, compliance, and performance optimization. Together, these developments strengthen Marinade’s position within Solana’s institutional ecosystem, demonstrating its role in supporting both regulated investment products and large-scale corporate treasury initiatives.

During Q3’25, the total amount of SOL staked across Marinade’s three products declined 6.5% QoQ, falling from 11.1 million to 10.4 million SOL. However, the price of SOL rose 34.7% over the quarter, from $154.94 to $208.70, driving a 29.6% increase in total USD-denominated TVL to $2.21 billion. Marinade Native maintained its lead as Marinade’s largest product, decreasing slightly from 5.3 million to 4.9 million SOL. Marinade Select expanded 6.2% QoQ, reaching 896,900 SOL, while mSOL TVL declined 8.7%, from 5.0 million to 4.5 million SOL, as liquidity rotated toward native staking and Marinade’s institutional-grade products, which feature SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, protected staking rewards, and support from trusted custodians BitGo, Zodia, and Copper.

Revenue

During Q3 2025, Marinade generated 13,761 SOL in revenue, equivalent to $2.58 million. This represented a 13.2% increase in revenue measured in SOL and a 45.0% increase in dollar terms from Q2’s $1.78 million (12,200 SOL). The rise in revenue correlated with Solana’s price appreciation and rebound in network activity, supported by renewed user engagement following the launch of pump.fun’s PUMP token in July 2025.

Marinade’s revenue also benefited from stabilization within the Stake Auction Marketplace (SAM) after the Q2 2025 blacklisting of validators involved in malicious MEV behavior, such as sandwich attacks. The removal of these validators had temporarily reduced staker yields, prompting Marinade to lower protocol fees during Q2 to maintain competitive returns. In Q3, new validator entrants improved bidding dynamics, helped restore fee levels, and reinforced market competition.

As in prior quarters, nearly all protocol revenue was sourced from validator performance fees collected through the SAM. These fees, capped at 9.5%, represent a portion of staking rewards offered by validators in exchange for delegated stake. Because the SAM is a market-driven mechanism, Marinade’s revenue remains closely tied to validator competitiveness, staker demand, and broader sentiment toward Solana staking.

MNDE Buybacks

During Q3 2025, Marinade Finance initiated onchain MNDE buybacks, marking the first quarter of direct token repurchases funded by protocol revenue. Following the approval of MIP-11, MIP-13, and MIP-15, 50% of all protocol fees were allocated to automated MNDE buybacks beginning Sept. 5, 2025. As of Sept. 30, 2025, Marinade had repurchased 1,280,716.91 MNDE, using a total of $181,454.04 in protocol revenue. Purchases were executed through 30-day dollar-cost-averaging (DCA) schedules using performance fees generated by validators in the Stake Auction Marketplace (SAM). This milestone established a direct link between Marinade’s operational activity and tokenholder value creation, linking protocol revenue directly to an onchain mechanism for MNDE value accrual.

Token Emissions

Marinade has a fixed maximum token supply of 1.0 billion MNDE. During Q3’25, the DAO executed MIP-14, permanently burning 300 million MNDE from the DAO treasury. The burn reduced the total token supply to 700 million MNDE. At the same time, the circulating supply increased from 411.1 million to 559.9 million MNDE (+36.2% QoQ) due to new token allocations approved through governance. These included:

• MIP-12, which allocated 25 million MNDE for the Marinade migrate campaign, launched on Sept. 15, 2025, offering 10 MNDE per 1 SOL migrated to Marinade Native.
• MIP-13, which allocated 25 million MNDE to launch the Active Staking Rewards Program, rewarding MNDE holders who actively participate in governance throughout 2025. Rewards will be distributed in a single payment at year-end.
• MIP-15, which granted 100 million MNDE from the DAO treasury to Marinade Labs to fund operations over the next 12 to 18 months, covering core contributor compensation, audits, and ecosystem development.

Additionally, under MIP-13, 50% of protocol fees were redirected toward onchain MNDE buybacks, which began on Sept. 5, 2025. By the end of the quarter, 1,280,716.91 MNDE had been repurchased and removed from MNDE’s circulating supply.

Performance Analysis

Staking Incentive Design: SAM, PSR, and MNDE Alignment

As of the end of Q3’25, Marinade delegated SOL to 126 active validators on Solana. All validators receiving delegation must maintain a maximum effective commission rate of 7%, which accounts for offsets through their bids in the Stake Auction Marketplace (SAM). A validator may charge a higher public commission, for example 25%, and still qualify if their bid offsets that rate. Validators are also required to participate in the Protected Staking Rewards (PSR), a bonding program where validators post a SOL-denominated bond that can be slashed for misbehavior, extended downtime, or commission manipulation. This bond serves as an economic safeguard to promote validator performance and reliability.

Following the approval of MIP-3 in November 2024, Marinade transitioned all stake allocation to the Stake Auction Marketplace (SAM), replacing its previous hybrid delegation model. Under the SAM, validators bid for SOL delegation by offering custom yield terms, competing against other validators to offer the most attractive terms. Marinade applies a performance fee of up to 9.5% on validator bids, which is captured as protocol revenue.

The SAM incentivizes validator competition and yield optimization, while PSR enforces minimum performance standards, forming a dual-incentive structure that balances decentralization with staking efficiency. To further enhance validator accountability, Marinade announced on Aug. 6, 2025, a blacklist update targeting more than 30 validators found to be intentionally delaying block times beyond 450ms across multiple epochs to exploit MEV advantages. Validators that behave in this way will be excluded from delegation, with their stake redelegated to honest operators. User rewards will remain unaffected, and redelegation costs will be covered by the offenders’ validator bonds. This enforcement mechanism strengthens SAM’s competitive integrity, promotes a healthier validator ecosystem, and contributes to the overall performance and fairness of the Solana network.

These accountability measures complemented Marinade’s broader alignment framework, which was finalized in Q3 2025 through the implementation of MIP-13, MIP-14, and MIP-15. Together, these proposals linked validator activity, protocol revenue, and MNDE tokenholder value. These proposals established a direct link between protocol performance and MNDE accrual through mechanisms such as onchain buybacks, Active Staking Rewards, and a reduced total token supply.

Validators and APY

Marinade’s staking products, including liquid staking through mSOL, native staking, and Marinade Select, continued to offer competitive returns in Q3’25, although yields continued to decline from their Q2 highs of over 8.00% APY across all three of Marinade’s products. Staking yields are influenced by Solana network activity, validator performance, and the distribution of priority fees.

Marinade Liquid (mSOL)

The mSOL APY ended Q3’25 at approximately 6.87%, compared to 8.29% at the end of Q2’25. mSOL yields are calculated using Marinade’s true price metric, which measures the ratio of SOL backing each mSOL token. These yields remain sensitive to validator uptime, network transaction volumes, and priority fee generation.

Marinade Native

Native staking APRs fell from 8.11% to 6.81% during the quarter, primarily due to network-wide declines in priority fees, which have remained near all-time lows for several months and reduced validator earnings across Solana. Lower validator bidding activity in the Stake Auction Marketplace (SAM) and the proportion of priority fees passed through to stakers further contributed to the decline. Native staking typically offers slightly higher yields than mSOL because it avoids liquidity-related fees. Historically, native staking required users to observe a 2–3 day unstaking cooldown period, but Marinade introduced native instant unstake in beta during Q2’25 and has since launched the full release of instant unstake. This feature was built in collaboration with Anza and enables users to exit any native staking positions instantly without waiting for the unstaking cooldown period, even those not created through Marinade.

The continued development of Marinade Native’s infrastructure and liquidity features has also strengthened its standing among institutional staking solutions. Its integration as the staking provider for the live Bitwise Solana Staking ETP showcases Marinade’s credibility as a trusted, compliant partner for regulated exposure to Solana staking.

Marinade Select

Marinade Select, launched in June 2025, is an institutional-grade staking solution built on a curated validator set that enforces KYC verification, ethical MEV practices, and high uptime standards. Validator accountability is reinforced through Marinade’s Protected Staking Rewards. Since launch, Marinade Select has delivered yields in the range of 8.71% to 6.59% APY, supported by reliable validator performance and priority fee distribution.

The product is structured to meet institutional and regulatory requirements, serving as the exclusive staking provider in Canary Capital’s Canary Marinade Solana ETF application. The ETF filed its sixth S-1/A amendment with the SEC on Oct. 10, 2025, outlining a 0.50% management fee with no cut of Solana staking rewards. This makes it the first proposed Solana ETF to pass through 100% of staking yield directly to investors. While progress toward approval has slowed amid the ongoing Q3’25 U.S. government shutdown, Marinade Select’s compliance-ready architecture and ethical validator framework continue to position it as a leading staking provider for regulated Solana investment vehicles.

Adoption

Adoption of Marinade’s staking products remained resilient in Q3’25. mSOL usage in DeFi grew 14% QoQ to 1.38 million mSOL, supported by renewed activity across Solana’s lending and liquidity markets. Marinade Native remained the largest product with 4.9 million SOL staked, while Marinade Select expanded 6.2% QoQ to 896,900 SOL. Although total SOL staked across all products declined 6.5% to 10.4 million, Solana’s price appreciation raised Marinade’s total TVL to $2.2 billion (+29.6% QoQ).

Institutional adoption advanced as Canary Capital’s Solana ETF inched closer to SEC approval, and Marinade Native continued to serve as the staking provider for Bitwise’s Solana Staking ETP. On Aug. 22, 2025, BitGo expanded its existing integration with Marinade by adding support for Marinade Select, allowing custody clients to access compliant, non-custodial SOL staking through a curated validator set verified via KYC.

In October, Marinade also entered a partnership with Nasdaq-listed VisionSys AI to power a Solana-based Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) initiative valued at up to $2 billion. The program aims to acquire and stake $500 million in SOL within its first six months, positioning Marinade as the staking and ecosystem partner for one of the largest corporate treasury allocations on Solana. Together, these developments strengthened Marinade’s institutional positioning and reinforced its role in enabling large-scale, compliant staking across enterprise and investment channels.

mSOL in DeFi

mSOL TVL declined 8.7% QoQ to 4.8 million SOL in Q3 2025, though usage within DeFi increased as liquidity rotated to yield-optimized strategies. Total mSOL deployed across DeFi protocols rose 14.0% to 1.4 million mSOL, supported by renewed activity across Solana’s lending and structured yield markets.

Kamino remained the largest venue for mSOL utilization with deposits climbing 37.9% QoQ to 855,300 mSOL, driven by strong demand for its Multiply vaults, which loop mSOL and SOL positions to amplify staking yields. Save followed with 284,000 mSOL, a 15.5% QoQ increase, benefiting from the steady adoption of its auto-compounding savings products. Drift saw the sharpest decline, falling 63.6% QoQ to 42,600 mSOL, as users rotated liquidity toward lending and structured yield platforms offering higher returns. MarginFi gained 1.3% QoQ to 60,900 mSOL, while Raydium lost 1.3% QoQ to 29,200 mSOL. Meteora concluded season 1 of its points farming campaign ahead of the MET token launch, resulting in a 59.3% QoQ decline to 12,100 mSOL.

Competitive Landscape

Solana’s liquid staking sector continued to expand in Q3’25, with the network’s liquid staking rate increasing from 13.2% to 13.4% of total staked SOL. Jito’s jitoSOL maintained its market leadership with a 31.7% share, holding a substantial lead through its competitive staking yields and deep integrations across Solana DeFi. Binance’s bnSOL followed as the second-largest provider, growing to a 26.3% market share, benefiting from centralized exchange liquidity and retail onramps.

Jupiter’s jupSOL rose to 10.8% market share, overtaking Marinade’s mSOL at 9.4% to become the third-largest SOL liquid staking provider. While Marinade’s liquid staking growth was steady, the protocol’s focus throughout 2025 shifted toward institutional adoption through Marinade Native and the launch of Marinade Select, its curated validator solution tailored for ETF and enterprise-grade staking. Despite this strategic shift, mSOL remained one of the most widely integrated liquid staking tokens in Solana DeFi, serving as a foundational asset across lending markets, structured yield products, and liquidity protocols.

Bybit’s bbSOL and Drift’s dSOL maintained their market shares of 4.6% and 3.6%, respectively. Other SOL liquid staking providers accounted for 13.7% of the market.

Qualitative Analysis

Governance

Marinade’s governance framework continued to serve as the foundation for protocol development in Q3’25. The DAO introduced and approved several MIPs focused on emissions, buybacks, burns, and incentives. These proposals reflect the community’s ongoing effort to enhance the utility and value accrual of MNDE to strengthen the protocol’s position within the Solana ecosystem.

MIP-12: Migrate Campaign - Accelerating Marinade Native TVL

MIP-12 was introduced on June 25, 2025, and proposed allocating 25M MNDE from the DAO treasury to fund Marinade’s Migrate Campaign. The initiative targets 2.5M SOL of new TVL for Marinade Native by incentivizing stake migration from competing validators and platforms.

The campaign is divided into three tracks:

• Institutional Track (10M MNDE): Targets existing and prospective clients of custodians such as BitGo, offering SOC 2-compliant, non-custodial staking access through Marinade Native.
• Retail Track (10M MNDE): Designed for individual stakers currently using third-party validators, with a 3-month campaign window.
• Additional Prospect Track (5M MNDE): Reserved for high-value institutional clients and strategic partners requiring tailored deal terms.

Participants in all tracks receive MNDE rewards at a 1 SOL = 10 MNDE rate, with staking commitment periods ranging from three to six months, depending on the track. Any unused allocations automatically return to the treasury, ensuring efficient capital deployment aligned with measurable protocol growth. MIP-12 was approved on July 20, 2025, began on Sept. 15, 2025, and ran until Sept. 30, 2025.

MIP-13: Introduction of Active Staking Rewards Program

Introduced on July 17, 2025, MIP-13 refines both MIP-5 and MIP-11 during their implementation phases. The proposal increases MNDE buybacks from 40% to 50% of total protocol fees and replaces the 10% MNDE-Enhanced Staking allocation with a new Active Staking Rewards program, funded with 25M MNDE tokens. This program is designed to reward MNDE holders who participate in governance by distributing rewards at the end of 2025 based on voting activity.

The proposed allocation structure shifts the use of total protocol fees from:

• 50% treasury
• 40% buybacks
• 10% MNDE-Enhanced Staking

To:

• 50% treasury
• 50% buybacks
• Governance rewards through a 25M MNDE budget.

MIP-13 was approved through a vote on Realms on Aug. 25, 2025.

MIP-14: Burn 30% of MNDE’s Total Supply

Introduced on Aug. 8, 2025, MIP-14 authorized the permanent burn of 30% of MNDE’s total supply, equating to 300 million MNDE tokens from the DAO treasury to reduce token overhang and strengthen the project’s long-term tokenomics. Prior to the burn, the DAO treasury held approximately 564 million MNDE, approximately 56.4% of the total supply, while MNDE’s circulating supply was approximately 430 million MNDE. The burn reduced the total supply from 1 billion to 700 million MNDE and decreased treasury holdings to approximately 264 million MNDE.

The proposal originated as a community opinion vote offering multiple options between 5% and 50%, with 30% receiving the majority of support. The rationale emphasized improving the market cap-to-FDV ratio, removing idle supply from the treasury, and signaling the DAO’s commitment to sustainable tokenomics. While the burn permanently reduced treasury reserves, it was deemed sufficient to preserve long-term funding capacity for grants, incentives, and operations.

MIP-14 was executed on Sept. 5, 2025.

MIP-15: Activate the Protocol Fees Flow and Grant 100M MNDE to Marinade Labs

Introduced on Aug. 18, 2025, MIP-15 reactivated the direct flow of all protocol fees into the DAO treasury and granted 100 million MNDE to Marinade Labs for 12 to 18 months of operational funding. The proposal transitioned Marinade to a fully DAO-funded model, ensuring all validator performance fees, buybacks, and burns accrue to the treasury. The 100 million MNDE allocation is subject to a one-year cliff to prevent short-term sell pressure and allow the treasury to replenish through ongoing revenues. Funds support core contributor compensation, product development, audits, and ecosystem growth, with quarterly reporting to maintain accountability. MIP-15, built on MIP-11 and MIP-13, completing Marinade’s shift toward a sustainable, DAO-controlled funding structure. MIP-15 was approved on Aug. 25, 2025.

Partnerships, Integrations, and Listings

Integration with Paxos and the Global Dollar Network

Marinade partnered with Paxos to integrate USDG, joining the Global Dollar Network alongside partners such as Robinhood, Kraken, and Worldpay. The collaboration will introduce USDG-based yield strategies across Marinade’s product suite, beginning with Marinade Recipes, where users can stake SOL and earn USDG rewards.

MNDE Exchange Listings and Accessibility

Marinade’s governance token, MNDE, was listed on MEXC on Sept. 10, 2025, launching both spot and perpetual markets (MNDE/USDT) with up to 20x leverage. The listing was accompanied by a $50,000 Airdrop+ campaign for traders. Earlier in the quarter, MNDE became available on Revolut on Aug. 12, 2025, expanding access to over 60 million users across Europe. On Aug. 20, 2025, mSOL and MNDE were also integrated on 1inch, enabling trustless, MEV-protected swaps at optimal rates.

Metaplex Genesis Partnership

Marinade joined Metaplex’s Genesis Partner Network, providing staking infrastructure for projects launching with Metaplex. Participating teams can stake raised SOL with Marinade Native or Select and direct staking rewards toward automated token buybacks, enabling sustainable, yield-driven tokenomics. Early partners include Collector Crypt, Goated, and Portals, each leveraging Marinade to fund long-term buyback and growth mechanisms.

Loopscale Integration

In Q3’25, Marinade integrated with Loopscale, Solana’s modular, order book-based lending protocol. The addition brought mSOL support to Loopscale, enabling users to employ looping strategies with top-tier liquid-staked Solana yield. Since launch, Loopscale has surpassed $100 million in deposits, $38 million in active loans, and over 4,000 active lending positions. Strong borrowing demand for mSOL has helped drive competitive yields for lenders participating in the SOL Genesis Vault, expanding mSOL’s role in Solana’s emerging structured yield markets.

Zeus Protocol Integration (btcSOL)

Marinade became the liquid staking partner for Zeus Protocol’s btcSOL, the first restaking product on Solana. The collaboration introduced the Dual Asset Accumulation Strategy (DAAS) that allows users to stake mSOL and earn zBTC, maintaining exposure to Solana while gaining exposure to zBTC from a single position. The product functions as a structured yield strategy, abstracting away the complexity of receiving staking rewards and manually swapping them into BTC. Instead, btcSOL automatically converts SOL staking yield into Bitcoin exposure, giving users seamless, continuous accumulation of zBTC over time.

The launch campaign featured a 200% zBTC reward boost and MNDE incentives, with more than 15,000 mSOL staked through the program by the end of Q3. The collaboration establishes Marinade’s mSOL as the foundation for Solana’s first dual-asset restaking product, expanding its role in emerging restaking and cross-asset yield strategies.

Roadmap and Looking Ahead

Marinade’s focus for the rest of 2025 and beyond is on validator accountability, institutional staking, and expanded DeFi composability. Following Q3 blacklist enforcement against latency-manipulating validators, Marinade has expressed its commitment to strengthening MEV resistance and redelegation efficiency within the Stake Auction Marketplace (SAM) to ensure a fair and performant network environment. Planned upgrades to the SAM include a more efficient auction mechanism, seamless redelegation between validators, and stronger resistance to MEV and extractive strategies.

On the institutional side, Marinade Select continues to advance its compliance-ready staking infrastructure, supported by BitGo’s integration and the pending Canary Marinade Solana ETF. The ETF filed its sixth S-1/A amendment on Oct. 10, 2025, outlining a 0.50% management fee with no cut of staking rewards, allowing investors to capture full SOL yield through Marinade’s infrastructure. While progress toward approval slowed amid the ongoing U.S. government shutdown, potential approval in the coming quarters could cement Marinade Select as the institutional standard for non-custodial staking.

Across DeFi, Marinade is expanding composable integrations that simplify yield participation. Partnerships with Zeus Protocol (btcSOL), Metaplex, Loopscale, and Marinade Recipes introduce structured products that automate restaking, yield conversion, looping, and token launches, streamlining access to staking yield while maintaining non-custodial control.

Closing Summary

Marinade closed Q3 2025 with strengthened financial performance and deepened institutional momentum. Total SOL staked across products declined 6.5% to 10.4 million, yet TVL climbed 29.6% to $2.2 billion on Solana’s 34.7% price rise. Protocol revenue increased to $2.58 million (13,761 SOL), and Marinade executed its first onchain MNDE buybacks, repurchasing 1.28 million MNDE worth $181,454. The DAO also approved MIP-14, permanently burning 300 million MNDE to reduce supply to 700 million, while new emissions under MIP-12, 13, and 15 expanded governance incentives, operational funding, and tokenholder alignment.

Institutional adoption advanced through BitGo’s integration of Marinade Select and ongoing progress on Canary Capital’s Solana ETF, which filed its sixth S-1/A in October, outlining zero management cuts to staking rewards. Across DeFi, Marinade expanded composability through integrations with Zeus Protocol’s btcSOL, Metaplex Genesis, Loopscale, and Marinade Recipes, enabling automated restaking, dual-asset yield, and structured onchain strategies. Heading into late 2025, Marinade’s priorities center on validator accountability, planned SAM upgrades, and continued innovation at the intersection of institutional staking and DeFi yield design.