Marinade Staked SOL (mSOL) is a liquid staking derivative token issued on Solana that represents SOL deposited with the Marinade protocol and delegated across a diversified set of Solana validators.
Holders receive mSOL in exchange for staked SOL, and its value accrues staking rewards over time relative to SOL. The mSOL mint was deployed on Solana on 2021-07-25. Marinade launched as the first liquid staking protocol on Solana, originating from the Solana x Serum Hackathon in March 2021.
mSOL's differentiation is that it unlocks staked SOL for use across Solana DeFi while still accruing staking rewards, rather than locking capital in a non-transferable stake account.
As of Q4 2025, mSOL was reported as Marinade's largest single staking product by TVL, holding approximately 3.5 million SOL. In May 2025, Marinade Select was named the exclusive staking provider in a U.S. Solana ETF filing by Canary Capital Group LLC, positioning mSOL's underlying infrastructure for institutional, KYC-verified, SOC 2-compliant staking use cases.
mSOL is a yield-bearing staking-receipt token, not a governance token; governance rights belong to Marinade's separate MNDE token.
Holders use mSOL primarily to remain exposed to Solana staking yield while deploying it elsewhere in DeFi, including as collateral or liquidity in protocols such as Kamino, Orca, and Raydium. mSOL can also be redeemed back for underlying staked SOL through the Marinade protocol. As of 2026-08-31, mSOL had approximately 60,609 holders.
Circulating supply of mSOL was approximately 1.7 million tokens as of 2026-08-31; mSOL is minted and burned 1:1 against staked SOL rather than following a fixed schedule.
Marinade launched via the Solana x Serum Hackathon in March 2021, with initial support from the Solana Foundation and Serum rather than a venture-capital round or an initial DEX/coin offering.
The mSOL SPL token mint was deployed on Solana on 2021-07-25, several months after the March 2021 hackathon founding. mSOL has no fixed initial distribution or vesting schedule; supply is created and redeemed on demand as users stake or unstake SOL through the protocol.
Marinade Staked SOL (mSOL) is deployed natively on Solana, which uses a Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism combined with Proof of History to order and timestamp transactions.
mSOL represents SOL delegated to validators within the Solana network rather than running on a separate chain; Marinade does not operate an independent blockchain or validator set of its own, but instead runs a stake-delegation strategy across existing Solana validators.
Marinade Finance was founded in 2021 by Michael Repetný, who serves as Co-Founder and CEO, and Lucio Tato, Co-Founder.
Marinade operates commercially as Marinade Labs and governs itself through Marinade DAO; its associated legal entity is reported as GRILLMASTERS LIMITED.
The company is reported to be headquartered in New York, NY with approximately 20 employees. Marinade holds SOC 2 Type I and Type II compliance certifications, which it positions as supporting institutional adoption, including its role as a named staking provider in a U.S. Solana ETF filing.
mSOL itself carries no governance rights; governance of the Marinade protocol runs through the separate MNDE token.
In March 2026, Marinade launched "Earn Season 4," adding an isolated lending market on Kamino, MNDE incentives for Orca liquidity providers, and continued Raydium liquidity-provider rewards.
Marinade also introduced a Stablecoin Vault in 2026 offering yield of up to approximately 6% APY on USDC. These initiatives extend Marinade's DeFi integrations for mSOL and related products beyond core liquid staking.
Marinade reports its protocol has been audited six times by five independent firms, with no unresolved critical or high-severity findings reported.
A peer-relative concentration-risk indicator has flagged mSOL's holder distribution as highly concentrated versus similarly sized tokens, though this classification was last triggered in January 2025.