Kitchen Stories: Monthly Roundup for September, 2024

Marinade made significant progress in its institutional endeavors during September, adding Hadley Stern as the new CCO and adding custodians Copper and Zodia to its list of integrators.
The Marinade Ambassador program is live! Eligible Marinade community members can earn MNDE rewards by spreading the word about Marinade V2.
Marinade hosted its first Stakepoint conference on September 19th, featuring discussions on Solana’s most relevant topics across 6 panels.

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New Chef: Hadley Stern

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Marinade’s team got a major addition in September with its new Chief Commercial Officer (CCO), Hadley Stern. Hadley will be an instrumental part of Marinade’s effort to capture institutional demand, as he brings a wealth of knowledge from his roles within the traditional finance space.

Prior to joining Marinade, Hadley held senior roles at some of the largest financial institutions in the world, such as:

Serving as the Managing Director of Fidelity's Blockchain and Digital Asset Incubator
Founding team member of Fidelity Digital Assets
Serving as the Global Head of Digital Asset Custody at BNY Mellon

Hadley’s extensive background at Fidelity and BNY Mellon underscores his deep expertise at the intersection of web3 and institutional finance, and the team is excited to have him on board! ‍

Custodian Integrations

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Another institutional-themed highlight from September was the announcement of Marinade’s new partnerships with Zodia and Copper, two major custodians in the digital asset space. These integrations allow clients of Zodia and Copper to stake with Marinade, offering unrivaled reward-optimizing and risk-minimizing tools such as the Stake Auction Marketplace (SAM) and Protected Staking Rewards (PSR). Overall, this marks a significant step in Marinade’s institutional journey as it gives direct native staking access to institutions around the world.

Zero-Fee Liquid Staking

Staying true to the mission of providing maximum value to stakers, Marinade has removed its liquid staking management fee. The mSOL management fee was previously used to fund Marinade's development, and was the only mandatory fee on Marinade's entire platform. Although the fee wasn't large, it still resulted in a ~0.4% increase in mSOL APY. This propelled mSOL to the top of the list for LST rewards on Kamino Multiply, where its APY briefly exceeded 17% and is still well into double-digits. Similarly, Jito currently carries a 4% liquid staking fee which reduces the APY of jitoSOL by ~0.3%.

This decision was also made with the broader Solana ecosystem in mind. Despite the benefits of liquid staking, it still only accounts for ~6.5% of total staked SOL. So, lowering fees and thereby increasing total liquid staking rewards on Marinade can attract more capital into Solana's liquid staking market.

Ambassador Program

Marinade is teaming up with Evangelist for a new Ambassador program! This will be an ongoing campaign that incentivizes Marinade’s community members by issuing MNDE tokens to those who spread the word about Marinade v2’s unique features and benefits. If you’re interested in becoming a Marinade Ambassador, click here to learn more and start earning today!

Stakepoint

September also featured Marinade’s inaugural Stakepoint one-day event in Singapore, which received ~2500 registrations! The event consisted of 6 panels where speakers including Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko, Marinade founder Michael Repetny, and many others discussed some of the most relevant topics currently circulating within the Solana ecosystem. You can find recaps of all 6 panel discussions here, and be sure to keep an eye out for more Stakepoint video content!

Financial Update

Marinade TVL at the end of September ’24 was 7.882M SOL (+4.95% MoM).

Revenue was 1,037 mSOL (-57.17% MoM), respectively $175 571 in USDC (-59.4% MoM). SAM Fees at 1189.9 SOL (-26% MoM) and Unstaking Fees 59,21 mSOL (+18% MoM).

Total expenses were at $388,341 (+139% MoM); The higher spending is driven primarily by one-off partnerships-integrations fees ($146,307), SnM program costs and Governance, Risk & Compliance program investments.

After the team-based expenses, Marinade operated at a profit of $41,581 (-87% MoM) in September with a net loss of $212,770 (-178% MoM). We expect a similar trend over the remainder of Q4.

Marinade’s Treasury balance was $2,327,404 by September, EoP.