Marinade AMA — Minutes of the Open Kitchen

On October 15th, Marinade organized its first AMA (Ask me anything).

With the release of the MNDE token this AMA was a perfect opportunity to introduce the Chefs and talk more about Marinade protocol, Marinade DAO, and the future of MNDE.

Here is a list of the discussed topics and what was spoken about them during the AMA.

MNDE utility

MNDE is the governance token for the Marinade DAO. Marinade wants to allocate MNDE to the community and to its users in the fairest way possible.

For now, MNDE represents ownership of the Marinade DAO, that’s going to slowly take control over the whole Marinade protocol. The utility of the token is something that was widely discussed. What came out of this AMA is that the utility of MNDE is something the Marinade community feels very strongly about, and it will be the first challenge of the DAO.

The team has several ideas for the token’s utility and will present them to the DAO in the near future. This should be discussed within the community, and the team is willing to hear anyone’s opinion on the subject. There are many possibilities to utilize the token. Marinade does not want to integrate utility before considering all the options (short-mid- and long-term consequences) for the DAO and the protocol.

This is why the Marinade team encourages you to join the DAO and share your opinions on how you want to see this evolve. To get started, head over to our Discord server and get registered as a Marinator.

What is Marinade DAO?

Even if on-chain governance tools are being worked on, they are not yet ready for production on Solana, but off-chain governance is happening right now on the Marinade Discord and that is where the foundation of the Marinade DAO is created and will evolve from. If you own MNDE, you are welcome to participate in the conversations and suggest and contribute to the future of Marinade.

Retroactive MNDE rewards

Retroactive rewards for mSOL users are something that is on all of our minds. The team explained that the retroactive claim of MNDE will be made in waves, but the details are still being worked out.

The team explained that they want to consider every use case of mSOL and be as fair as possible. To answer this challenge, the retroactive claim will be split up into several phases. Each phase will focus on a specific group of users that meets certain criteria, for example, the first early adopters that staked in Marinade under the 100k cap, users that have provided liquidity in Marinade, users that got mSOL by swapping SOL for mSOL in ORCA, Raydium or Saber, etc. This setup will allow all early users of Marinade to receive MNDE tokens. A coming announcement will probably clear out any question marks related to the retroactive claim.

For those of you who expect a date for those MNDE retroactive claims: whilst a date cannot be pinpointed, the retroactive claim should start soon.

New Marinade look and documentation

A total redesign with an improved user interface is on the way! It will be even simpler for newcomers and more understandable for everyone. You can expect the Marinade UI to change pretty soon!

Documentation is also being worked on to be able to answer all the questions our users can have, whether they are beginners or experienced users.

Will Marinade accept a partnership with VCs in the future? Can the DAO suggest it?

Marinade did not start with any external funds and is self-sustainable, but that does not mean Marinade doesn’t want to work with VCs. If we choose to take external funding, their interests must be aligned with Marinade’s. They have to share the same values and views of the ecosystem that Marinade and its users share. They should also provide help in strategic fields where their support might help cover things Marinade could not do without them. So, this idea is not to be dismissed, but it must make sense for Marinade and its users. This is something that Marinade is open to discuss with the DAO in the future when such a thing is needed for Marinade to grow more.

How to become an eligible validator, and how does Marinade select its validators

This was an excellent occasion to talk about the algorithm of Marinade that automatically selects the top performer validators and shares its stake amongst them, adjusting it every epoch.

To become a Marinade validator, you must run a working validator node, that helps the Solana ecosystem. You don’t need to be added to any whitelist or to talk to anybody; the algorithm takes care of the choice. More details can be found in the related docs. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to @C2yptic on Discord, to be added to the validator chat.

The discussion then moved to the difference between Marinade and other protocols such as Lido. Two main things that differentiate Marinade from Lido are; that there is no whitelisting on Marinade (the delegation formula is open and algorithmic) and that Marinade is Solana native.

Marinade does not per se compete with Lido or with other staking protocols, but aims at securing the Solana network by decentralizing it, and offers the possibility to liquify your staked SOL with mSOL.

There are millions of unstaked SOL out there that are waiting to be staked in Marinade!

Why is the APY on Marinade lower than on certain single validators?

The performance of a validator depends on several factors. A unique validator could perform better or worse than the Marinade pool at any time due to several affecting factors. If a validator encounters an issue, you could lose your staking rewards.

With Marinade, your staked SOL is distributed among hundreds of validators, and it is very unlikely that they will all experience issues at the same time. Thus, you’re trading a bit of APY for a way more secured stake. But that’s not all; with a single validator, you lock your SOL when delegating. With Marinade, you’re given an mSOL token that can be further used in DeFi, where you will find other ways to raise your APY.

If you still have questions or want to discuss some of these topics, do not hesitate to join the conversation in our Discord or join the next AMA.

These notes were collected by Cerba with the help of c2yptic, Jesse, and David, we will try to set up a recording for the next AMA!