Kitchen Stories: Monthly Roundup for June, 2024

• Marinade v2 officially announced, ushering in a new era for permissionless SOL staking. Benefits of v2 include native staking, protected staking rewards (PSR), and the stake auction marketplace (SAM).
• Marinade Earn Season 3 is distributing up to 25 million MNDE tokens to select mSOL liquidity providers.
• The Marinade community passed a proposal to onboard CEX market makers and deepen liquidity for the MNDE token.

The Chefs (once again) made lots of progress in June! The grand vision of Marinade v2 was released, and further development brought it one step closer to being fulfilled. Additionally, liquidity of mSOL and MNDE is getting deeper thanks to a major DAO vote and the implementation of Earn Season 3. But the Chefs didn’t just build superior staking tech last month, they also continued to build the Marinade community by participating in conferences such as Consensus and IslandDAO!

Now, let’s dive into the biggest Marinade news that took place in June:

Rolling Out Marinade v2

Marinade v2 was officially announced last month, bringing several major upgrades to the platform. Major upgrades include: 

• Native staking, which eliminates smart contract risk.
• Protected Staking Rewards (PSR), which eliminates counterparty risk (specifically validator downtime risk).
• The Stake Auction Marketplace (SAM), where validators bid for depositors’ stake, adding to overall rewards for stakers.

Launched First Phase of SAM Rollout

Simulated testing of the SAM went live on June 27th, allowing validators to experiment with the bidding system and generate simulated results using different bid sizes. This is the first of 3 phases of the SAM rollout, and will be followed by the marketplace launch and finally redelegation improvements. Delegation impact for various bid sizes can be tested at psr.marinade.finance.

Marinade Earn Season 3 

Marinade also kicked off its third season of Marinade Earn in June, which distributes MNDE tokens to mSOL holders who take actions to deepen overall mSOL liquidity. During Season 3, up to 25 million MNDE tokens will be distributed to participants over a 90-day period. The following actions are examples of how you can start earning MNDE rewards today:

• LPing in Kamino’s Raydium mSOL/SOL vault
• LPing directly on Raydium’s mSOL/SOL pool
• Looping Meteora mSOL/SOL LP tokens

New DAO Proposal Passed: Deepen MNDE Liquidity on CEXs

The Marinade community passed a proposal to loan up to 26 million MNDE tokens to market makers to provide liquidity on centralized exchanges, with the goal of deepening liquidity and tightening spreads on MNDE. The goal of this plan is to onboard 2 to 3 market makers for up to 18 months. These loans will be callable at anytime, meaning the market makers can opt to purchase the lent MNDE if the price becomes favorable, in which case the USD value used to purchase the tokens will go to the Marinade DAO treasury. To monitor current DAO discussions or create a new proposal, head over to our governance forum at forum.marinade.finance

Monthly Treasury Report

Marinade TVL at the end of the month was 8.193M SOL (-2.78% MoM). Revenue was 1,822 mSOL (-3.24% MoM), which is approximately $325,000 in USDC terms (-7% MoM). Expenses were $182,280 (-22.86% MoM). Marinade operated in profit at $143,483 on the month (+24.33% MoM). Total Operational Treasury value declined by 6% to $2,221,644. View the operational wallet here.

Marinade in the News

‍Blockster - Consensus 2024 Round-Up: Spotlight on Innovation and Growth

Cryptonews - Solana ETF May Be Next, But It Will Take Years Says Bloomberg Analyst
Blockworks - Lightspeed Newsletter: Marinade V2 introduces stake auction marketplace
The Block - Solana liquid staking protocol Marinade unveils 'auction marketplace'
DL News - DeFi protocol Marinade looks to reclaim share of $51bn
CoinDesk - Protocol Village Protocol Village
Cryptonews - Marinade Announces Stake Auction Marketplace
Blockster - Marinade Unveils V2 Stake Auction Marketplace
AlexaBlockchain - Marinade Launches Stake Auction Marketplace
Binance - Marinade Launches Equity Auction Market To Boost Solana's Decentralization
Crypto News - Marinade Unveils V2 Stake Auction Marketplace
Crypto Reporter - Marinade, Solana’s First Staking Protocol, Unveils V2 Stake Auction Marketplace