Marinade vs Solblaze

Marinade and SolBlaze rank as the second and third largest liquid staking platforms on Solana, respectively. Their primary similarity lies in their liquid staking offerings. Both platforms have a history of generous incentive programs for their users, albeit with slightly different approaches. While SolBlaze provides a broader range of additional services, Marinade stands out with its unparalleled native staking infrastructure through Marinade v2.

Liquid Staking

Both SolBlaze and Marinade have liquid staking products at their core. SolBlaze users can stake their SOL on the BlazeStake app to receive the bSOL token in return, while liquid stakers on Marinade receive the mSOL LST. Both bSOL and mSOL can then be used to perform additional functions, such as LP, lend/borrow, and farm with leverage in other prominent Solana DeFi platforms such as Kamino, Meteora, Raydium, and Solend. 

Additionally, both protocols automatically distribute staked funds over a wide range of validators. This contributes to the decentralization of Solana’s security and also benefits smaller validators that may otherwise be overlooked. Marinade and SolBlaze also both offer instant unstaking for mSOL and bSOL, although they can easily be swapped for SOL as well as many other tokens on Solana DEXs instead.

Incentivization

SolBlaze

SolBlaze’s BlazeRewards program periodically airdrops BLZE tokens to stakers who use their bSOL in certain ways around the Solana ecosystem. For example, users can make bSOL more capital efficient by providing liquidity in bSOL LPs on prominent DEXs. In return for deepening bSOL liquidity, users may earn BLZE rewards. 

Marinade

While Marinade doesn’t have a structured ongoing points program like SolBlaze, MNDE holders have so far passed governance proposals for 3 seasons of “Marinade Earn,” which incentivizes certain actions taken by mSOL holders. 

Between all 3 seasons so far, Marinade community voters have approved the distribution of 90 million MNDE tokens, totalling over $11 million at current prices. Marinade Earn Season 3 is still ongoing through mid-September, and more details can be found here.

Extra Features

Marinade

Native Staking

In addition to offering liquid staking, Marinade also enables native staking via the recent Marinade v2 upgrade. This greatly expands Marinade’s addressable market, as ~60% of the SOL supply is natively staked while only ~5% is liquid staked. By opening themselves up to this wider market, Marinade appeals to DeFi native users on Solana as well as larger institutional players looking for the safest and most lucrative way to earn SOL rewards.

Unique Infrastructure

Two features of Marinade v2 that aim to boost safety and rewards for Marinade native stakers are the Stake Auction Marketplace (SAM) and Protected Staking Rewards (PSR). 

The SAM is Marinade’s solution to optimizing rewards for native stakers. Typically with native staking, stakers only receive Solana network block rewards, while validators can also receive additional income via MEV tips and transaction fees. SAM enables stakers to receive some of these additional rewards by creating a marketplace for validators to bid for staked SOL. These bids go directly to stakers, which acts as a proxy to transfer a portion of validators’ additional rewards to Marinade native stakers. 

PSR protects against downtime risk by requiring validators to post a SOL bond. If a validator experiences downtime, the bond is proportionally paid to stakers to replace any block rewards they missed out on. So, PSR serves as a backstop that minimizes loss potential in the case of validator downtime.

SolBlaze 

SolBlaze has many auxiliary features beyond their liquid staking program, such as a SOL token faucet for mainnet users, an SPL token minter, payment integration tool, and Solana RPC tracker.

Token Faucet

SolBlaze created the first SOL faucet on Solana mainnet, enabling users to claim at least 0.00001 SOL every 24 hours. Users can also increase their claimable amount by playing games, mining SOL via their PC, and claiming from other faucets.

Token Minter

Using SolBlaze’s SPL token minter, anyone can create a new token on Solana within minutes for a fee of 0.25 SOL.

SOL Pay

SolBlaze’s SOL Pay tool enables real-time payment streaming for web3 apps and developers in a non-custodial manner, and can be easily integrated via their SDK and API.

RPC Tracker

SolBlaze also created the first Solana-wide RPC tracker page, which gives live uptime information for major RPC providers on Solana.

Conclusion

While Marinade and SolBlaze share a common ground in liquid staking, each project brings distinct additional features and lucrative incentives to the table. SolBlaze offers a broader array of services, but Marinade's dedicated and innovative focus on native staking has enabled it to capture a significantly larger market share within the Solana ecosystem. This strategic specialization underscores Marinade's dominance and appeals among Solana users.

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