The solution – Sanctum
Sanctum's unified liquidity layer for all LSTs on Solana – welcome to the infinite-LST future.
Last updated
Sanctum's unified liquidity layer for all LSTs on Solana – welcome to the infinite-LST future.
Last updated
It's the paradigm shift from a PvP to PvE mindset that enabled us to build Sanctum. Sanctum solves and opens a whole new world of value propositions and uses cases for LSTs.
The PvP mindset which existing stake pools are built upon results in lose-lose situations for almost everyone. Solana lost a liquid stake pool and us users lost another LST to choose from when Marinade outcompeted Lido. The mSOL depeg on December 12th, 2023 was exacerbated because Marinade was the sole player defending mSOL's liquidity during significant selling pressure.
Even if a single stake pool has a deep enough liquidity to tide through large selling pressures, we run into the problem of centralisation (look at Lido on Ethereum).
Instead of focusing on winning the staking game with a PvP moat, Sanctum's core mindset shifts to PvE and asks, "How can we help Solana and make crypto flourish?". Everyone wants us to succeed, and we want everyone else to succeed.
It became clear to us that for all LSTs to co-exist, be sustainable and have unique value propositions above the usual "earn staking yields", they each need to access the full depth of unified liquidity across all LSTs – a unified liquidity layer.
This unified liquidity layer allows anyone, including you, to launch an LST without needing the exorbitant capital that was once required of traditional stake pools. As long as you have a good value proposition for your LST, you can easily launch one for your community to enjoy.
Enabling anyone to launch an LST will open the gates to infinitely-many new LSTs, each with unique value propositions for us to choose from.
For example, we recently launched Validator LSTs, which combine all the benefits of native staking (zero fees, choose your own validator) and the benefits of liquid staking (instant liquidity, use it throughout Solana). They are a strict upgrade over native staking and a compelling alternative to stake pools.
Switching from one LST to another, or LST back to SOL, is now instantaneous.
All these bring us a step closer to our mission – to build a thriving liquid staking ecosystem on Solana.
We've barely scratched the surface. There are a thousand different possibilities for LSTs. Projects can use LSTs as a delivery mechanism for extra yields (e.g. laine gives block rewards to laineSOL holders, who get double the APY of native staking), for NFT mints (e.g. hold pathSOL to unlock an NFT whitelist slot), or even as a subscription service (hold alphaSOL gain access to a private Discord).
Just like the invention of paper money helped to unlock the gold bars sitting in vaults, and supercharged the world's economy, liquid staking – done right – unlocks staked SOL and supercharges the Solana economy for everyone.
On behalf of the Sanctum team, welcome to the future of infinite liquidity for infinitely-many LSTs.
In contrast to the , liquid staking with Sanctum is a breeze. You want to stake your SOL to the validator? Simply buy bSOL (Solbaze's Validator LST) using SOL on or . Unstake? Sell as much or as little of your bSOL as you like. No waiting, no merging and splitting, no finagling with a terrible stake account UI.
You already know how to buy and sell tokens and are familiar with the usual swap UI, we've built to leverage that.