Earn on idle SOL with liquid staking

Who it's for

You hold SOL for the long term and it's sitting idle in your wallet. Liquid staking puts it to work without locking it up: you receive an LST that grows in value against SOL every epoch, and you can swap back to SOL any time.

Where the yield comes from

Staking rewards from securing the network (inflation, block fees and, for some LSTs, MEV tips), minus a small protocol fee. No token incentives, no leverage. Today that's roughly 4.5% to 5.7% depending on the LST.

Steps

1. Choose an LST. JitoSOL is the most widely accepted as collateral. INF (Sanctum) adds LST swap fees on top of staking. mSOL (Marinade) spreads stake widely and has no deposit or performance fee.
2. Stake. Go to the app (Jito, Sanctum or Marinade), connect your wallet and stake. Or swap SOL to the LST on Jupiter: same result, sometimes a better rate.
3. Leave about 0.05 SOL unstaked for fees.
4. Check the token. Make sure the LST in your wallet has the official mint address shown in the app's docs.

That's it. Your LST balance won't change; its value in SOL will rise each epoch.

What to expect

Yields are paid in SOL, so your dollar value still follows SOL's price. And from 2027 staking yields will fall faster as SIMD-0550's disinflation kicks in; the staking calculator models both cases.

Risks

• Smart contract risk in the stake pool (low for these mature pools, but not zero).
• Temporary depeg: in a market panic, LSTs can trade slightly below their SOL value on DEXs. Redeeming through the protocol still returns full value after an epoch.
• Opportunity cost: none really, versus holding plain SOL.

Exit plan

• Instant: swap the LST back to SOL on Jupiter or Sanctum's router (tiny fee).
• Full value: unstake through the protocol and wait until the end of the epoch (about a day).

Level up

Once comfortable, you can supply your LST on Kamino or Jupiter Lend to earn a little more, or move on to the SOL loop playbook once you understand leverage.