How to Earn the Best Yield on Solana (Staking vs DeFi in 2026)

The best yield on Solana in 2026 ranges from ~6% APY via native staking to 15%+ through DeFi strategies like liquid staking, lending, and vaults. Liquid staking offers the best risk-adjusted returns for most users, while leveraged and LP strategies offer higher yields with higher risk.

Solana has become one of the most active ecosystems for earning yield in crypto. With over $35 billion in ecosystem TVL as of late 2025 and liquid staking protocols alone accounting for $7.1 billion, the network offers multiple paths to put your SOL to work. Whether you're looking for the relative safety of staking or are willing to take on more complexity for higher returns, Solana's DeFi infrastructure has matured considerably and should be a top consideration.

This guide breaks down the major yield sources available on Solana as of January 2026, from conservative staking options to more aggressive DeFi strategies. We'll cover the actual APYs you can expect, the risks involved with each approach, and help you identify which strategy fits your goals.

The options range from around 5-7% APY for basic staking up to 15%+ for more complex strategies involving lending and liquidity provision. The tradeoff is straightforward: higher yields generally mean more risk, more complexity, or less liquidity. Understanding where you fall on that spectrum is the first step.

Yield on Solana refers to the returns you can earn by deploying your SOL or other Solana-based assets in various protocols. These returns come from several sources: inflation rewards distributed to stakers who secure the network, MEV (maximal extractable value) captured from transaction ordering, trading fees from providing liquidity, and interest from lending your assets to borrowers.

Solana's architecture makes it particularly suited for yield generation. Transaction finality in ~400ms and fees typically under $0.001 mean that strategies requiring frequent rebalancing or compounding remain economically viable. This stands in contrast to networks where gas costs can eat into returns.

Quick guide:

• Best set-and-forget: Liquid staking (LSTs)
• Safest: Native staking
• Highest potential: Vaults / LP / leverage (with liquidation + IL risk)

We assessed each yield source across five dimensions:

APY Range: The actual returns you can expect based on recent performance, not promotional rates that may include temporary incentives.

Risk Profile: Smart contract risk, counterparty risk, liquidation risk, and the track record of the protocol.

Liquidity: How quickly you can exit your position and at what cost. Some strategies lock your capital for days; others allow instant withdrawal.

Complexity: The knowledge and ongoing attention required. Some options are set-and-forget; others need regular monitoring.

Composability: Whether you can use your position as collateral elsewhere or combine it with other strategies.

The tradeoff between these factors determines which option fits different user profiles. Higher APY almost always comes with compromises in one or more of these areas.

Liquid staking protocols accept SOL deposits, delegate to validators, and issue liquid staking tokens (LSTs) representing the staked position. These LSTs accrue staking rewards over time and trade freely on secondary markets. Holders can sell, use them as collateral on lending protocols, or provide liquidity on DEXs without unstaking.

The yield source is identical to native staking: Solana's inflation rewards distributed to validators each epoch. The difference is capital efficiency. Native staking locks SOL for days; liquid staking keeps it productive.

The liquid staking sector on Solana now holds over $8 billion in TVL, with approximately 14% of all staked SOL now in liquid form. The market has consolidated around a few major players, each with different approaches to yield optimization.

→ Solana LSTs With The Best Yield: A 2026 Guide

Sanctum pioneered much of Solana's liquid staking infrastructure and helped create the SPL stake pool program that underlies most LSTs on the network. Our flagship product, Infinity (INF), takes a different approach than single-validator LSTs.

INF functions as a basket of LSTs rather than a traditional liquid staking token. When you deposit SOL or any supported LST into Infinity, you receive INF tokens that represent a share of the pool. Infinity holds multiple LSTs and earns yield from two sources: the weighted average staking yields of all LSTs in the pool, plus trading fees generated when users swap between LSTs through Sanctum's unified liquidity layer.

Current APY: 6.42% (January 2026). INF has averaged ~9% over the past year, with peaks above 20% during high-volume trading periods.

Infinity aggregates liquidity across dozens of LSTs. Every epoch (roughly 2 days), Sanctum strategically unstakes SOL to maintain a reserve that enables instant redemptions. When users swap LSTs through Sanctum, INF holders earn a share of the trading fees. This second revenue stream is what pushes INF yields above single-LST alternatives during active markets.

INF relies on the underlying LSTs in its basket, so you're exposed to the aggregate risk of those protocols. This also provides diversification. INF has been audited by OtterSec, Sec3, and Neodyme and has run for over a year without any security issues, and Sanctum’s liquid staking infrastructure (for LSTs launched via the platform) is built on the SPL stake pool program that secures billions across Solana.

Because fee yield depends on LST trading activity, INF returns are more variable than single-LST products. During quiet markets, yields compress toward the ~6% baseline. During active trading periods, fee revenue pushes yields significantly higher.

Fees: No deposit fee. 0.10% (10 basis points) withdrawal fee when converting INF back to SOL or any LST. 0.08% swap fee on LST trades that contribute to INF yield.

Liquidity: Strong. The Infinity pool maintains a reserve of unstaked SOL specifically to facilitate instant redemptions. During the October 2025 flash crash, Sanctum continued processing withdrawals while INF earned elevated fees from the increased trading activity.

“INF’s APY spikes higher as it earns fees for providing that liquidity and facilitating those swaps - earning outsized returns for INF holders.”

Best for: Users who want higher average yield from staking without active management, and are comfortable with some variability in returns.

JitoSOL: The largest single LST on Solana with over $2 billion in TVL. Current APY is 5.89% (January 2026). JitoSOL integrates with most major DeFi protocols and maintains strong liquidity. The protocol delegates to over 200 validators through its StakeNet system.

mSOL (Marinade): Marinade offers both liquid staking and native staking options. Current APY is 6.08% (January 2026). Marinade delegates across 100+ validators.

JupSOL: Jupiter's LST, built on Sanctum's infrastructure. Current APY is 6.16% (January 2026) and benefits from Jupiter's massive user base and deep integration with Solana's largest DEX aggregator.

Native staking means delegating SOL directly to a validator. The delegated stake increases the validator's voting weight in consensus, and the staker receives a share of inflation rewards each epoch (roughly every 2 days) based on validator performance minus commission.

Native staking's tradeoff is liquidity. Staked SOL cannot be traded or used elsewhere until unstaked, a process that takes 2-3 days.

Current APY: 5-7% depending on validator performance and commission rates. Some 0% commission validators like Helius advertise higher effective yields since they pass all rewards to stakers.

How it works: You choose a validator and delegate your SOL to them. The validator includes your stake in their voting weight for consensus. Each epoch, rewards are distributed based on the validator's performance and their commission rate. Rewards auto-compound into your staked balance.

Risk profile: This is the lowest risk option for earning yield on SOL. No smart contract risk beyond Solana's base layer. The main risks are validator underperformance (if they miss blocks, you earn less) and the opportunity cost of locked capital.

Liquidity: Poor. Unstaking requires waiting until the end of the current epoch plus one additional epoch, typically 3-4 days total.

Best for: Long-term holders who don't need liquidity and prefer the simplicity of direct staking. Also suitable for those who want to support specific validators or prioritize decentralization over yield optimization.

How to stake natively: Use a wallet like Phantom or Solflare, navigate to their staking interface, choose a validator, and delegate. Minimum stake is 0.01 SOL.

Lending protocols operate as decentralized money markets. Depositors supply assets to lending pools; borrowers take overcollateralized loans and pay interest. That interest flows to depositors proportional to their share of the pool.

Interest rates float with utilization. When borrowing demand is high, and most of a pool is lent out, rates rise. When demand falls, rates compress. USDC lending rates on Solana have ranged from 3% in quiet markets to 15%+ during periods of heavy leverage demand.

Current APY: Highly variable by asset and market conditions. USDC lending typically yields 4-8% APY. SOL lending can spike to 15%+ during high-leverage market conditions but often sits around 3-6% in normal markets. Kamino, Solana's largest lending protocol, currently shows around 4.4% for USDC.

Key Players:

Kamino Finance: The dominant lending platform on Solana with approximately $3 billion in TVL. Kamino offers isolated lending markets for different risk profiles, automated liquidity vaults, and leveraged yield strategies through their Multiply product. Their K-Lend V2 saw explosive growth in 2025, with $150+ million in deposits within weeks of launch.

Jupiter Lend: Launched August 2025 and hit $500 million TVL within 24 hours. Offers high loan-to-value ratios and integrates with Jupiter's perpetuals trading. TVL reached $1.65 billion by October 2025.

Risk profile: Medium. Smart contract risk is the primary concern. Lending protocols have been targets for exploits across DeFi. Additionally, yields depend on borrowing demand. If utilization drops, so does your return. You're also exposed to the solvency of the protocol's risk management.

Liquidity: Generally good, but can be constrained during high utilization periods. If 95% of a pool is borrowed, only 5% of deposits can withdraw until borrowers repay.

Best for: Users with stablecoins or assets they're not actively using who want to earn passive yield. Also useful for those who want to maintain dollar-denominated positions rather than SOL exposure.

Liquidity providers, including retail users and advanced operations like the RockawayX Credit Fund’s multichain liquidity provisioning efforts, deposit token pairs into pools on decentralized exchanges. Traders swap against this liquidity, and LPs earn a share of each swap's fees proportional to their contribution to the pool.

Pool designs vary. Standard AMM pools maintain fixed token ratios (typically 50/50). Concentrated liquidity pools allow LPs to specify price ranges where their capital is active, increasing fee capture per dollar deployed but requiring repositioning when prices drift outside the range.

Current APY: Extremely variable, ranging from 5% to 50%+ depending on the pair, trading volume, and pool type. Stable pairs (USDC/USDT) offer lower but more consistent yields. Volatile pairs can offer higher yields but with significant impermanent loss risk.

Key Players:

Raydium: The largest AMM on Solana, handling over 55% of trades routed through Jupiter. Offers both standard AMM pools and concentrated liquidity (CLMM) positions for improved capital efficiency.

Orca: Known for its user-friendly interfaces and their Concentrated Liquidity AMM (CLAMM). The Fair Price Indicator helps users understand execution quality.

Meteora: Features Dynamic Liquidity Market Maker (DLMM) pools that automatically adjust to market conditions. Growing rapidly and planning a token launch.

Risk profile: Medium to high. The primary risk is impermanent loss (IL). If the relative prices of your deposited tokens change significantly, you can end up with less value than if you'd simply held them. Concentrated liquidity positions amplify both fees earned and IL exposure. Smart contract risk also applies.

Complexity: Higher than staking or lending. Concentrated liquidity requires selecting price ranges and rebalancing when prices move outside your range. Standard AMM pools are simpler but less capital efficient.

Best for: Experienced DeFi users who understand impermanent loss and can actively manage positions. Particularly useful for earning yield on token pairs you'd hold anyway.

Yield vaults automate multi-step DeFi strategies. Depositors supply capital while the vault executes a programmed strategy, handling borrowing, swapping, rebalancing, and compounding without manual intervention.

A common example is LST looping: deposit an LST as collateral, borrow SOL against it, swap the SOL for more LST, and repeat. This can involve a dozen transactions to set up manually. Vaults compress it into a single deposit.

Current APY: Varies by strategy. Kamino's Multiply vaults for SOL LST looping can achieve 10-15%+ during favorable rate conditions. JLP (Jupiter Liquidity Provider) vaults have shown 30%+ APY at times.

Key Products:

Kamino Multiply: Creates leveraged yield positions automatically. The SOL LST looping strategy deposits an LST as collateral, borrows SOL against it, converts to more LST, and repeats. Works well when staking yield exceeds SOL borrowing costs.

Jupiter JLP: An index fund of major assets (SOL, ETH, WBTC, USDC, USDT) that earns from trading fees and traders' losses on Jupiter perpetuals. Over $700 million in TVL.

Risk profile: Medium to high. You're stacking multiple protocol risks. These leveraged strategies also add liquidation risk if markets move against you.

Liquidity: Varies by vault. Some allow instant withdrawal while others have cooldown periods or may be constrained by underlying protocol liquidity.

Best for: Users who want access to sophisticated strategies without manual execution. Requires trust in the vault operators' risk management.

Restaking takes already-staked assets and extends their economic security to additional services: oracles, bridges, sidechains, or any decentralized network requiring security guarantees. These services pay for the security they receive, creating an additional yield stream on top of base staking rewards.

The concept originated on Ethereum with EigenLayer and arrived on Solana through Jito Restaking in 2024.

How it works: Jito Restaking lets users deposit LSTs (or other SPL tokens) into vaults that then secure Node Consensus Networks (NCNs)—decentralized networks like oracles, bridges, or sidechains that need economic security. In return, stakers earn rewards from those networks on top of their base staking yield.

Current Status: Jito Restaking launched in 2024 and is still relatively early. The TipRouter NCN, which decentralizes MEV tip distribution, is one of the first live implementations. Yields are still being established as the NCN ecosystem develops.

Risk profile: Medium, with additional considerations. You're exposed to the restaking protocol's smart contracts, the specific NCNs you're securing, and potential slashing if those networks detect misbehavior. Jito offers customizable slashing conditions and the ability to choose which NCNs to support based on risk tolerance.

Best for: Early adopters comfortable with newer protocols who want to maximize yield on already-staked assets.

For most users holding SOL and wanting yield without active management, liquid staking offers the best risk-adjusted returns. You maintain full liquidity, earn competitive yields, and can use your LSTs in other DeFi applications if you want to layer strategies later.

Within liquid staking, the choice depends on your preferences. INF offers higher average yields due to Sanctum's trading fee revenue, while individual LSTs like JitoSOL give more predictable returns and direct exposure to specific validator sets. We built Infinity specifically to solve the liquidity fragmentation problem across Solana's LST ecosystem. The trading fees generated from that unified liquidity layer are what push INF yields above single-LST alternatives.

If you're holding stablecoins and want yield, lending on established protocols like Kamino provides reasonable returns with moderate risk. Rates fluctuate with market conditions, so don't expect consistent yields.

More aggressive strategies like LP farming or leveraged vaults can significantly boost returns but require understanding impermanent loss, liquidation risks, and active position management. These aren't set-and-forget options.

Start simple. Understand the risks of each layer you add. Only increase complexity when you're confident you understand what can go wrong.

What is the highest APY on Solana in 2026?

Vaults, LP strategies, and leveraged positions can exceed 15%+ in strong markets, but they come with meaningful risks (impermanent loss, liquidation, smart contract risk). For most users, liquid staking is the best balance of yield and safety.

What is the safest way to earn yield on Solana?

Native staking to a reliable validator. It involves no smart contract risk beyond Solana's base layer and earns 5-7% APY. Liquid staking with established protocols like Jito or Marinade adds minor smart contract risk but maintains similar yields with instant liquidity.

How does Sanctum Infinity achieve higher yields than other LSTs?

Sanctum Infinity earns trading fees on top of staking rewards. INF functions as a liquidity pool for LSTs, so whenever users swap between LSTs through Sanctum's routing, INF holders earn a share of the fees. We built Sanctum to solve LST liquidity fragmentation, and that solution generates additional yield.

Is liquid staking better than native staking?

For most users, yes. Liquid staking provides similar yields with instant liquidity, at the cost of smart contract risk. Native staking makes sense for those who want to support specific validators or prefer absolute minimum risk.

Can I use staked SOL in DeFi?

Only with liquid staking. Native staking locks SOL with the validator. LSTs like INF, JitoSOL, and mSOL can be used as collateral on lending protocols, provided as DEX liquidity, or traded on secondary markets.

What are the risks of yield farming on Solana?

Risks vary by strategy. Staking carries validator performance risk and, for liquid staking, smart contract risk. Lending adds utilization and counterparty risk. Liquidity provision introduces impermanent loss. Leveraged strategies add liquidation risk. No DeFi protocol is risk-free.

How quickly can I unstake with liquid staking vs. native staking?

Liquid staking provides instant liquidity through DEX swaps or protocol reserves. Native staking requires 2-4 days (one epoch plus cooldown).

What's the difference between different liquid staking tokens?

Single-LST products like JitoSOL and mSOL stake with their own validator sets. Sanctum Infinity holds a basket of LSTs and earns additional yield from liquidity provision. Many LSTs, including JupSOL and bbSOL, are built on Sanctum's infrastructure.

Should I diversify across multiple yield sources?

Not necessarily. One solid liquid staking position provides sufficient yield without management overhead. Larger holders may split across protocols for risk mitigation, but complexity has costs.