The Solana network briefly exceeded Ethereum in overall staked worth of their particular native tokens, SOL and ETH, stimulating dispute over whether it is in fact bullish or bearish for Solana.
More than $53.9 billion worth of SOL is now staked on the Solana network from 505,938 special wallet holders, who are making an 8.31% annualized return, blockchain information programs.
The figure briefly surpassed the staked ETH market cap on April 20, which now has $53.93 billion worth of worth protected from 34.7 million staked tokens, Beaconcha.in information programs.
A contributing aspect behind the flippening has actually been SOL’s strong rate efficiency relative to ETH over the last 2 years, which has actually seen the SOL/ETH rate ratio increase almost significantly from 0.0088 to 0.0866 because June 12, 2023, CoinGecko information programs.
High SOL staking return is suppressing Solana DeFi, experts state
Nevertheless, the “safe” 8.31% return for SOL stakers at the network level– substantially greater than ETH’s 2.98%– might be drawing in Solana users far from DeFi activities, such as supplying liquidity to automated market makers and providing procedures in exchange for token benefits.
” Solana having 65% of its marketcap staked ways there’s no other usage of it’s token, it’s in fact bearish,” Builda Procedure designer and X user “JC” stated.
DefiLlama information reveals that there are $21.5 billion worth of liquid staked ETH tokens on Ethereum compared to simply $7.22 billion of liquid staked SOL on Solana.
Multicoin Capital handling partner Tushar Jain formerly stated that Solana DeFi has actually been suppressed due to the fact that it’s not reasonable to make a financial investment in something that produces a lower return than the “safe” financial investment.
” It does not make good sense for you to offer liquidity on a SOL/USDC AMM when that may make you 5% however staking makes you 7%.”
Ethereum likewise controls in regards to DeFi overall worth locked at $50.4 million compared to Solana’s $8.85 billion.
Market experts likewise mentioned that there are still even more validators protecting the Ethereum network at 1.06 million compared to Solana’s 1,243.
Solana staking isn’t actually staking, Ethereum scientist argues
One Ethereum scientist stated Solana staking isn’t actually protecting the Solana network due to the fact that there isn’t a system to punish bad stars for destructive habits.
” It’s really paradoxical to call it ‘staking’ when there is no slashing. What’s at stake?” Dankrad Feist stated in an April 20 X post.
” Solana has near to absolutely no financial security at the minute.”
Solana Labs stated slashing is currently possible, however it’s manual, and the opponent’s possessions can just be slashed by rebooting the whole network.
Related: Ethereum rate in ‘cursed’ sag which might continue well into 2025– Expert
Solana is aiming to present a more detailed slashing service later on this year, according to Multicoin Capital Handling Partner Kyle Samani.
Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko stated he’s promoting a “associated slashing” system, where the charge would amount to the square of the distinction in between a validator’s malfunctioning stake in a date and the mean network staked validator.

On the other hand, Ethereum designers and scientists have actually been checking out methods to decentralize Ethereum staking.
Lots of Ethereum stakers have actually turned to liquid staking procedures over the last couple of years due to the high 32 ETH ($ 50,750) minimum required to run an independent validator.
Nevertheless, this shift has actually caused the Lido procedure catching an 88% share in Ethereum’s liquid staking market, including another layer to Ethereum’s staking centralization issues.
Publication: Resurgence 2025: Is Ethereum poised to overtake Bitcoin and Solana?