The Rise of Liquid Staking and the Innovation of Sanctum

Liquid staking technology has revolutionized asset management in PoS networks. By transforming static staked assets into tradable tokens, this innovation allows users to enjoy staking rewards while flexibly utilizing funds to participate in other financial activities.

In recent years, the liquid staking market has shown explosive growth. In just four years, the total locked value ( TVL ) has skyrocketed from 30 million USD to over 57 billion USD. Among them, the staking asset scale of a well-known platform reached about 35 billion USD.

However, the staking ratios of different blockchain networks still show significant differences. Solana's staking rate exceeds 70%, far higher than Ethereum's 27%. More notably, the liquid staking token (LST) accounts for only 6% of the staking supply in Solana, while Ethereum exceeds 40%. This situation provides significant development space for innovative projects like Sanctum in the Solana ecosystem.

Sanctum is dedicated to providing more flexible and efficient solutions for Solana stakers. Its core product, Infinity, is an innovative liquidity pool designed to simplify the trading and staking process of LSTs. Users can easily swap various LSTs through Infinity, enjoying higher capital efficiency.

In addition, Sanctum has also launched innovative features such as validator LST, reserve pools, and routers. The validator LST allows validation nodes to issue their own tokens, enhancing competitiveness; the reserve pool provides deep liquidity for all LSTs, simplifying redemption processes; and the router enables seamless conversion between LSTs, improving overall liquidity.

Compared to a large staking platform that dominates Ethereum, Sanctum has chosen a different development path. They do not seek market monopoly but are dedicated to building an infrastructure that supports diverse LSTs, promoting the healthy development of the ecosystem. This philosophy of cooperation rather than competition is expected to bring a more decentralized and vibrant staking environment to Solana.

Despite showing great potential, Sanctum also faces some challenges. Competition from established players, the stability of the Solana network, and user education are all factors that could impact its development. However, with TVL surpassing the $700 million mark, Sanctum has become the fourth largest protocol on Solana, demonstrating strong market recognition.

In the future, Sanctum will continue to improve its ecosystem and explore more innovative features. For investors and users, closely following the development trends of Sanctum and gaining a deep understanding of the risk-return characteristics of its various LST products will help seize investment opportunities in this emerging field.