Solana Staking Guide: How to Earn SOL Rewards in 2026
Solana staking earns 6-8% APY. Here is everything you need to know about native SOL staking, liquid staking, and choosing the right validator.
Solana's proof-of-stake consensus pays validators and their delegators for securing the network. With ~70% of SOL staked in 2026 and inflation-funded rewards of 6-8% APY, SOL staking is one of the most accessible and best-yielding staking opportunities among major cryptocurrencies.
SOL Staking Options
- Native staking via Phantom/Solflare: delegate to a validator, 5-7% APY, 2-3 day unbonding
- Liquid staking via Jito (jitoSOL): 6-8% APY including MEV rewards, liquid token, no unbonding wait
- Liquid staking via Marinade (mSOL): 6-7% APY, established protocol, Marinade governance
- Via Steyble: access both native and liquid staking from one interface with automatic validator selection
- Centralised exchange: Binance, Coinbase offer SOL staking — lower yield, custodial risk
Why Jito Adds MEV Rewards
Jito operates a modified Solana validator client that captures MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) — the additional income validators can earn by reordering transactions optimally. Jito redistributes 97% of captured MEV to jitoSOL stakers. This adds 1-2% additional APY on top of base network rewards, making jitoSOL yield consistently higher than native staking.
Choosing a Validator for Native Staking
- Uptime: choose validators with 99.9%+ uptime — downtime means missing rewards
- Commission: validators take 0-10% of rewards — lower is better, but 0% is unsustainable long-term
- Decentralisation: avoid largest validators — helps network security
- Nakamoto coefficient: Solana's decentralisation health metric — support validators outside the top 19
- Via Steyble: Steyble auto-selects well-performing, decentralisation-contributing validators