What is an LST (Liquid Staking Token)?
An LST (Liquid Staking Token) is a tokenized form of stake accounts and staking rewards.
With regular staking you must wait for the next epoch (roughly two days) both to start staking and to unstake.
To remove this friction, a pool of stake accounts is created, and tokens are issued as shares of that pool in exchange for depositing SOL or stake accounts. These tokens are LSTs.
Historical APYs and supplies of Solana LSTs are available on our LST ranking.
What is the picoSOL token?
The pico🙄.sol validator accepts stake delegation from picoSOL, an LST.
picoSOL is an LST managed by Sanctum. Acquire it on Jupiter or Sanctum swap and staking rewards accrue automatically.
Rewards accumulate inside the picoSOL LST pool, so they are reflected as an increase in the picoSOL price.
You can sell at any time on Jupiter or Sanctum swap, or withdraw as a stake account and convert to SOL in the next epoch (withdraw stake).
Fees
| SOL deposit fee | 0% |
| Stake deposit fee | 0% |
| SOL withdrawal fee | 0.1% |
| Stake withdrawal fee | 0.1% |
| Epoch reward fee | 2.5% |
* Current values read from the on-chain pool configuration.
Utilization
Since picoSOL is an SPL token, you can also earn fee income by providing liquidity on DeFi platforms such as Orca Whirlpool, on top of the staking yield.
Risks
Risk of critical bugs in the program
The stake pool program is Sanctum's fork of the SPL (Solana Program Library) stake pool program, with functionality minimized for single-validator use.
At the program level, even the pool administrator (Sanctum) cannot withdraw SOL or stake accounts from the pool; withdrawal is only possible in exchange for burning LST.
The SPL stake pool program has undergone audits, but critical bugs overlooked by audits may still exist.
The Sanctum stake pool program address is SP12tWFxD9oJsVWNavTTBZvMbA6gkAmxtVgxdqvyvhY and the source is published on GitHub.
Risk of program modification
The Sanctum stake pool program is governed by a multisig. If all participants colluded or all keys were compromised, the program could be modified maliciously (see Sanctum multisig governance).
FAQ
Can a validator run away with staked SOL, or can SOL be lost to slashing?
Validators only receive delegation from stake accounts and cannot access the SOL inside them.
Solana does not implement slashing, so staked SOL itself cannot be lost.
However, if a validator suddenly raised its commission to 100%, the stake rewards you earn could drop to zero.
Can the SOL staked in the LST pool be verified on-chain?
The stake accounts in the picoSOL LST pool can be verified on-chain at any time.
Stake account (active): ALkqRsYmCtWE1hx6VQPqtwnxwA8ymB5h8FzBNrF32SSN
Stake account (activating): EqYsa5gM97LCNTUxKQVTLjju3HptFAwWDRgZ1MPwNQqY
Stake account (inactive): 2ArodFTZhNqVWJT92qEGDxigAvouSo1kfgfEcC3KEWUK
Where can I find my stake account after a withdraw stake?
When you withdraw stake, a stake account is split out of the pool and a new stake account is created for you.
You can find it on Sanctum's stake accounts page, Phantom, Solflare, and similar wallets.
[Notice]
The above explains how picoSOL and Solana LSTs work. It does not solicit or recommend acquiring any token.
Please verify the mechanism with on-chain data and other sources, and make your own decision before acquiring.
pico🙄.sol is a validator; picoSOL is a single-validator LST managed by Sanctum.