MNDE Token Is Seriously Undervalued – The Window for a Value Correction Is Here

Investment Highlights:

• ◆Massive TVL vs. Tiny Market Cap: Marinade Finance currently secures over 10.5 million SOL (≈$2.0 billion) in staked assets, yet its governance token MNDE has a market cap of only about $56  million – an MC/TVL ratio of roughly 0.028
• ◆Institutional-Grade Platform: Marinade has achieved SOC 2 Type 2 security compliance and is integrated by major custodians like BitGo . In May 2025, Marinade’s institutional staking product was named the exclusive staking provider for Canary Capital’s proposed Solana Staking ETF (a two-year agreement) . If that ETF gets approved, Marinade could see a flood of institutional SOL staking demand.
• ◆Real Revenue, Low Valuation: Marinade’s protocol revenues are on the order of $11.6  million per year, coming purely from staking yield (no retail fees). At the current token price, MNDE’s MC/Revenue is ~5×, less than half of Lido’s and about one-eighth of Jito’s. Despite proven cash flows, the market is pricing MNDE at a steep discount to peers.
• ◆Tokenomic Catalysts Incoming: Marinade’s DAO is rolling out major tokenomics upgrades to unlock value. The team has surrendered a large portion of its own tokens and now 100% of protocol fees flow to the DAO. Starting in Sept 2025, 50% of all fees will be used for monthly MNDE buybacks on the open market . On top of that, the community is moving to burn 30% of the token supplyto kick-start a deflationary flywheel. 

Market & Sector Positioning

Solana Staking – A Big Pond to Fish In: Solana’s network is heavily Proof-of-Stake – roughly 75% of all SOL is staked at any given time, representing a huge pool of assets. Inspired by the success of liquid staking on Ethereum, Solana’s staking ecosystem has rapidly evolved with several competing players. Notably, Ethereum’s LSD king Lido tried to expand to Solana but ultimately voted to exit the Solana network in late 2023 due to insufficient revenue to cover costs . This left the field open for native Solana solutions to duke it out.

In the Solana liquid staking race, Jito emerged as a fast-rising star by leveraging MEV boosters and aggressive user incentives. By mid-2025, Jito’s liquid staking token (jitoSOL) seized the #1 spot with ~38% of Solana’s LSD market share , as users chased its enhanced yields. Marinade, on the other hand, pursued a more steady and decentralized strategy – which initially meant slower growth in the liquid token league. As of August 2025, Marinade’s liquid staking token mSOL holds only about 8% of the LSD market (~4.7M SOL), lagging Jito and even Binance’s bnSOL (~19% share) . On the surface it looks like Jito outpaced Marinade. But there’s more to this story than LSD market share.

Unlike its competitors, Marinade isn’t a one-trick pony with just a liquid token. Marinade also operates “Marinade Native,” a direct delegation service that doesn’t issue any liquid token. Marinade Native appeals to institutions and large holders who prefer zero fees, no smart contract risk, and full custody of their SOL – essentially a compliance-friendly, vanilla staking option. This product has quietly attracted as much stake as mSOL itself. In fact, Marinade now manages a total of ~10.5 million SOL across its liquid and native staking channels , giving it a much larger influence in Solana staking than the mSOL stats alone suggest. The mSOL “market share” actually understates Marinade’s footprint, since a big chunk of its TVL lives in native staking outside the LSD metrics.

Other Solana staking entrants have targeted niche strategies. Sanctum, for example, offers “staking-as-a-service” so brands can launch their own white-label staking tokens. Binance’s exchange-issued bnSOL rides on Binance’s huge user base to gain adoption, though its usage is largely confined to Binance’s platform and subject to centralized custody constraints. There’s even Jupiter’s stSOL aggregator, which quickly ramped up by aggregating across validators. In short, the Solana staking landscape is diverse – but Marinade and Jito stand out as the two heavyweights with contrasting philosophies. Marinade has focused on safety, decentralization and compliance , while Jito went for maximizing yield and growth. This contrast has led the market to richly reward Jito’s growth narrative while overlooking Marinade’s rock-solid fundamentals. That disconnect sets the stage for MNDE’s value correction.

Protocol & Product Fundamentals

Marinade Finance was the first decentralized staking protocol on Solana, launched back in August 2021. It introduced Marinade Liquid (mSOL), Solana’s first liquid staking token, and a few months later fair-launched its governance token $MNDE via an airdrop (no ICO, no VC pre-sale). The collapse of FTX in 2022 hit Solana’s ecosystem hard and Marinade went through a quiet period, but the team proved resilient and kept BUIDLing. By 2023–2024, Marinade roared back with new features and products, continually refining the staking experience.

Today Marinade offers a full menu of staking options catering to different user needs – from DeFi degens to institutional whales:

• ◆Liquid Staking (mSOL): Deposit SOL, receive mSOL – a yield-bearing token that accrues staking rewards and stays liquid for use in DeFi. Marinade’s mSOL currently accounts for ~4.6M SOL in TVL (about 7.95% of Solana’s liquid staking market). It’s integrated widely across Solana’s DeFi ecosystem(eg, Kamino), so holders can earn staking yield and chase additional DeFi yields simultaneously.
• ◆Marinade Native: Launched in 2023, users stake SOL via Marinade but do not receive a liquid token, simply delegated to validators that Marinade selects. There are zero protocol fees for users, and because funds never touch a smart contract, smart contract risk is eliminated. Essentially, Marinade Native offers slightly higher yields (no fee) and maximum security, making it ideal for institutions, treasuries, and safety-first holders. Marinade Native’s popularity exploded in 2023–24 – its TVL grew to ~4.8+ million SOL, surpassing mSOL to become Marinade’s largest product by stake. Big players clearly appreciate the compliance and risk profile of this option.
• ◆Marinade Select: Introduced in Q2 2025, Marinade Select is an enterprise-grade staking service tailored for institutional clients, funds, and custodians. It offers a curated set of KYC-verified, top-tier validators that adhere to strict performance and ethical MEV standards. In other words, Marinade Select hand-picks validators that institutions can comfortably stake with, backed by service agreements on uptime and compliant operations. This product was built with things like ETFs in mind – in fact, Canary Capital’s Solana Staking ETF filing specifically names Marinade Select as the exclusive staking provider. Marinade Select is open to retail as well, but it shines for those who need an extra layer of assurance. In its first month, Marinade Select attracted about 845k SOL of stake, signaling strong interest right out of the gate.
  

All these products share Marinade’s core protocol underpinnings, like its unique delegation strategy and fee model. Marinade emphasizes decentralization and network health: it only delegates to validators charging ≤7% commission, and it pioneered measures to prevent stake centralization (capping stake per validator, distributing across geographies and data centers, etc.). Marinade even requires validators to post a “Protected Staking” bond in SOL – basically a slashing insurance that guarantees 100% uptime or the validator forfeits their bond. This raises the bar and keeps validators honest.

On the security/compliance front, Marinade has really set itself apart. In 2023 it became one of the first staking protocols to pass a SOC 2 Type 2 audit, meeting a gold standard in security processes . This is not common in DeFi and speaks to Marinade’s push to court institutional money. The effort paid off: besides the ETF partnership, major custodians like BitGo and Zodia Custody have integrated Marinade, making it easy for institutional clients to stake SOL through Marinade’s infrastructure. Marinade even ran promotions where institutions could migrate SOL into Marinade and earn extra MNDE rewards (roughly +4% APY in MNDE) for keeping it staked for at least 3 months. The writing on the wall is that if U.S. regulators green-light a Solana ETF, SOL staking demand could explode – and Marinade has positioned itself as the go-to compliant solution to service that wave.

In short, Marinade spent the last two years quietly fortifying its tech, security, and product suite; it’s arguably the most battle-tested and institution-ready staking protocol on Solana right now.

Revenue 

One of Marinade’s strengths is that it has a clear, sustainable revenue model backed by on-chain cash flow. 

Stake Auction Marketplace (SAM): Marinade introduced an innovative mechanism called the Stake Auction Marketplace, effectively turning Solana stake delegation into a competitive auction among validators. Validators bid for the privilege of receiving Marinade’s staked SOL delegations by offering to share a portion of their yield with Marinade. In concrete terms, a validator can pledge up to 9.5% of the staking rewards it earns to Marinade as a “performance fee” in order to attract Marinade’s stake. Marinade’s protocol automatically distributes stake to the validators with the highest bids (that also meet its quality criteria). This maximizes yields while keeping validators honest – a low performer won’t win bids, and a misbehaving validator risks losing their bond.

Effectively, validators pay Marinade a portion of their rewards for the stake, which becomes Marinade’s revenue. This aligns Marinade’s income with network conditions: higher SOL inflation rewards, more MEV, or more competition among validators all mean higher potential revenue for Marinade. Conversely, if yields compress or few validators bid, Marinade earns less – so there is some cyclicality, but over the long run as Solana grows, Marinade’s revenue pie grows.

To put some numbers on it: Solana’s baseline staking yield (inflation + basic fees) is around 5–7% APY. If validators are willing to kick back up to 9.5% of that yield for delegation, then Marinade can earn roughly 0.5% of the staked assets’ value per year as revenue. In fact, in Q1 2025 Marinade earned about 21,669 SOL in fees (≈$4.1 million) from these validator “rebates”, and in Q2 2025 it earned around 12,200 SOL ($1.8 million) as network activity dipped.

Over the past year, Marinade has racked up over $10 million in protocol revenue. Nearly 100% of Marinade’s income comes from these validator fees (it charges a negligible fee on some minor features like delayed unstaking, which is pocket change). In other words, all of Marinade’s revenue is organically generated by the Solana staking economy itself – not reliant on inflationary token emissions or hopium. This is real yield in the purest sense.

Valuation vs. Competitors

From a valuation perspective, $MNDE currently appears significantly undervalued compared to Jito and Lido. Using TVL and protocol revenue as benchmarks, Marinade manages approximately $2.16 billion in TVL. Based on our earlier calculations, Marinade earns roughly 50 bp of SOL value per staked SOL annually. Even with no growth and a constant 10.8 million SOL staked, annual revenue would reach around $10.26 million (assuming SOL is priced at $190). Using the past 30 days as a proxy, annualized revenue is approximately $11.16 million, with a monetization rate of ~0.52%, lower than Jito’s 0.99% but higher than Lido’s 0.25%.

However, the market is largely ignoring Marinade’s real cash flow performance: the token’s current market cap is just $56 million, with an FDV of $128 million, compared to Jito’s $1.928 billion FDV (over 15x Marinade’s) and Lido’s $1.466 billion FDV. Yes, Jito has shown faster growth in LSD and has the MEV narrative, but is it really worth 15x the valuation of Marinade? Marinade is not a no-growth dinosaur – it’s been growing its TVL too (especially with Marinade Native surging) and has a deeply entrenched position in Solana’s staking infrastructure. Looking at the FDV/Revenue multiple, Marinade sits at just 11.51, while Jito trades at a lofty 61.89—almost 5.4x higher—and Lido at 13.72, still above Marinade. This discrepancy indicates that, despite Marinade’s solid fundamentals and consistent cash flow, the market is undervaluing its ability to capture value.

From a supply perspective, Marinade has a circulating ratio of ~43.6%, healthier than Jito’s but far below Lido’s near-fully diluted 89.57%. This suggests greater flexibility in supply management. Combined with the DAO’s ongoing buyback and burn program, circulating supply will continue to tighten, strengthening its supply-demand dynamics compared to peers.

Overall, the market seems to be overpricing Jito’s rapid growth and MEV narrative while overlooking Marinade’s stable cash generation and efficient token value accrual mechanisms. Even with a conservative valuation—applying Lido’s 13–14x FDV/Revenue multiple—Marinade’s fair FDV should be no less than $150 million, implying meaningful upside. Should market sentiment shift toward “real yield” narratives, the valuation re-rating potential for MNDE could be even greater, offering a clear risk-reward window for medium- to long-term positioning.

Tokenomics Overhaul & Catalysts

The initial total supply of $MNDE was 1 billion tokens. At the end of 2021, tokens were distributed to early mSOL users, LPs, and contributors through airdrops and liquidity mining programs. Marinade did not conduct any private sale rounds, and the tokens allocated to the team and advisors were subject to linear vesting, ensuring a community-first and fair distribution model.

After more than two years in circulation, the current circulating supply of $MNDE is approximately 436 million tokens, with the remaining tokens held by the DAO treasury for ecosystem incentives and future development. The original tokenomics allocated 30% to the team, linearly vested; however, in 2023, the team voluntarily reduced its share to 7.5%, returning the remaining 22.5% to the DAO. They also proposed a TVL milestone-based unlocking mechanism. Under this updated model, the team’s token unlocks are entirely tied to protocol growth metrics. For each TVL milestone reached, the DAO votes to approve a budget of 46 million MNDE (4.6% of total supply) to support ongoing operations and market expansion. Each approved budget can be spent at a maximum rate of 2 million MNDE per month, providing approximately 21 months of runway.

Once the team achieves the next TVL targets — 8M SOL, 16M SOL, and 32M SOL — the rest of the budget is unlocked and allocated to team members based on a predefined ratio. Unlocked tokens are subject to a 12-month linear release and are non-revocable. The first milestone of 8M SOL has already been achieved.

Initially, $MNDE primarily functioned as a governance token. Holders who stake their tokens can participate in governance via the Realms platform, voting on proposals related to validator delegation strategies, treasury expenditures, and other critical decisions.

Entering 2025, the Marinade DAO has introduced a series of major governance reforms, aiming to comprehensively upgrade the $MNDE tokenomics. The core principle behind these reforms is to enhance the intrinsic value of MNDE through protocol revenue redistribution and proactive deflation, addressing the token’s prolonged undervaluation:

• ◆Revenue Buyback Mechanism (MIP-11 & MIP-13)

In June 2025, the community approved MIP-11, allocating 100% of Marinade’s protocol revenue to the DAO treasury. More importantly, 50% of the total protocol fees will be used for open-market buybacks of MNDE. This framework was further refined and finalized with the approval of MIP-13: starting in September 2025, the DAO will allocate half of the monthly protocol revenue to publicly purchase MNDE on decentralized exchanges. The repurchased tokens will be deposited into the treasury, with their future use determined by community governance.

Based on Marinade’s recent revenue levels, this mechanism channels approximately $5 million per year into MNDE buybacks. At current prices, this equates to roughly 38 million MNDE annually—about 3.8% of the total supply. Relative to the current market cap, this buyback volume represents approximately 8.7% of the circulating market value, providing strong and consistent support for MNDE’s secondary market price.

• ◆Large-Scale Token Burn (MIP-14)

Under MIP-14, the DAO will burn 30% of the total token supply directly from treasury holdings, reducing the overall supply from 1 billion to 700 million MNDE. Such a significant supply reduction is rare in the DeFi space and often acts as a powerful catalyst for revaluation. For example, when OKX executed a one-time burn of 75% of OKB’s supply, the token price surged 193% in a short period, setting new all-time highs.

This aggressive burn sends a clear bullish signal: the Marinade community is willing to sacrifice a portion of its “on-paper” treasury wealth to substantially increase the value per token and correct MNDE’s persistent undervaluation.

Conclusion

In a crypto market that often rewards flash over substance, Marinade’s MNDE token presents a rare opportunity where the fundamentals and upcoming catalysts seem blatantly at odds with the current price. Here’s the recipe we have: a protocol with one of the largest TVLs on Solana, proven real yield generation, top-tier security/compliance credentials, and a community willing to take bold actions to unlock token value (buybacks, burns). Yet the token trades at modest multiples as if none of that mattered.

This mismatch won’t last forever. From an investor’s lens, the margin of safety on MNDE is pretty high – you’re buying a claim on a $2B (and growing) staking platform for pennies on the dollar. Even under conservative assumptions (say Marinade grows only modestly and we value it at a discount to Lido’s multiples), MNDE has significant upside. And with more bullish scenarios – e.g. Solana ETFs get approved (bringing in a wave of institutional SOL staking through Marinade). The deflationary flywheel (protocol fees → buy MNDE → burn MNDE) adds further torque to any upward move.