Marinade Native

Rejected venues wait the longest for re-review; a rejection has to earn another look before the scheduled date.

REJECTED, ON THE SAME VALIDATOR-SELECTION FINDING THIS REGISTRY ALREADY REACHED FOR MSOL. Marinade Native is not a liquid staking token — it issues no token at all. A client’s SOL stays in an ordinary native stake account under their own wallet’s withdraw authority at all times; Marinade’s only power is to choose which validators to delegate that stake to. That non-custodial structure is a genuine improvement over a pooled-contract liquid staking token, and this review credits it. But Native delegates through the same Stake Auction Marketplace mechanism this registry’s existing mSOL memo already found insufficient — a yield-ranked validator auction that has previously produced a sandwich-attacking validator winning delegation (the episode behind Marinade’s own MIP-9 governance response). Using the same allocation mechanism for a non-tokenized product does not cure that finding. Separately, no source discloses whether any admin or pause authority exists over the delegation program itself, or who would hold it.

Kill criteria: the events that revoke this verdict
• The SAM validator-selection process demonstrates sustained exclusion of low-quality or MEV-abusive validators, resolving the finding already documented in the mSOL entry
• Admin or pause authority over the Native delegation program is disclosed, including who holds it
• This entry is reopened only once the linked mSOL entry’s own reopen conditions are also met, since both share the same allocation mechanism

The research file

Mechanism

A user deposits SOL and Marinade’s software manages delegation across validators on their behalf, but the resulting stake account remains in the user’s own wallet with withdraw authority never leaving their control — Marinade can redirect delegation, not move or custody the underlying SOL. Validator selection runs through the same Stake Auction Marketplace used for mSOL: validators bid for delegation ranked by effective yield (commission plus bid), filled top-down subject to per-validator, hosting-provider, and country concentration caps.

The inherited validator-selection finding

This registry’s existing mSOL entry documents that Marinade’s SAM auction has previously allocated meaningful delegation to a validator later found running MEV sandwich attacks, prompting Marinade’s own MIP-9 governance proposal in response. Because Native routes through the identical SAM mechanism rather than a separately-vetted process, that finding applies here without modification — the delivery wrapper (tokenized pool versus native delegation record) changed, but the underlying validator-quality control did not.

Legal structure and undisclosed control

The Marinade platform, including Native, is operated by Medium Rare Foundation, a foundation established in Panama. Governance runs through the MNDE token via Realms with a 30-day unlock, alongside a 4-of-7 council multisig holding day-to-day administrative authority per this registry’s existing mSOL research — but no public documentation discloses whether that authority, or any separate one, can pause or alter Native’s delegation program specifically, nor were the council’s signer identities independently confirmed.

Redemption

Two exit paths: a delayed unstake claimable after one epoch (roughly 2-3 days) with no Marinade fee, or an instant unstake converting directly to liquid SOL through a liquidity-provider marketplace at a stated 0.10%-0.40% dynamic fee, with the received amount potentially slightly below the nominal stake balance. Both paths are functional and disclosed, unlike the admin-authority question above.

Track record and comparison

Tracked TVL grew from roughly $73M at 2023 launch to a peak near $1.21B around October 2025, now sitting around $228M. No slashing event or loss of principal was identified across five years of Marinade mainnet operation. Against Jito Liquid Staking, whose validator set is allocated through an on-chain Steward program across roughly 400 validators, Native’s SAM-based allocation concentrates into a narrower realized set carrying the specific validator-quality finding above. Against Marinade Select, researched alongside this entry and also rejected, Select at least curates and KYCs its validator set; Native does not.

Sources

The claims above trace to these. Where a number could not be independently verified, the thesis says so.

• Marinade documentation — Marinade Native protocol overview · primary · accessed 2026-08-19
  Supports: non-custodial delegation record structure, minimum stake, redemption mechanics
• Marinade — terms of use · primary · accessed 2026-08-19
  Supports: Medium Rare Foundation Panama operating entity
• DefiLlama — Marinade Native protocol data · secondary · accessed 2026-08-19
  Supports: TVL history and current figure
• Marinade governance — MIP-9 stake auction marketplace validator response · primary · accessed 2026-08-19
  Supports: Stake Auction Marketplace mechanism, MIP-9 sandwich-validator governance response
• Jito Foundation — Steward program documentation · secondary · accessed 2026-08-19
  Supports: Steward program validator diversification comparison

Inherited controls

The verdict above grades the protocol layer. Every position also inherits the asset it holds and the chain it settles on. The least safe layer sets the position’s grade, and the position table names which one that is.