How to Stake Solana in 2026: Native, Liquid or Exchange

What changed (updated 9 October 2026)

• Epochs, the network’s reward period, have lasted about 24 hours since epoch 1053 on 9 October 2026.
• The inflation cut vote passed on 28 August but isn’t switched on yet.
• A new validator admission rule has been live since 22 July. Validators that don’t meet it stop earning.
• Alpenglow isn’t live on mainnet yet, and you don’t need to do anything for it.

Native, liquid or exchange: which way to stake SOL

It comes down to who holds your SOL and what it costs to leave. New to all this? Our Solana basics hub covers the terms.

• Native: you delegate SOL to a validator, one of the computers that runs the network. That only lends it voting weight. The SOL stays in a stake account your wallet controls.
• Liquid: you swap SOL for a liquid staking token (LST) that stakes in the background, grows slowly in SOL value and can be sold any time.
• Exchange: Coinbase or Kraken stakes it for you.

Which one fits you:

• 1 SOL or more you won’t touch for months: native in Solflare.
• Might need it back fast, want it in DeFi, or have under 1 SOL: JupSOL.
• You live in Phantom and won’t move: PSOL is fine.
• You never want to touch a wallet: an exchange works, but it’s the priciest route.

How to stake SOL in Solflare, step by step

This is where I’d stake natively. Six steps:

1. Get your SOL into Solflare. No self-custody wallet yet? Set one up first. No SOL? Here’s where to buy it. On an exchange? Withdraw it on the Solana network and send a small test amount first.
2. Leave some SOL unstaked. A new stake account takes a small refundable deposit (about 0.0017 SOL) and every transaction costs a tiny fee. Keep at least 0.01 SOL loose so you can always unstake.
3. Open the Staking tab and tap Stake. Enter the amount. Since 18 June the network minimum for a new stake is 1 SOL, so anything less fails.
4. Pick a validator. Solflare lists each one’s commission and estimated APY. Quick rule: 0 to 10% commission and not one of the giants at the top of the stake rankings. The full checks are below.
5. Tap Stake, then swipe to confirm.
6. Wait for “activating” to turn “active”. That happens at the next epoch boundary. Your first reward lands at the end of the first full epoch it’s active.

To get out, open the stake account, tap Unstake, wait for the next epoch boundary, then tap Withdraw. Solflare also offers instant unstake for 2%. That’s roughly five months of rewards, which is pretty steep just to skip a day’s wait.

Liquid staking instead: JupSOL and PSOL

Each LST is worth a little more SOL every epoch, and you can sell it, lend it or LP with it whenever you like.

How to stake SOL on Jupiter (JupSOL)

1. Open Jupiter and connect your wallet.
2. Pay with SOL, receive JupSOL.
3. Check the quote. You get slightly less than 1 JupSOL per SOL, because each JupSOL is already worth more than 1 SOL.
4. Swap and approve in your wallet. New to this? Here’s how swaps work on Solana.

Depositing is free. Jupiter’s validator keeps 5% of inflation rewards and none of the MEV tips (extra payments traders add to get their transactions in first), and a 5% epoch fee comes off base rewards. Swapping out through a route that unwraps from the pool, or converting instantly to native stake, costs 0.1%. Delayed unstake has no fee listed: it hands you a stake account that unstakes over one epoch. Our Jupiter walkthrough covers the swap settings. If you meant JUP rather than SOL, staking JUP is a different process.

Liquid staking in Phantom (PSOL)

Open SOL in Phantom, choose Stake SOL and pick liquid staking. It works on mobile and in the extension. Phantom takes 4% of your rewards and 0.1% when you leave. Exits are usually instant from Phantom’s reserve. If that runs dry, your PSOL becomes a native stake account you unstake the normal way.

Backpack’s bpSOL and JitoSOL work the same way, so compare live LST yields before you pick. Two risks: an LST is a smart contract, so a bug can cost you, and selling one in a rush can get you slightly less than the SOL it’s worth.

How to stake SOL on Phantom, Ledger and other wallets

How to stake SOL on Phantom

Phantom only creates native stakes in the browser extension:

1. Open SOL, then More, then Stake SOL.
2. Choose Native Staking and pick a validator.
3. Enter at least 1 SOL and confirm.

The mobile app can view and unstake a native stake but can’t create one, so on mobile PSOL is the route. Phantom has fallen off massively and feels slower now, so I wouldn’t pick it just to stake.

How to stake SOL on Ledger

1. Install the Solana app on your Ledger.
2. Stake from Earn in Ledger Wallet (formerly Ledger Live), or connect the Ledger to Solflare and follow the steps above.
3. Approve each transaction on the device.

Trust Wallet, Backpack, Jupiter wallet and Trezor

• Trust Wallet: Discover, then Earn, then Native Staking. Pick SOL and stake at least 1 SOL. Unstaking is two steps: unstake, then claim once the epoch ends.
• Backpack: Backpack is good. Stake natively or take bpSOL, and you get its on-chain stocks in the same wallet, which I rate.
• Jupiter wallet: obviously great, and the simplest route from it is the JupSOL swap.
• Trezor: Trezor Suite stakes SOL on the Model T, Safe 3, Safe 5 and Safe 7, but only through Everstake, so you can’t pick the validator.

Staking SOL on Coinbase, Kraken or another exchange

Exchange staking is one tap, but the exchange holds your SOL and takes a cut. Here’s where each stands for UK readers:

For Binance and Robinhood, check the app: staking and their cut vary by country.

The cheaper route is to withdraw to your own wallet (step 1 above) and stake there. A 0 to 10% validator leaves you 90 to 100% of the rewards, against 65% on Coinbase. That’s a big chunk to hand over for ticking a box.

Picking a validator under the 2026 rules

Look a validator up on Stakewiz or validators.app and check four things:

• Commission: 0 to 10% is normal.
• MEV commission: a separate cut of MEV tips. Validators that pass tips on pay you more.
• Skip rate and uptime: missed votes and blocks mean missed rewards. “Delinquent” means it isn’t voting right now.
• Size: skip the very largest, which concentrate the network.

You’ll see the new admission rule in the news as the Validator Admission Ticket, or VAT. In plain terms, validators must register for the new voting system and be in the top 2,000 by stake, or they stop earning. Your SOL stays safe, but it earns nothing while the validator is out.

Fewer than 700 validators were active in early October, so the rank cap isn’t biting. Registration is the real filter, and there’s no simple status to look up, so use rewards as the test. Once your stake is active it should get a reward at the end of every epoch. If a full active epoch passes with nothing, move. That’s the one check I’d never skip: a 0% commission means nothing if the validator has stopped earning.

Staking more than a few SOL? Spread it across 2 to 4 validators, and look again every few months, because they can raise commission whenever they like.

Solana staking rewards and APY in 2026

Native staking paid a network average of 5.01% on 9 October. That’s mostly inflation (newly issued SOL). It’s before your validator’s commission and doesn’t count the fees and MEV tips some validators share on top.

LST rates are quoted the other way round: after the LST’s fees, with MEV tips included. Over the 10 epochs to 9 October, JupSOL paid 5.41% and bpSOL 5.59%. So don’t compare them straight against 5.01%, because a native stake with a validator that passes on MEV tips also earns more than the average. APY includes compounding and APR doesn’t. At these rates the gap is tiny.

What £10,000 of SOL earns

Rewards a year = amount x rate x (1 minus the cut). At 5% before any cut:

The cut is the same share at any yield, so if rates fall every row shrinks in proportion. For your own number, use the estimate in Solflare’s staking screen.

The inflation cut vote

The inflation cut vote, SGP-0002, passed on 28 August with 67.001% of the stake that voted, a hair over the two-thirds it needed. It doubles the yearly cut to inflation from 15% to 30%, so inflation reaches its 1.5% floor in about 2.8 years instead of 5.7. It only kicks in once the code change, SIMD-0550, is switched on, and there’s no date for that yet.

21Shares projects staking yields of about 4.34% in year one, 3% in year two and 2.25% in year three, down from about 5.25% in late August. That’s one firm’s projection, not ours, and real yields also depend on fees and MEV.

Is staking Solana still worth it?

For SOL you’re holding anyway, yes. Inflation goes to stakers, so unstaked SOL just watches its share of the network shrink. After the cut you still come out ahead by staking, just by less. Native and liquid staking both earn mostly from inflation, so they fall together and the cut doesn’t change which route to pick.

How long does it take to stake and unstake Solana?

Both finish at the next epoch boundary. Since epoch 1053 on 9 October 2026 an epoch takes about 24 hours, so expect about a day, sometimes a little more. Solana’s upgrade notes confirm it if that sounds too good to be true. You’ll still see 2 to 4 days quoted in older guides; that’s out of date.

• Solflare instant unstake: straight away, for the 2% above.
• JupSOL: swap back any time, or delayed unstake over one epoch.
• PSOL: usually instant.
• Kraken: flexible any time, bonded after 3 days.
• Coinbase and other exchanges: check the app.

When a lot of stake is moving across the network at once, it can take an extra epoch. Rewards land every epoch, so roughly daily now. A Solana block explorer such as Solana Explorer shows how far through the current epoch you are.

Alpenglow: what changes for stakers (nothing to do)

Alpenglow is the new consensus system covered in our guide to how Solana works. When it goes live, voting moves off-chain, so validators stop paying for vote transactions and pay a flat 1.6 SOL per epoch instead, which is burned. Finality gets much faster, with about 150ms targeted. Validators will also be able to share priority fees with stakers natively if they choose, so fee sharing becomes worth checking alongside commission.

It has run on testnet since 22 September and has no confirmed mainnet date yet. Your stake carries on as normal.

Putting an LST to work

An LST is just a token, so it can do a second job. You can lend it or post it as collateral on top of the staking yield, as long as you understand liquidation. Or you can LP an LST/SOL pair, where the two prices move together so swings stay small. Meteora DLMM is where I LP, and I post my results, wins and losses, on X as @RazzaeR. Start with how DLMM pools work. Restaking is a further layer on top. I’d leave it until plain staking feels boring.

Mistakes that cost stakers money

• Staking your last SOL. With nothing left for fees, you can’t even unstake.
• Chasing the top-APY validator. It can raise its commission or stop earning next month.
• Answering staking DMs or “boost your APY” sites. No wallet or validator messages you first, and staking never needs your seed phrase. Our basic wallet security checklist covers the common traps.
• Forgetting exchange staking is custodial. It’s the exchange’s SOL until you withdraw it.

FAQ

Is staking Solana safe? Can you lose money?

There’s no automatic slashing on Solana mainnet today, and proposals to add it are still being discussed. The real risks are a validator that stops earning (your SOL just sits idle), LST smart contract bugs, an exchange’s own problems and scams. Staking doesn’t protect you from SOL’s price moving.

Can I switch validators without unstaking?

Not in one step in most wallets. Unstake, wait for the epoch to end, then stake with the new validator. You can split a stake account first to move part of it, as long as both parts stay at 1 SOL or more.

Are staking rewards taxed?

Usually. In the UK they’re generally treated as income when you receive them, with capital gains tax when you later sell. If you’ve also been in DeFi, these UK crypto tax tools handle staking and LP activity.