---
description: >-
  Marinade native is a tool to have your staked SOL managed and optimized
  automatically by Marinade's delegation strategy.
---

# Marinade Native

## What is Marinade Native?&#x20;

Marinade Native is an alternative to liquid staking that allows users to benefit from an automated delegation strategy without using any smart contract. It differs from liquid staking on the following points:&#x20;

* Marinade Native does not rely on a smart contract but **leverages native Solana functionalities.**
* When using Marinade Native, you **retain custody over your SOL** and stay the only authority that can withdraw it at all times
* Marinade Native **does not charge any fee to the user**. There is no deposit fee or ongoing management fee, and you can exit without any fee by waiting for the cooldown period. Marinade does offer a way to exit your Marinade native staking position (partially or in whole) instantly for a small fee that depends on available liquidity
* You **do not receive mSOL** when using Marinade Native. You are creating Solana stake accounts in your wallet and delegating the management of those to Marinade&#x20;
* Since you are staking natively when using Marinade Native, **rewards are directly sent to each of your stake accounts at the end of every epoch** (every 2-3 days)&#x20;

## How to use Marinade Native?

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To use Marinade Native, click on "Stake" for your SOL and select the "Automated" and "Native" options, then confirm the transaction.&#x20;

You can also redelegate existing stake accounts to Marinade Native by selecting them in Marinade's dApp, choosing "Native" and confirming the transaction.&#x20;

## Why should I use Marinade Native?&#x20;

Marinade Native allows you to benefit from an optimized delegation strategy reaching top-performing validators. Your **staking position is automatically monitored and rebalanced for no fees and delegated to the best validators on the network**, without having to monitor or manage it yourself.&#x20;

Marinade Native allows you to futureproof your staking position so it's always delegated to a wide range of top-performing validators, even if the best-performing validators change over time. It also considers any revenues from MEV (or any other sources), and will identify the validators extracting and redistributing the most value to their stakers for you. &#x20;

It also **protects you from commission rugging** (validators stealing their delegators' rewards by changing their commission), the **validator(s) you chose going offline or running an outdated client**, etc.&#x20;

Slashing is also bound to be added to Solana and having your staked SOL monitored and rebalanced to avoid bad-performing and/or nefarious validators will be one of the best ways to mitigate the slashing risks.&#x20;

{% hint style="success" %}
Marinade Native can also be used with **locked SOL.** Make sure you optimize and automate it with Marinade Native until it gets unlocked!&#x20;
{% endhint %}

## Is there a minimum to use Marinade Native?&#x20;

You can use Marinade Native with as little as 1 SOL. Nonetheless, Marinade will never create smaller stake accounts than 1 SOL, so your stake will not be split across a hundred validators but will stay delegated to a lower number of validators with stake accounts of 1 SOL each.&#x20;

We recommend using Marinade Native with at least 100 SOL to get your stake fully distributed.&#x20;

## Can I unstake at any time?

You can unstake any amount from your Marinade Native position at any time. Marinade will prepare your stake accounts and estimate the date and time at which you will be able to claim the SOL.&#x20;

Return to Marinade to claim your SOL in one click, or claim the stake account directly from your wallet.&#x20;

{% hint style="info" %}
There is currently no way to instant unstake for a fee from Marinade Native, but this option will be added when possible.&#x20;
{% endhint %}

## Is Marinade Native safe?&#x20;

By excluding the use of any smart contract and allowing you to retain full custody over your staked SOL, Marinade Native removes several risks.&#x20;

Since Marinade Native will never own the authority to touch your SOL, **its only power is to delegate your stake to different validators in the cluster**.&#x20;

Marinade native relies on [Marinade's delegation strategy, ](stake-auction-market)which is crafted to spread your stake among top-performing validators while accounting for network decentralization. There are also technical backstops (see [Marinade Native](marinade-native)) to ensure that Marinade Native will always do the best for your staking position.&#x20;

