How Marinade Went from Hackathon OG's to Wall Street w/ Michael Repetny

In this episode, Austin chats with Michael Repetny, a core contributor to Marinade. They discuss the history and technical details of Marinade, its role in the Solana ecosystem, and its approach to staking. Michael covers Marinade's origins in a 2021 hackathon, the development of its custom stake pool contract, and its early competition with Lido. The conversation addresses the evolution of validator economics on Solana, the impact of MEV and priority fees, and Marinade's response to sandwich attacks. They also discuss the protocol's products, including its liquid staking token (mSOL) and Marinade Native, a non-custodial delegation service. The episode concludes with a discussion on preparing for institutional adoption, the role of LSTs in ETFs, and the process of getting SOC 2 compliance. 00:00 – Marinade’s Origins and Early Days03:11 – Building on Solana07:09 – Competing with Lido and the Importance of Community10:59 – The Changing Economics of Staking14:45 – Stake Pools, Yield, and Market Transparency19:17 – The Marinade Marketplace23:21 – Protected Staking Rewards & Validator Bonds27:19 – Marinade Native32:18 – ETFs, Institutions, and the Future of Staking38:34 – Security, Compliance, and SOC 2 in Crypto43:59 – The Future of Marinade and Solana Staking46:59 – How to Get Involved with Marinade & Closing Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.