omniSOL is a liquid staking derivative that fundamentally changes how liquid staking works on Solana. It allows any staked account to access all of Solana’s DeFi, while gaining the staking yields of that particular validator.
Currently, users have to choose between being able to control where they stake their SOL, and being able to access the broader DeFi ecosystem.
Current native stakers cannot access DeFi. If you stake directly with a validator, you cannot use that staked SOL in DeFi.
Current liquid staking solutions don’t allow native stake. Conversely, if I stake with any stake pool, I give up the ability to choose who I delegate with, as my stake is now pooled with everyone else’s and delegated to validators according to the pool’s delegation strategy.
Current liquid staking solutions pose a centralisation risk. Because current liquid staking protocols take custody of SOL, they control where that SOL is delegated to (either via delegation strategy or governance gauges). This poses a centralisation risk.
Liquid staking protocols are incentivised to grow as large as possible to bring financial incentives to their tokenholders. While this is not a problem yet on Solana, the fact that existing liquid staking solutions have an incentive to grow large AND that they control where SOL goes means that a future is possible where liquid staking protocols pose a significant centralisation risk to the network (like Lido does on Ethereum).
Current liquid staking solutions are unhealthy for the broader Solana ecosystem. In general, tokenholders of liquid staking protocols vote for their own financial gain, not network health. Because liquid staking protocols’ moats lie completely in network effects/market power, they are incentivised to constantly grow this moat via any means necessary, which is detrimental to other stake pools and unhealthy for the broader Solana ecosystem. For example, a leading liquid staking incumbent used their market power to sign an exclusivity deal with one of the largest Solana wallets, and has also pushed for exclusive integrations with DeFi protocols. We believe this is unhealthy for the competitive ecosystem.
We need a solution that allows native stakers to enjoy the full benefits of DeFi while posing no centralisation risk and also allows a rich competitive landscape to flourish. omniSOL aims to be that solution.
omniSOL is a new liquid staking derivative that delivers all the benefits of liquid staking (seamless interoperability with DeFi, instant liquidity) without the disadvantages (lack of control, potentially worse APY, centralisation risk).
omniSOL has three main benefits:
omniSOL can be thought of as a hybrid between a borrow-lend protocol and a liquid staking derivative. The key insight is that delegation strategy and liquidity provision can and should be decoupled.
A user deposits their staked SOL (stake account or liquid staking token) into the omniSOL pool. The omniSOL pool opens an account with the pool that notes down what stake they have deposited.