Sanctum (INF): liquid staking rating breakdown
The most interesting thing in this entire study, because its business IS the omitted question. Sanctum exists because Solana’s long tail of staking tokens had no depth, and it sells depth as a service — a routing layer that makes small tokens sellable. Nobody has built this for Ethereum, which tells you precisely how seriously that industry takes the word "liquid".
The most interesting thing in this entire study, because its business IS the omitted question. Sanctum exists because Solana’s long tail of staking tokens had no depth, and it sells depth as a service — a routing layer that makes small tokens sellable.
How the score is built
Each criterion is scored 0–10 and weighted. The median column is the middle score across every entry in this ranking, so a row reads as a position rather than a number.
| Criterion | What we measured | Weight | Score | Category median | Rank | Weighted gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Is “liquid” actually true? | — | 35% | 9 | 4.5 | 2 of 12 | +1.57 |
| Do they tell you what they take? | — | 25% | 5 | 6 | 7 of 12 | -0.25 |
| Net yield against the real ceiling | — | 20% | 9 | 8 | 1 of 12 | +0.20 |
| Custody and slashing | — | 12% | 9 | 8 | 1 of 12 | +0.12 |
| Restaking risk, disclosed | — | 8% | 10 | 10 | 1 of 12 | 0.00 |
Measured 15 July 2026 · weights and method · decided by is “liquid” actually true?, worth +1.57 points against the median
Is “liquid” actually true?: 9/10
The question every comparison omits, and the one that has actually cost people money. We take the token’s outstanding value and set it against the depth genuinely available to sell into — on-chain pools, and daily turnover. The ratios are brutal: a token with a billion dollars outstanding and two million dollars of exit is not liquid, it is a building with an emergency exit sized for one person. Backing does not save you. Depth does.
Scored 9 of 10 against a category median of 4.5, which places it 2nd of 12 among liquid staking on this criterion. At a 35% weight that is 1.57 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 2.
Do they tell you what they take?: 5/10
Not the fee percentage — whether the yield they SHOW you is the yield you GET. Some publish the formula and hand you the raw numbers to check. Others advertise a rate that explicitly excludes their commission, and say so only in a support article nobody reads. And the worst simply state a number and never mention a take rate at all, which we then have to derive by dividing.
Scored 5 of 10 against a category median of 6, which places it 7th of 12 among liquid staking on this criterion. At a 25% weight that is 0.25 points below the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 3.
Net yield against the real ceiling: 9/10
Measured against the gross rate the network actually pays, which we derive rather than accept: the protocol APR, before anyone’s cut. Every token is scored on how much of that it gives back to you.
Scored 9 of 10 against a category median of 8, which places it 1st of 12 among liquid staking on this criterion. At a 20% weight that is 0.20 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 9, the worst 7.
Custody and slashing: 9/10
Do you hold an asset or an IOU? And when a validator is slashed, what actually covers it — a contractual claim you own, a fund of undisclosed size, or a discretionary vote by token-holders? Note that Solana has no protocol slashing at all, which is a real structural advantage its LSTs are never given credit for.
Scored 9 of 10 against a category median of 8, which places it 1st of 12 among liquid staking on this criterion. At a 12% weight that is 0.12 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 9, the worst 7.
Restaking risk, disclosed: 10/10
A liquid staking token must not quietly become a restaked one. We check whether the product takes on EigenLayer-style obligations, and whether that extra risk is quantified anywhere for the holder. A plain LST scores full marks here by simply not doing it.
Scored 10 of 10 against a category median of 10, which places it 1st of 12 among liquid staking on this criterion. At a 8% weight that is exactly level with the median of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 10.
Other measurements
- what it actually sells
- liquidity — the thing every ETH LST assumes someone else provides SOURCED[source]
- protocol slashing on Solana
- none exists SOURCED
Its nearest neighbours in this ranking
| # | Entry | Is “liquid” actually true? | How it differs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Origin Ether (OETH) | 10 | Ahead by 1 on is “liquid” actually true?. |
| 3 | Marinade (mSOL) | 5 | Behind by 4 on is “liquid” actually true?. |
| 4 | Jito (JitoSOL) | 8 | Behind by 1 on is “liquid” actually true?. |
Questions about this score
What does Sanctum actually do?
+
It provides depth for staking tokens that do not have their own. A small Solana LST can be routed through Sanctum's infrastructure so that a holder can exit into liquidity that the token itself never had — which is the single most valuable thing anyone in this category could build, and the reason it appears near the top of this rating despite thin disclosure.
What is Sanctum's fee?
+
We could not verify it from its own documentation. The roughly 4.6% take implied by the numbers is our inference rather than a published figure, and we label it that way. A protocol solving the category's hardest problem ought to be clearer about what it charges for solving it.