Phase Labs

Phase Labs is a Solana infrastructure company founded in 2021 that has built a multi-product suite spanning validator operations, liquid staking, institutional staking, ecosystem stake delegation, and on-chain tax reporting — all focused on strengthening the Solana network layer.

Core Mission and Background

Phase Labs launched in 2021 with the explicit mission of "securing the Solana infrastructure layer." Over five years the team has expanded from a single validator operation into one of the more diversified infrastructure providers on the network. The company now operates under a dual brand: the original phaselabs.io domain permanently redirects to phase.cc, reflecting a broader positioning as simply "Phase." Core values stated publicly center on innovation, integrity, inclusion, and security.

Phase Stake: Validator Infrastructure

The flagship product is Phase Stake, the team's own Solana validator. It is positioned as institutional-grade and non-custodial, targeting funds, custodians, enterprises, and individual stakers. The validator runs on bare metal servers — hosted through Latitude — with optimized client configurations and a 99.9% uptime SLA. Validator commission and liquid staking token commission are both set at 0%.

Beyond running their own node, Phase Stake offers white-label validator branding for institutions that want to operate a named validator without managing the underlying infrastructure themselves, and custom liquid staking token deployments with DeFi integrations. Phase also indicates support for additional chains beyond Solana, including Monad and Polygon, in its product roadmap.

YIELD: The Liquid Staking Token

Phase Labs issues a liquid staking token called YIELD (previously referred to as phaseSOL), which users receive when staking SOL through the Phase platform. The token can be used across Solana DeFi applications or redeemed back for SOL without a waiting period. The token address on Solana is phaseZSfPxTDBpiVb96H4XFSD8xHeHxZre5HerehBJG. As of mid-2026 the token has a market cap of approximately $889K with around 10,000 tokens in circulation. Phase claims its validator consistently outperforms network average APY, though specific differential figures are not publicly quantified.

Aero Pool: Ecosystem Stake Delegation

Aero Pool is Phase Labs' stake pool designed explicitly to support validators who are building for the Solana ecosystem rather than optimizing purely for stake efficiency. The pool has distributed over $80 million in delegations across more than 170 validators.

Aero Pool uses a four-tier delegation model, rebalanced bi-weekly:

• Tier 1 (15,000 SOL): High-impact validators, new operators with ecosystem goals, or pre-funded startups
• Tier 2 (10,000 SOL): Emerging validators and Solana Foundation Delegation Program (SFDP) participants actively growing their outside stake
• Tier 3 (5,000 SOL): Solana ecosystem contributors and long-term community members
• Tier 4 (2,500 SOL): Validators emphasizing geographic diversity, public goods, or charitable causes

Delegation decisions consider validator performance, software version compliance, uptime, and community engagement in addition to tier criteria. The system is intentionally aimed at decentralization: smaller and mid-sized validators who would otherwise struggle to attract stake are supported through structured Aero delegation.

Sentinel Stake: Institutional Infrastructure

Sentinel Stake is Phase Labs' institutional-facing product, managing approximately $30 million in assets under management. It is designed for exchange-traded products (ETPs), offering compliant, secure, and high-performance staking that meets the operational standards institutional asset managers require. Services include SOC 2 and ISO 27001 aligned infrastructure standards, and branded validator solutions for institutions that need named, independently verifiable validators as part of an ETP structure.

In May 2025, Phase Labs representatives met with the SEC's Crypto Task Force to advocate for staking clarity within Solana ETP structures. The discussion covered three areas: the risks of stake centralization on Solana (referencing a Nakamoto Coefficient of 19), proposed baseline security standards (SOC 2 and ISO 27001) for ETP validators, and the importance of allowing smaller, compliant staking providers to participate in ETP infrastructure to preserve network decentralization. Phase Labs indicated it would submit a draft framework to the SEC on distributed stake measures.

Netrunner: Solana Tax Reporting

Netrunner (accessible at netrunner.tax) is Phase Labs' Solana-native tax platform. It uses an AI-powered auto-labeling engine to classify transactions across swaps, perpetual futures, staking rewards, NFT sales, liquidity pool activity, airdrops, and DeFi interactions. The engine assigns confidence scores to each classification.

Netrunner produces IRS-ready output including Form 8949, Schedule D, and Schedule 1, as well as TurboTax-compatible exports. It supports 13 jurisdictions: the US, Canada, UK, Japan, and Australia among them. Pricing is tiered: free up to 30,000 transactions, $189 per year for up to 100,000 transactions, and custom pricing for wallets above that threshold. All paid tiers include unlimited report generation through 2026. Supported protocols include Jupiter, Raydium, and Magic Eden.

Additional Products

Phase Labs has also developed two additional tools listed in their documentation:

• Align: A governance platform for on-chain community decision-making, community operations management, and hackathon hosting.
• Ideapad: A crowdfunding platform for early-stage Solana projects, allowing supporters to earn rewards while backing emerging teams.

Team

The Phase Labs team includes:

• Brandon Geraldi — CEO
• Adam Carter — CTO
• Dan Trilo — CFO
• Jeff Newman — CPO
• Gabriel Hicks — Head of Staking
• Tyler Gotto — Head of Marketing
• Nathan Anderson — Operations Engineer

Ecosystem Fit

Phase Labs occupies an infrastructure layer role on Solana rather than a DeFi application layer. Its products address validator performance, stake decentralization, institutional access, retail liquid staking, and tax compliance — categories that strengthen the network's operational foundation. Stated partners include Solana Foundation, Hylo, Solflare, and Magic Eden. The company's SEC engagement also positions it as an active participant in the regulatory conversations shaping how Solana staking integrates with traditional finance through ETP vehicles.