Sanctum

Sanctum is a liquid staking protocol on Solana, found at sanctum.so. It is not Laravel Sanctum, the PHP login package, or any other Sanctum. You stake SOL with Sanctum and get back a liquid staking token (LST). That token earns staking rewards, and you can still trade or lend it. Sanctum's big idea is shared liquidity. Its Infinity pool lets every LST swap against one common pool. So a new LST does not need to build its own market. That is why Jupiter, Bybit and others launch their own LSTs on Sanctum. Sanctum also runs a mobile app, a wrapped SOL called swSOL, a service called Gateway, and the SANC token.

How Sanctum liquid staking works: LSTs, the Router and the Reserve

Sanctum runs three on-chain pieces. Sanctum LSTs are stake pools, each of which mints a token for the SOL staked in it. The Router moves value between those pools. The Reserve turns staked SOL into plain SOL straight away, so you can exit without waiting out Solana's unstaking cooldown.

Sanctum LSTs run on a fork of the Solana Labs stake pool program, the same code used by Jito JTO$0.366+3.8% and Solblaze BLZE$0.00009842+0.2%. A pool can stake with one validator or spread across several. When you deposit SOL, the pool stakes it and mints you its LST. The LST grows in SOL value as rewards come in.

The Router is a thin wrapper program that holds no funds. Sanctum's docs say "there is no value at risk" in it. Staking SOL into an LST through the Router is free. Withdrawing to SOL costs 1 basis point (0.01%), and depositing a stake account costs 10 basis points, unless you exit to SOL through the Reserve.

The Reserve is a pool of SOL that buys your stake account or LST and hands you SOL at once. Its fee moves between 0.08% and 8%, depending on how much SOL is left in the pool. If many people exit at once, instant exits get expensive. For the slower, free route, see how instant unstaking compares with the normal cooldown.

Sanctum Infinity (INF): one token for a basket of LSTs

INF is the token you get for depositing into Sanctum Infinity, a pool holding many different LSTs. INF earns two things: the staking rewards of every LST in the basket, and fees from people swapping one LST for another inside the pool.

Infinity prices each LST at its SOL value, read from that LST's own stake pool on-chain. An AMM would price swaps along a curve, so big trades would move the price. Infinity instead swaps at the LST's fair value, which keeps swaps cheap even for small LSTs. A separate pricing program sets the swap fee for each LST. Sanctum's docs give the split as 90% to the pool, which lifts INF's value, and 10% to the protocol. Withdrawing from Infinity costs 0.2%.

Say you swap 10 SOL worth of one LST for another. Infinity gives you 10 SOL worth of the second LST, minus that pair's fee. A thin market could have cost you far more in price impact.

Sanctum Staking-as-a-Service: how jupSOL, bbSOL and branded LSTs launch

Staking-as-a-Service lets a company launch its own LST without building it. Sanctum can run a validator for it too. Sanctum's docs list Jupiter JUP$0.261+4.6% (jupSOL), Bybit (bbSOL), crypto.com (cdcSOL), Drift Protocol DRIFT$0.013-0.1% (dSOL) and DeFi Development Corp. dfdvSOL$106.00+2.8% (dfdvSOL) as partners.

The Sanctum package has a one-time setup fee of 100 SOL. Sanctum puts that SOL back into the new LST as starting liquidity for three months. The LST can trade against Infinity from day one. Sanctum also handles upkeep and gets the token supported on apps such as Kamino Finance KMNO$0.037+12.6% and Titan. Other LSTs can use Infinity too, but they pay more.

Treasury companies have signed up as well. Forward Industries launched fwdSOL with Sanctum in December 2025. Our Q3 2026 report coverage lists the partner LSTs that grew fastest that quarter.

Sanctum Wrapped SOL (swSOL): a wSOL alternative that earns yield

swSOL is Sanctum's version of wrapped SOL, launched on 9 October 2026. Like standard wSOL, it is always worth exactly 1 SOL. The difference is that part of the SOL behind swSOL is staked, and the rewards go to the app that holds it.

Many apps hold SOL as wSOL inside their programs and vaults, where it earns nothing. With swSOL, Sanctum keeps part of the SOL liquid for instant redemptions and stakes the rest through an LST. Its docs give the share kept liquid as 50%, and Sanctum can adjust it. Rewards go to the integrator named on each mint transaction, and that integrator decides whether to pass them on to you. Sanctum named ORE ORE$147.92+5.2%, Lavarage, DiversiFi, Lexur and Omnipair as the first integrators. We covered the swSOL launch in more detail.

Sanctum mobile app on iOS, Android and Seeker

The Sanctum app is a mobile wallet that earns staking rewards on your SOL. You hold your own keys, and there is no lockup. A rebuilt version came out in October 2026 for iOS, Android and the Solana Seeker phone. Its App Store listing says funds are now guarded by a Squads multisig.

A multisig is a wallet that needs approval from its set signers before funds can move. The new app also shows your rewards as they arrive, plus token data such as revenue and supply. Our App 2.0 launch coverage has the details.

Sanctum Gateway and Sender: Solana transaction delivery

Sanctum Gateway helps other Solana apps get their transactions onto the chain. It sends each one down several routes at once. A live dashboard shows what landed and how.

Gateway's docs list the routes. They include normal RPCs, faster RPCs that get priority from staked nodes, and Jito bundles. They also include senders such as Sanctum's own, Helius hSOL$114.68+3.6% Sender, Nozomi and Astralane. If a transaction lands by RPC instead of a Jito bundle, Gateway can refund the Jito tip. Sanctum Sender costs 0.0001 SOL a transaction. Sanctum's docs say that is far cheaper than other senders. Teams can switch routes and tweak settings in the dashboard, with no code changes. Sanctum's website lists Gateway next to Ironforge, its tool for running apps on Solana.

SANC token (formerly CLOUD): burn, ticker change and governance

SANC is Sanctum's governance token. It was called CLOUD until October 2026. Holders vote on proposals, and the CLOUD-008 vote ran on MetaDAO META$3,823.28+1.3%'s futarchy markets.

In September 2026 holders passed CLOUD-008. It was a plan to burn the tokens held in the Community Reserve and change the ticker to SANC. Sanctum confirmed the burn in early October. That removed a quarter of all tokens for good.

The token's address did not change. So any CLOUD you held is now SANC, with nothing to swap. Our burn coverage has the supply numbers. Sanctum also posts a report each quarter on its revenue and profit. Its Q3 2026 report, for July to September, said gross profit fell because the quarter before had a one-off windfall from a large LST withdrawal.

Is Sanctum safe? Audits, upgrade authority and risks

Sanctum's code has been audited, and no single party can upgrade it. The code can still be changed, though, so it is not locked for good. Using Sanctum carries three main risks: a bug in the code, a weak validator, and an LST trading below its SOL value. Solana has no slashing, so a weak validator costs you rewards, not your staked SOL.

Each audit covers a different program. Sanctum LSTs run on the Solana Labs stake pool program. Halborn, Kudelski, Ottersec, Neodyme and Quantstamp audited that program. Neodyme, Ottersec and Sec3 audited Infinity. Sec3 audited the Reserve in July 2023. Sanctum's docs list no audit for Gateway or swSOL.

Sanctum's deployed programs page names "Sanctum Multisig" as the upgrade key for every program, Infinity included. For the stake pool programs, Sanctum says this is an 11-member group. Members include Jupiter, Jito, Sol Strategies, Solblaze and Sanctum. A change needs the group's approval, so no one member can push it through. Sanctum plans to add members and later freeze the program. Each Sanctum LST also has a manager key that can change fees. Sanctum says that key cannot take your funds, and fee changes are capped and announced early, so you have time to leave.

Sanctum's own guide to staking risks, from April 2026, says LSTs can trade below what they hold. Small LSTs can also see wide price gaps in a volatile market. In July 2024 Sanctum lost its old unstake.it domain. It warned users to stay away, as the site was likely used for phishing. Use sanctum.so, and check what you sign.

Who should use Sanctum INF or a Sanctum LST?

Sanctum suits SOL holders who want staking rewards and still want to use their SOL in DeFi. INF fits holders who want one token spread across many LSTs instead of picking a single validator. A branded LST such as jupSOL fits users already inside that partner's app.

Staking-as-a-Service fits validators, exchanges, apps and treasury companies that want their own staking token without building it. swSOL fits apps holding idle wSOL, since the yield goes to the integrator.

Sanctum fits less well if you want code nobody can upgrade, or if you plan to hold a small, thinly traded LST and may need to sell it fast. Holders who prefer no token at all can stake natively with a validator.

Sanctum vs Jito, Marinade and other Solana liquid staking options

Sanctum is a platform that hosts many LSTs. Jito and Marinade MNDE$0.024+0.5% each run one main LST of their own, JitoSOL and mSOL. Holding JitoSOL or mSOL means trusting one protocol's choice of validators. INF holds a mix of many LSTs in one token and adds swap fees on top. A branded Sanctum LST, such as Jupiter's, ties you to that one partner.

Solana Compass runs its own LST, compassSOL. It stakes with the Solana Compass validator. We publish this page, so keep that in mind. compassSOL is built on Sanctum, so it is itself a Sanctum LST. It runs on the same stake pool code, with the same audits and upgrade group. If you would rather hold no LST at all, you can stake directly with our validator.

To weigh yields, fees and stake spread side by side, compare every Solana stake pool, or read our guide to how LSTs work.

Sanctum team and history: from Socean and Unstake.it to Sanctum

The Sanctum team has built on Solana since 2021. Its docs say the team helped build the stake pool program at Solana Labs. Its rebrand post adds that the team launched its own pool, Socean Stake, in September 2021. The team then built Unstake.it, a tool to swap staked SOL for liquid SOL, and renamed it Sanctum in August 2023. The Infinity pool and the Sanctum LST platform followed.

In August 2026 DefiLlama data showed Sanctum as the largest protocol on Solana by total value locked, ahead of Jupiter. The live figures are in the widgets on this page.