It’s been a while since our last update, but what better way to dive back into things than providing you with the tools to take advantage of what many of us believe will be a booming upcoming Solana DeFi bull market! If you’re looking for a chance to qualify for airdrops and farm tokens - this is the document for you.
If you’ve messed around with DeFi on Ethereum before, it’s pretty much the same - except different apps and this time around, no 30 dollar transaction fees to stake and unstake your tokens.
Let’s get into how you can take advantage of this awesome opportunity - or be taken advantage of, hard to say.
Wallets
The first thing you’ll need is a wallet - if you’re familiar with how MetaMask works on Ethereum, it’s the same idea. My recommendation would be to use Phantom, which you can check out here.
Install this bad boy on your browser, create an account, and we are off to the races.
Bridging
Alright, so you have a wallet, but how do we get some SOL on there? You can do it simply by buying SOL on a CEX like Coinbase and sending it to your address, but I’d recommend bridging using a protocol like Mayan Finance - there’s always the chance that you qualify for a future airdrop. Remember, the name of the game is to use as many protocols as you can.
Using Mayan Finance, you’ll simply connect your Metamask Wallet, input how much Eth you want to swap to SOL, select SOL on the Solana Chain, connect your Phantom wallet, and get your swaps in.
Liquid Staking
Now, you can simply stake your SOL on Coinbase for ~4 APY, and your money is going to be safe. Or, you can take the red pill, and dive down into the DeFi rabbit hole to put your money to work for you. This is inherently riskier, but with great risk can come great rewards. The best way to do this is via a liquid staking protocol like Jito or SolBlaze.
Both offer similar APY at ~7.2%APY, but not only are you getting that APY, you are also going to qualify for any future airdrops or boosts that they provide for using their protocols.
For example:
When you stake with Jito or SolBlaze, you’ll get their token in return that represents your staked SOL - either JitoSOL or bSOL, respectively. This is where the fun begins - because now you’re not only gaining the APY, you’re not only qualifying for any future airdrops, but you still have a token you can put to work for you.
Lending
With your newly minted JitoSOL or bSOL, you can now look to put those coins to work themselves to “double dip” on your rewards.
One of the most popular ways to do this is via the lending protocol, Marginfi.
When you head to the Marginfi app, you’ll see a variety of global lending pools - including JitoSOL and bSOL.
You’ll notice it has both bSOL and JitoSOL, but both have hit their cap of deposits and therefore don’t have any more room to accept further bSOL/JitoSOL. The goal here is to wait until Marginfi announces the expansion of deposits, and be one of the first in line to slam your coins into the lending protocol.
Now you’ll probably think to yourself - .06% APY? Why bother?
Remember - the goal here isn’t necessarily the APY, but instead that you will begin accruing Marginfi points - which will enable you once again to qualify for future airdrops or any other unique ways that they want to utilize the points in their ecosystem.
At this point, instead of simply getting ~4% APY on Coinbase, you have:
Exposure to Mayan Finance and any potential drops they do
~7% APY for staking on Jito/Blaze
Exposure to Jito/Blaze ecosystems for any potential drops they do
~.05% APY for staking on Marginfi
Points on Marginfi that can qualify you for future drops/benefits
Conclusion
And that about wraps it up! While there are a lot of different protocols you can use in the Solana ecosystem, these are the ones I have my eye on in particular. Happy Farming!