Comparing performance of staking platforms on Solana during and after FTX collapse

    What is Solana?


    Solana is a layer 1 blockchain that uses Proof of Stake and Proof of History as a consensus mechanism in order to achieve considerably higher levels of scalability. Solana is often considered to be decentralized enough in terms of security, but superior in terms of speed because certain aspects of its infrastructure are more centralized than other blockchains. Solana’s native token is called $SOL.

    What are staking pools in Solana?

    Solana’s staking pools allow you to delegate your stake to a manager, who collects stake from multiple individuals then decides which validators to delegate to.

    While it is easy for people to stake directly with a single validator, if a user wishes to spread their stake around multiple validators to improve decentralization it can get considerably harder to manage multiple stakes across tens or hundreds of validators. In reality the majority choose the simplest option and as a result, the majority of stake in the Solana network has become concentrated among a small group of validators.

    Stake pools aim to fight this by deliberately spreading the stake they control across tens or even hundreds of smaller validators.

    This has two great benefits for the users: reducing the impact of downtime at their chosen validator and so protecting their returns, and increasing the security and sustainability of their investment in SOL by helping secure the network. In exchange they may take a small percentage fee for managing your stake, and some also take a small fee on deposits or withdrawals.

    Introduction:


    In response to the FTX insolvency, the crypto markets have been in a risk-off mood, with asset prices falling precipitously for all crypto tokens, fungible and nonfungible. The aggregate market cap of all crypto currencies fell 23% to $786 billion from $1.02 trillion within four days.

    Solana’s current downward slide is part of a larger market selloff triggered by the FTX collapse. Data from Solana Compass shows that Epoch 370, is set to end at around 8.30 AM UTC on Nov. 10. The website's dashboard showed that more than 50 million sols were scheduled to be unstaked by validators. This represents 13% of the coin’s circulating supply and will be the second-largest token unlock of solana in terms of the number of coins being unstaked by validators.

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    The volume of staking and unstaking transactions:


    The FTX collapse happened on Nov 9th.

    As you can see:

    • The volume of staking and unstaking on November 7 was close to each other, with only 3K sol more unstaking than staking.
    • Since November 8, the stake-to-unstake ratio has been out of 1:1 and validators have released Sol tokens. For example, on November 8, the volume of unstaked tokens was 4.5 times that of staked. This ratio reached its highest level of 50 times on November 10.
    • The most significant outflow was on Nov 10th when nearly 1M Sol was unstaked.
    • During the past week, 87.8% of the volume was regarding unstaking.
    • Staking has not exceeded unstaking any day last week.
    • The cumulative Netflow shows nearly 2M Sol unstaked.

    Staking and Unstaking Comparison:

    In the first part, we tried to compare different criteria for the two activities, staking and unstaking, during the last week.

    • Volume
    • Number of transactions,
    • Number of unique users

    Let’s go.

    The number of staking and unstaking transactions:


    As you can see:

    • The number of staking on November 7th and 8th was more than twice of the number of unstaking.
    • Since Nov 9th (FTX collapse), the story changed and the number of unstaking exceeded the number of staking.
    • On November 8, the number of unstaked tokens was 2.78 times that of staked which was the highest ratio.
    • The most significant outflow was on Nov 10th when nearly 1150 unstaking transactions were made.
    • During the past week, 67.6% of the transactions were regarding unstaking.
    • The cumulative Netflow shows the number of unstaking transactions is more than staking transactions nearly 800 tx during the past week.

    Staking and Unstaking Comparison on Different Staking Pools:

    In the second part, we tried to compare different criteria for the two activities, staking and unstaking, on different staking pools during the last week.

    • Volume
    • Number of transactions,
    • Number of unique users

    Let’s go.

    The volume of staking and unstaking transactions on different staking platforms:


    As you can see:

    • Only on Marinade and Blazestake the Netflow is positive that shows on these platforms the volume of staking is more than unstaking. Between these two, no unstaking was done in the Marinade and only orders to unstaking.

    • The Netflow on Daopool, Eversol, Jpool, Lido, and Socean are negative that shows on these platforms the volume of unstaking is more than staking.

    • Among all staking platforms, Lido has the most negative Netflow. More than 1.9 million Sol have been exited from this platform alone.

    • Most of the staking was made on Marinade til Nov 9th but after that, the volume of staking on that decreased and users prefer to stake on Lido more than Marinade.

    • Most of the unstaking was made on Lido during all time of the last week.

    • The main competition in staking is between Marinede and Lido, and the rest of the platforms are far away from these two. 54.1% of all staking volume staked on Marinade and 36.5% staked on Lido.

    • Lido has no competitor in unstaking. 88.7% of all unstaking volume unstaked from Lido and only 8.55% unstaked from Jpool.

    The number of staking and unstaking transactions on different staking platforms:


    As you can see:

    • Only on Jpool and Blazestake the Netflow is positive that shows on these platforms the number of staking is more than unstaking. Between these two, Jpool is the most positive and number of staking transactions on it is ~3x number of unstaking transactions.

    • The Netflow on Daopool, Eversol, Marinade, Lido, and Socean are negative that shows on these platforms the number of unstaking is more than staking.

    • Among all staking platforms, Lido has the most negative Netflow. ~1500 transactions have been made to unstaking from this platform alone.

    • Most of the staking was shared between Jpool, Marinade, and Lido til Nov 10th but after that, lost its share and users prefer to stake on Lido and Marinade more than other platforms.

    • Most of the unstaking was shared between Marinade and Lido during all time of the last week. But on November 10, 185 tx made an unstaking Sol from Socean.

    • The main competition in staking is between Marinede and Lido. The third place belongs to Jpool and the rest of the platforms are far away from these three. 42.1% of all staking count staked on Marinade, 30.4% staked on Lido, and 18.1 staked on Jpool.

    • The main competition in unstaking is between Marinade and Lido. 45.2% of all unstaking counts unstaked from Lido and 36% unstaked from Marinade

    The number of unique stakers and unstakers:


    As you can see:

    • The behavior of unique stakers and unstakers is similar to the number of staking and unstakig transactions.
    • The cumulative chart shows the number of unstakers exceeded the number of stakers since Nov 9th.

    The number of unique stakers and unstakers users on different staking platforms:


    As you can see:

    • Only on Blazestake and Socean the number of unique stakers is more than unique unstakers during the past week. On Jpool the number of unique stakers is equal to unique unstakers.

    • On Daopool, Eversol, Marinade, and Lido the number of unique unstakers is more than unique stakers.

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    • Most of the stakers prefer to stake their SOL on Marinade and Lido during all time of the last week.

    • Most of the unstakers prefer to unstake their SOL from Marinade and Lido during all time of the last week.

    • The main competition in staking and unstaking is between Marinede and Lido. users prefer to stake and unstake more on Marinade and Lido.

    But there are other actions besides staking and unstaking. For example, ordering to unstaking.

    My analysis shows:

    • The number of orders to unstaking increased since Nov 9th and continued til Nov 12th.
    • All orders to unstaking during the past week are regarding the Marinade platform that was a staking pool on Solana.

    References:


    Methodology:


    This bounty is separated into two parts.

    • Finding staking activity - used core.fact_stake_pool_actions table of Solana schema. staking transactions filtered by action ilike '%deposit%' condition. unstaking transactions filtered by action ilike '%unstake%' or action ilike '%withdraw%' condition.

    The number of staking transactions was more than unstaking on Nov 8th while the volume was the opposite.

    Comparing these two metrics shows exactly at the same time that small users staked their Sol, whales were trying to unstaked theirs.

    Conclusion:


    • Since November 8, the validators started to unstaking their SOL tokens. The most significant unstaking was on Nov 10th when nearly 1M Sol was unstaked.
    • The number of staking on November 7th and 8th was more than the number of unstaking but since Nov 9th (FTX collapse), the story changed and the number of unstaking exceeded the number of staking.
    • The number of staking transactions was more than unstaking on Nov 8th while the volume was the opposite. Comparing these two metrics shows exactly at the same time that small users staked their Sol, whales were trying to unstaked theirs.
    • All orders unstaking during the past week are regarding the Marinade platform.
    • Most of the staking volume was made on Marinade till Nov 9th but after that, the volume of staking on that decreased, and users preferred to stake on Lido more than Marinade. Also, most of the unstaking volume was made on Lido during all time of the last week.
    • Most of the number of staking was shared between Jpool, Marinade, and Lido til Nov 10th but after that, lost its share, and users prefer to stake on Lido and Marinade more than other platforms. Also, most of the number of unstaking was shared between Marinade and Lido during all time of the last week.
    • The volume of swaps from SOL to other tokens is more than the volume of swaps to SOL from other tokens after Nov 8th.

    About me:


    Author: Kiana Kiaei

    Discord : kiana#4574

    Twitter : kiacrypto1

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