I saw @solana co-founder Toly @aeyakovenko forwarding a project a few days ago
that piqued my curiosity. When a protocol has an annual revenue of $8.86 million
but a market cap of only $40.5 million, it indicates a major problem with the market's pricing mechanism.
@MarinadeFinance may represent the most obvious valuation mismatch in today's crypto market,
and this mismatch is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore as institutional funds begin to pay attention.


As a staking protocol on Solana, @MarinadeFinance focuses on
native staking and liquid staking (mSOL), with a current total value locked (TVL)
of up to 11 million SOL, which is approximately $2.1 billion at $195/SOL.
It is the first platform on Solana to launch liquid staking tokens, with over
150,000 users and 61,000 MNDE holders. With the Stake Auction
Marketplace, Marinade can also provide stakers with
the highest APY across the network.

Marinade's valuation is only "half of Lido's" and only "one-eighth of Jito's,"
despite operating similar infrastructure and with growing revenue.
Even Franklin Templeton, which manages $1.6 trillion in assets, pointed out
this gap in March, saying that Solana DeFi tokens are "severely undervalued" compared to their Ethereum
counterparts.

What makes this timing particularly interesting is that Marinade's long-dormant value capture
mechanism is finally online. MIP.11 passed in May and buybacks began in June,
with the protocol now using 40% of its performance fees to buy MNDE monthly.

The algorithm here is simple: $8.86 million in annual revenue, with 40% allocated meaning
approximately $3.5 million in annual buybacks, which is almost the current market cap
of MNDE, with about 9% being bought back annually.

But there's even better news. MIP.13 is currently under governance discussion and will
increase this proportion to 50%. Annual buybacks will increase to approximately $4.4 million
, accounting for 11% of the current market cap.

Think about it: while most DeFi tokens are still relying on speculation and future promises,
MNDE now has a definite monthly buying pressure, based on real and
growing revenue. In a market with scarce actual cash flow, this creates
a fundamentally different risk-reward structure.

Things get even more interesting from a fundamental catalyst perspective.
Marinade is no longer just another DeFi protocol in Crypto,
it is becoming institutional infrastructure. The protocol is designated as Canary
Capital's exclusive staking provider for the Solana ETF application, which is the first and only such
designation in a U.S. Solana ETF application. marinade blog This isn't just a partnership; it's a two-year
exclusive contract that will route all ETF staking through Marinade's infrastructure.

route

Adding to institutional credibility, Marinade just obtained SOC 2
Type 2 compliance certification, the first major Solana staking protocol to achieve this standard.
http://crypto.news BitGo, which manages $100 billion in assets, has integrated Marinade Native staking for its institutional clients.

What this means: Marinade is positioning itself as the institutional-grade channel into Solana
staking. If even a small portion of traditional financial funds flow
into Solana staking, Marinade will capture a disproportionate share with its compliant infrastructure.


Perhaps the most astonishing metric is Marinade's market cap to TVL ratio of only
0.022. The protocol manages $1.81 billion in assets, while its governance token
trades at only $40.5 million.

Compare this to traditional finance: would a fund management company managing $1.8 billion in AUM with annual fee revenue
of $8.8 million trade at a valuation of $40 million?
This mismatch suggests that the market is either completely ignoring Marinade or
fundamentally misunderstanding its business model.

At current levels, the downside seems limited, while the upside scenario is quite considerable.
Even just reaching Lido's 9x price-to-sales ratio, assuming revenue stays constant,
would imply approximately 95% upside. If revenue continues to grow at its current rate
while valuation multiples expand to industry averages, the math becomes
very tempting. The monthly buyback mechanism also provides technical support, and regardless of market
sentiment, there is now continuous buying pressure from protocol revenue.

Marinade is reshaping the value capture mechanism of $MNDE with an integrated model of "revenue → buyback → burn → incentive".
Its profitability, institutional backing, and supply-demand transformation intertwine to form one of the most certain and
potentially explosive "undervalued quality" assets in the Solana ecosystem. Entering now may yield
generous returns from the correction of the mispricing.