The Solana network briefly surpassed Ethereum in total staked value of their respective native tokens, SOL and ETH, sparking debate over whether it is actually bullish or bearish for Solana. 

More than $53.9 billion worth of SOL is now staked on the Solana network from 505,938 unique wallet holders, who are making an 8.31% annualized return, blockchain data shows.

The figure briefly overtook the staked ETH market cap on April 20, which now has $53.93 billion worth of value secured from 34.7 million staked tokens, Beaconcha.in data shows.

Source: Alex Svanevik

A contributing factor behind the flippening has been SOL’s strong price performance relative to ETH over the last two years, which has seen the SOL/ETH price ratio rise nearly tenfold from 0.0088 to 0.0866 since June 12, 2023, CoinGecko data shows.

High SOL staking return is stifling Solana DeFi, pundits say

However, the “risk-free” 8.31% return for SOL stakers at the network level — significantly higher than ETH’s 2.98% — may be attracting Solana users away from DeFi activities, such as providing liquidity to automated market makers and lending protocols in exchange for token rewards.

“Solana having 65% of its marketcap staked means there’s no other use of it’s token, it’s actually bearish,” Builda Protocol developer and X user “JC” said.

DefiLlama data shows that there are $21.5 billion worth of liquid staked ETH tokens on Ethereum compared to just $7.22 billion of liquid staked SOL on Solana.

Multicoin Capital managing partner Tushar Jain previously said that Solana DeFi has been stifled because it’s not rational to make an investment in something that produces a lower return than the “risk-free” investment.

“It doesn’t make sense for you to provide liquidity on a SOL/USDC AMM when that might earn you 5% but staking earns you 7%.”

Ethereum also dominates in terms of DeFi total value locked at $50.4 million compared to Solana’s $8.85 billion.

Industry pundits also pointed out that there are still far more validators securing the Ethereum network at 1.06 million compared to Solana’s 1,243.

Solana staking isn’t really staking, Ethereum researcher argues

One Ethereum researcher said Solana staking isn’t really securing the Solana network because there isn’t a mechanism to penalize bad actors for malicious behavior.

“It’s very ironic to call it ‘staking’ when there is no slashing. What’s at stake?” Dankrad Feist said in an April 20 X post. 

“Solana has close to zero economic security at the moment.”

Solana Labs said slashing is already possible, but it’s not automatic, and the attacker’s assets can only be slashed by restarting the entire network.

Related: Ethereum price in ‘cursed’ downtrend which could continue well into 2025 — Analyst

Solana is looking to roll out a more comprehensive slashing solution later this year, according to Multicoin Capital Managing Partner Kyle Samani.

Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko said he’s pushing for a “correlated slashing” mechanism, where the penalty would be equal to the square of the difference between a validator’s faulty stake in an epoch and the median network staked validator.

Source: Anatoly Yakovenko

Meanwhile, Ethereum developers and researchers have been exploring ways to decentralize Ethereum staking. 

Many Ethereum stakers have resorted to liquid staking protocols over the last few years due to the high 32 ETH ($50,750) minimum needed to run an independent validator. 

However, this shift has led to the Lido protocol capturing an 88% share in Ethereum’s liquid staking market, adding another layer to Ethereum’s staking centralization concerns.

Magazine: Comeback 2025: Is Ethereum poised to catch up with Bitcoin and Solana?

Ethereum-based real-world asset (RWA) tokenization platform Blocksquare has partnered with a Florida-based real estate company to offer fractional ownership in a pipeline of US commercial properties valued at over $1 billion. 

Announcing the deal on April 18, Blocksquare and Vera Capital said a marketplace would launch in the coming weeks to enable global investors to buy tokenized shares in “dozens of properties” located across seven US states. 

The first tokenized properties that will be up for grabs are part of Vera Group’s existing holdings, which include a three-storey office building in Fort Lauderdale and a retail plaza in Dania Beach, according to two properties listed on Vera Capital’s website.

Source: Vera Capital

“All our assets are already part of the group, so with the Vera Fund they’ve already been purchased, and they are owned by us, managed by us and we are only improving them,” Vera Group CEO Nick Polyushkin said.

Vera Capital is a subsidiary of Vera Group, which also runs a South Florida real estate agency, real estate management company, and a real estate investment fund with over $100 million invested through commercial property acquisitions, land development and residential developments.

Polyushkin said the $1 billion figure comes from the company’s roadmap, which includes tokenizing existing assets and raising funds for development projects. He said future properties the company plans to tokenize include two unit complexes valued at between $70 and $100 million.

“This is ambitious numbers if you’re looking at this from the perspective of residential use in investments, but from a commercial standpoint, this is a very realistic number and not just achievable, it’s over-achievable,” he said.

Related: RWAs rise to $17B all-time high, as Bitcoin falls below $100K

Tokenized real estate still needs legal clarity in US 

To date, Blocksquare has been used to tokenize around 150 properties in 28 countries, at a value of over $145 million. The platform launched an EU-compliant framework in February 2025 to enable property owners to tokenize economic rights tied to real estate through notarized agreements. 

Blocksquare CEO Denis Petrovic said once the Vera Group partnership was in progress, Blocksquare started to research to “see if the framework we have from Luxembourg will also be applicable for the US.”

“There’s always the option obviously of launching tokens directly without the Luxembourg entity getting involved, but just having it there it’s an additional convenience for a marketplace based out of the US like Vera Group,” he said.

Magazine: Have your stake and earn fees too: Tushar Aggarwal on double dipping in DeFi

A doomsday-themed Solana NFT project is looking to sell 100,000 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to buy a Cold War-era nuclear bunker in Rutland, England.

Dead Bruv, the creators of the narrative-driven NFT project Meatbags, plan to mint 100,000 NFTs, with Meatbags holders being airdropped 10,000. The the rest will be sold off starting April 21, starting at $14 a pop, according to a post on the Meatbags X account. 

Holders will gain entry into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), called the Billionaire Bunker Club, a “fully decentralized, community-governed real-world asset onchain,” which will vote on what happens with the bunker if the effort to buy it is successful. 

Source: Meatbags

A few ideas floated by the NFT project include a “members-only survival resort with Doomsday DJ,” a location to hold end-of-the-world festivals, or “an Airbnb with caviar tastings and canned bean room service.” 

UK online auctioneer SDL Property Auctions has the bunker Dead Bruv is hoping to buy listed for a guide price of 650,000 British pounds ($862,257), and an auction date scheduled for April 24. 

The real estate listing says the bunker is located on 1.4 acres near a former reservoir and already has the relevant permissions for the winning bidder to convert it into a house. 

The bunker was built in 1960 to act as a monitoring post during the Cold War and was decommissioned in 1968. It was one of 1,500 tasked with reporting any nuclear bursts and monitoring any radioactive fallout, according to SDL Property Auctions.

Cointelegraph contacted SDL Property Auctions for comment. 

Nuclear bunker buy began as a joke

Robert, the pseudonymous co-founder of Dead Bruv, said in an April 18 statement to X that the initiative was about trying to “make NFTs fun again” and was sparked by a joke that turned into a “lightbulb moment.” 

“There’s not much to compare this to, but these are the kinds of things that made me fall in love with NFTs in the first place. Taking risks. Getting creative. Pushing the boundaries of what this tech can do to create something completely new, absurd, and incredible,” he said. 

“When something comes from a place of, this is completely insane, we gotta do it, that’s when I know we’re onto something,” Robert added. 

Source: Robert

This isn’t the first time a DOA has turned to crowdfunding to buy an expensive item. ConstitutionDAO managed to raise about $47 million in Ether (ETH) in 2021 to purchase an original copy of the United States Constitution, which was going under the hammer at auctioneer Sotheby’s. 

Related: NFT sales plunge 63% in Q1, but Pudgy Penguins, Doodles buck trend

Ultimately, they were unsuccessful. The winning bid was $43.2 million, and the DAO was limited to a bid of $43 million by Sotheby’s to factor in taxes and the costs required to protect, insure and move the Constitution. 

Meanwhile, LinksDAO secured the winning bid to purchase Scotland-based Spey Bay Golf Club in May 2023. The DAO claims it added the US-based Hillcrest Country Club to its holdings in February. 

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