Solana's recovery after the FTX collapse has been both resilient and remarkable, marking a significant resurgence in the crypto market despite initial setbacks.
One of the many reasons Solana has been so successful recently has been the quality of developers building protocols on the blockchain.
So, we thought it’d be a good idea to take a look at five Solana protocols and their associated bluechip governance tokens.
Let’s jump right in!
Solana resurgence
When FTX went bankrupt in November 2023, Solana's native token, SOL, experienced a sharp decrease in value—sparking fears about the blockchain’s future.
But despite these challenges, Solana demonstrated an admirable comeback, driven by several key factors.
First, the inherent strengths of the blockchain itself—its high transaction speed and low fees—continued to attract developers, which bolstered its recovery and utility in the crypto space.
Additionally, the Solana ecosystem has seen technological advancements such as state compression and token extensions, which have made innovative applications cheaper and more feasible.
Moreover, SOL's market performance in 2023 and 2024 outpaced general market trends, suggesting a strong rebound in investor confidence.
Today, Solana has more NFT traders and volume than Ethereum, an equivalent DeFi trading volume, and is the fourth largest blockchain by market cap—trailing Bitcoin, Ethereum, and BNB Chain.
Now, let’s take a look at five Solana protocols and their associated bluechip governance token.
Solana bluechip tokens
Granted, Solana is home to many high-quality teams building cutting-edge and innovative protocols.
However, due to our limited scope, we’re going to explore five protocols: Jito, Jupiter, Wormhole, Kamino, and Tensor.
Jito
Jito is the largest liquid staking token (LST) provider on Solana, surpassing Marinade in November 2023.
When staking in Jito’s stake pools, you receive yield-bearing JitoSOL, which represents your original SOL deposit and any accrued staking and MEV rewards.
For this reason, many have described Jito as combining the best of both worlds: Lido’s liquid staking and Flashbot’s MEV capabilities.
Jito's governance token, JTO, allows community members to have a direct impact on the decision-making and direction of the protocol.
As such, the JTO governance token might be used for:
- JitoSOL Stake Pool: Setting and modifying fees
- StakeNet: Updating delegation strategies
- Product: Contributing to the development and improvement of Jito’s product portfolio
- Economics: Managing the DAO treasury and fees generated from JitoSOL
Jupiter
Initially, Jupiter started as a liquidity aggregator for token swaps, similar to 1inch on Ethereum.
However, just recently, the platform also added GMX-style perpetual futures. In the future, Jupiter also plans on releasing a decentralized stablecoin: SUSD.
JUP is Jupiter’s governance token which allows community members to approve, sanction, and vote on all aspects of the platform.
Currently, the most active involvement of token holders revolves around Jupiter’s LFG Launchpad and working groups.
The LFG Launchpad allows token holders to vote on which tokens should be launched and airdropped with the help of Jupiter’s infrastructure.
The working groups, on the other hand, allow Jupiter ecosystem members to implement various initiatives with the goal of bringing in new users and increasing the adoption of blockchain technology. The creation and budget for each working group is voted on by token holders.
Wormhole
Wormhole is a connectivity platform that enables projects to build either standalone crypto bridges or multi-chain applications.
While crypto bridges connect different blockchains through an independent, dedicated user interface, multichain applications allow you to transfer digital assets within an application itself—eliminating the need for dedicated crypto bridges.
Discover projects from the Wormhole ecosystem here.
Moreover, W is the governance token of the Wormhole platform.
As a governance token, W allows holders to take responsibility of these and other decisions and actions:
- Adding and removing blockchain connections to Wormhole
- Upgrading smart contracts across Wormhole
- Adjusting fees across various products of Wormhole
- Expanding or adding new parties to the Guardian set
- Adjusting rate limits (a security feature)
- Token utility and design
Kamino
Kamino mainly offers lending and borrowing. But that's not all.
This Solana protocol also provides you with access to a plethora of liquidity options, so you can take advantage of multiple DeFi strategies.
Here's an overview of Kamino's product portfolio:
- Lending
- Borrowing
- Interest Rates
- Vaults
Going further, KMNO is the governance token of the Kamino platform, i.e., protocol.
As with all governance tokens, KMNO allows you to guide and impact the protocol's direction via on-chain governance from its dedicated decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
According to Kamino, KMNO's future utility will offer:
- Control over KMNO Incentive Programs for protocol users
- Control of protocol revenue allocation
- Voting for decentralized protocol operations and risk management
Tensor
Tensor is an NFT marketplace aggregator designed for professional traders to buy, sell, and trade NFTs on Solana. Having said that, Tensor also offers a “Lite” mode with a sleek interface and streamlined features for common NFT collectors.
This multi-pronged approach is bearing fruit, as the trading platform has become one of Solana’s leading NFT marketplaces in terms of monthly trading volume.
As for features, Tensor offers an NFT minting launchpad, NFT royalty customizing tools, and AMM-style liquidity pools.
As of now, not many NFT marketplaces have a governance token. But Tensor, with TNSR, seems to be following a similar path as Blur.
Mainly, TNSR is used by the community to manage key parameters of the Tensor protocol.
Additionally, TNSR can be used by holders to get discounts when trading on Tensor—e.g. if a listing is created in TNSR, the protocol fee is reduced by 25%.
How to trade Solana tokens with Phantom?
Note: You need to hold SOL in your Phantom wallet to complete this process.
- Log-in to your Phantom wallet on the browser extension or mobile app
- Select the tokens you’d like to trade
- Click the swap icon (arrow) at the bottom
- Review the order
- Submit!
How to set up a Phantom wallet?
If you’d like a friendly multichain wallet for crypto, DeFi, and NFTs, try us out. We offer browser extensions for Firefox, Chrome, Brave, and Edge, as well as apps for iOS and Android.
First, download Phantom. Then, create a new wallet.
If you’d like to fund, or send funds to, your Phantom wallet, you can do so via the “Buy” button on your asset tab. We offer various funding options, such as MoonPay, PayPal, and Robinhood to make it easy for you to fund your wallet.
Once you do that, you're ready to go.
How to bridge tokens to Solana with Phantom?
If this is your first time using Solana, you might have most of your assets on other blockchains, such as Ethereum and Polygon. With our Cross-Chain Swapper, you can bridge tokens across Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon right in your Phantom wallet. Here’s how:
Disclaimer: This guide is strictly for educational purposes only and doesn’t constitute financial or legal advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.
