{"investigation":{"slug":"blazestake","entity_name":"BlazeStake","trust_score":73,"severity_base":null,"score_modifier":0,"confidence":0.68,"status":"published","content_type":"investigation","summary":"BlazeStake, operated by the pseudonymous SolBlaze team, is a non-custodial Solana liquid staking protocol that issues bSOL against SOL delegated across 200+ validators. It runs on Solana Labs' audited stake-pool program, discloses eight third-party audits of that shared program, and is described by its own documentation as governed by an ecosystem multisig overseen by the Solana Foundation, though the composition of that multisig and specifics of admin-key controls are not publicly itemized in available sources. No hacks, exploits, or regulatory actions against BlazeStake specifically have been found. The most material adverse event on record remains the April 2024 public dispute with MarginFi over reward-token distribution, which was reportedly resolved; a March 2026 joint SEC/CFTC statement classifying liquid staking as generally non-securities activity reduces regulatory tail risk for the category as a whole.","sections":[{"content":"BlazeStake is the flagship liquid-staking product of SolBlaze. Users deposit SOL into a stake pool and receive bSOL (BlazeStake Staked SOL), an SPL token whose redemption value in SOL rises each epoch as staking rewards compound; bSOL itself does not rebase. According to BlazeStake's own documentation, deposits are pooled and delegated automatically across a validator set the protocol describes as exceeding 200 validators, which it markets as the largest validator set of any Solana stake pool. The protocol uses the audited, open-source Solana Labs stake-pool program (program ID SPoo1Ku8WFXoNDMHPsrGSTSG1Y47rzgn41SLUNakuHy per BlazeStake's developer documentation) rather than a fully bespoke staking contract. BlazeStake advertises a 0% pool commission on staking rewards, according to a third-party project review. Two withdrawal paths exist: an 'instant unstake' that pulls SOL directly from pool liquidity for a reported fee around 0.1%, and a 'delayed unstake' that converts bSOL into a deactivating stake account, settling after Solana's standard multi-day unstake cooldown; fee figures for these paths are drawn from secondary sources (search-engine summaries of the docs and comparison sites) rather than a primary BlazeStake fee-schedule page fetched directly, so they should be treated as indicative rather than fully verified.","heading":"Protocol Mechanics","sources":[{"url":"https://stake-docs.solblaze.org/","name":"BlazeStake documentation — Welcome","type":"official","credibility":1},{"url":"https://stake-docs.solblaze.org/developers/addresses","name":"BlazeStake documentation — Developer Addresses","type":"official","credibility":1},{"url":"https://solanacompass.com/projects/solblaze","name":"Solana Compass — SolBlaze project review","type":"research","credibility":2},{"url":"https://defillama.com/protocol/blazestake","name":"DeFiLlama — BlazeStake protocol page (API)","type":"on_chain","credibility":2}],"severity":"low"},{"content":"BlazeStake states it is 'fully non-custodial' and that the underlying stake-pool program is designed so that 'no way for anyone else to steal your SOL from the stake pool' exists, including protection against pool-operator access to user funds, per the protocol's own security-overview page. The same page states the program's upgrade authority is governed by 'a robust ecosystem multisig that is overseen by the Solana Foundation,' intended to prevent malicious deployments. However, BlazeStake's public documentation does not itemize the multisig's signer composition, signature threshold, or timelock parameters, nor does it detail a specific freeze authority or oracle dependency for bSOL pricing (bSOL's exchange rate is derived algorithmically from on-chain stake-pool state rather than an external price oracle, consistent with how the shared Solana Labs stake-pool program works generally). Some secondary web summaries referenced a '5-of-7 multisig with 72-hour timelock,' but this specific figure could not be confirmed against a primary BlazeStake source and is treated here as unverified. Because BlazeStake shares its core program with numerous other Solana stake pools, upgrade-authority governance is largely a property of the shared program and its ecosystem multisig rather than something SolBlaze controls unilaterally — this reduces (but does not eliminate) single-team key risk.","heading":"Custody, Upgrade Authority, and Admin Control","sources":[{"url":"https://stake-docs.solblaze.org/protocol/security-overview","name":"BlazeStake documentation — Security Overview","type":"official","credibility":1},{"url":"https://stake-docs.solblaze.org/developers/addresses","name":"BlazeStake documentation — Addresses","type":"official","credibility":1}],"severity":"medium"},{"content":"BlazeStake's documentation lists eight security audits performed on the Solana Labs stake-pool program it relies on: Kudelski (Jul 2021), Neodyme (Oct 2021), Quantstamp (Oct 2021, initial and re-review), Neodyme (Dec 2022), Neodyme (Jan 2023), Halborn (Jan 2023), OtterSec (Jan 2023), and Neodyme (Nov 2023). Critically, these audits reviewed the shared, open-source Solana Labs stake-pool program used by many Solana stake pools, not SolBlaze-specific application code, front-end, or governance/multisig logic — a distinction BlazeStake's own documentation acknowledges. Secondary sources describe an active Immunefi bug bounty reportedly worth up to $3 million and additionally cite audits by Neodyme, OtterSec, Halborn, and Certik as covering BlazeStake more broadly, but these secondary claims (bounty size, Certik involvement) were not independently verified against a primary BlazeStake or Immunefi page during this investigation and should be treated as lower-confidence. No specific vulnerability findings, critical or otherwise, were identified for BlazeStake or the underlying stake-pool program in available sources, and no history of exploits or fund loss involving BlazeStake was found in a search of Solana hack retrospectives.","heading":"Security Audits and Bug Bounty","sources":[{"url":"https://stake-docs.solblaze.org/protocol/audits","name":"BlazeStake documentation — Audits","type":"official","credibility":1},{"url":"https://www.helius.dev/blog/solana-hacks","name":"Helius — Solana Hacks, Bugs, and Exploits: A Complete History","type":"research","credibility":2}],"severity":"low"},{"content":"SolBlaze operates under a pseudonymous team, publicly represented under the 'SolBlaze' brand (e.g., the X/Twitter account @solblaze_org) rather than named individuals. Third-party project databases describe SolBlaze as a Solana-native ecosystem builder founded in late 2021, with a scope that has expanded beyond staking into token tooling and a permissionless platform for launching custom liquid staking tokens, but do not disclose the real-world identities, jurisdiction, or legal-entity structure behind the project. This pseudonymity is a known industry pattern for early Solana DeFi projects and is not itself evidence of wrongdoing, but it does limit the ability to assess legal accountability, jurisdictional exposure, or beneficial-ownership risk. No court filings, regulatory actions, or law-enforcement inquiries naming SolBlaze or BlazeStake were identified.","heading":"Team Transparency","sources":[{"url":"https://www.rootdata.com/Projects/detail/SolBlaze","name":"RootData — SolBlaze project profile","type":"research","credibility":3},{"url":"https://github.com/SolBlazeOrg","name":"SolBlaze GitHub organization","type":"official","credibility":2}],"severity":"medium"},{"content":"According to DeFiLlama's on-chain data feed for BlazeStake, the protocol's tracked TVL was approximately $69.4 million as of August 8, 2026, having fluctuated in the roughly $60–70 million range over the preceding week. This figure represents a small fraction of the broader Solana liquid-staking market: third-party research (Solana Compass, mid-2026 commentary) describes total Solana LST supply exceeding $8 billion, with Jito's jitoSOL as the largest single issuer — reported by one 2026 industry source as holding roughly 20%+ of LST market share after declining from an earlier ~35%, amid competition from Sanctum-enabled branded LSTs — followed by Marinade's mSOL and other entrants. BlazeStake/bSOL is consistently named among the four to five established Solana LST issuers (alongside Jito, Marinade, and Sanctum-ecosystem tokens) but does not appear to be the largest by TVL; precise current market-share percentages specific to bSOL could not be confirmed from a primary, dated source and are therefore not stated numerically here. Solana Compass ranks SolBlaze as its #3 liquid-staking listing by its own methodology, but this ranking's underlying criteria were not independently verified.","heading":"Adoption, TVL, and Market-Share Context","sources":[{"url":"https://defillama.com/protocol/blazestake","name":"DeFiLlama API — BlazeStake TVL data","type":"on_chain","credibility":2},{"url":"https://solanacompass.com/learn/Lightspeed/whats-next-for-solana-in-2026","name":"Solana Compass — Solana 2026 predictions: LST market shifts","type":"research","credibility":2},{"url":"https://solanacompass.com/projects/solblaze","name":"Solana Compass — SolBlaze project review","type":"research","credibility":2}],"severity":"low"},{"content":"BlazeStake markets itself on decentralization grounds, stating it distributes delegated SOL across more than 200 validators using a delegation strategy that weights validators by APY, performance, and contribution to network decentralization, and that it deliberately under-allocates to the largest, already stake-heavy validators. Solana Compass corroborates the count of 200+ validators and frames it against a broader network concentration concern — that more than one-third of all staked SOL flows to roughly 32 of Solana's 1,800+ active validators — positioning BlazeStake's broad distribution as a mitigant to that structural concentration risk. This is a favorable decentralization posture relative to some competitor LSTs, though it is a design claim made largely by the protocol itself and corroborated by only one independent secondary source reviewed here, rather than by an independent on-chain audit of current validator-set concentration performed for this investigation. No information was found in this investigation about BlazeStake's specific handling of MEV (e.g., Jito-client enforcement or MEV-tip distribution), and public comparisons suggest bSOL's yield generally trails jitoSOL's blended APY, which benefits from MEV capture.","heading":"Validator Decentralization and MEV Posture","sources":[{"url":"https://stake-docs.solblaze.org/protocol/delegation-strategy","name":"BlazeStake documentation — Delegation Strategy","type":"official","credibility":1},{"url":"https://solanacompass.com/projects/solblaze","name":"Solana Compass — SolBlaze project review","type":"research","credibility":2}],"severity":"low"},{"content":"In April 2024, SolBlaze publicly accused the Solana lending protocol MarginFi of acting in bad faith by allegedly failing to distribute BLZE token 'emissions' rewards to MarginFi depositors as intended under SolBlaze's reward guidelines, and further alleged MarginFi had dumped SolBlaze-airdropped governance tokens rather than passing them to users. The accusations became public on the same day MarginFi co-founder Edgar Pavlovsky announced his resignation citing internal disagreements, a coincidence that intensified scrutiny of MarginFi and contributed to reported outflows exceeding $200 million from that protocol, as covered by CoinDesk and Decrypt. According to subsequent reporting, SolBlaze said it had since communicated with and reached a resolution with the MarginFi team, and MarginFi's engineering team reportedly acknowledged the oversight and committed to reimbursing affected users. No indication was found that SolBlaze itself mishandled user funds in this episode; the dispute centered on a third-party integrator's alleged failure to pass through reward tokens, not on BlazeStake's core staking mechanics. No comparable public dispute involving BlazeStake has been identified since April 2024 through the current investigation date (August 2026).","heading":"Disputes: The April 2024 MarginFi Episode","sources":[{"url":"https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/04/11/chaos-at-marginfi-shakes-up-solana-defis-borrow-and-lend-landscape","name":"CoinDesk — Chaos at MarginFi Shakes up Solana DeFi's Borrow-and-Lend Landscape","type":"news_article","credibility":1},{"url":"https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/04/11/marginfi-leader-resigns-on-fiery-day-for-major-solana-lender","name":"CoinDesk — MarginFi Leader Resigns on Fiery Day for Major Solana Lender","type":"news_article","credibility":1},{"url":"https://decrypt.co/225844/solana-project-marginfi-withdrawals-top-214-million","name":"Decrypt — Solana Project Marginfi Withdrawals Top $214 Million After CEO's Resignation","type":"news_article","credibility":1},{"url":"https://www.theblock.co/post/287748/marginfi-outflow","name":"The Block — MarginFi sees $155 million outflow amid leadership shakeup","type":"news_article","credibility":1}],"severity":"medium"},{"content":"Liquid staking as a category has seen substantial regulatory de-risking. Reporting indicates the SEC issued a statement (around August 2025) that liquid staking activities generally do not involve the offer and sale of securities, provided the reward amount is not fixed or guaranteed by the provider. This was followed, according to industry coverage, by a joint SEC/CFTC interpretive statement around March 2026 that classified SOL as a digital commodity and stated that solo, self-custodial, custodial, and liquid staking models generally do not constitute securities transactions. If accurately reported, this reduces one category of regulatory tail risk that could have applied to BlazeStake and similar Solana LST issuers, since bSOL's structure (variable, rewards-linked redemption value with no fixed promised return) appears consistent with the described non-security framing. This claim rests on industry/crypto-media summaries of regulatory statements rather than a primary SEC release verified directly in this investigation, and should be treated as moderately, not fully, confirmed.","heading":"Regulatory Environment for Liquid Staking","sources":[{"url":"https://solanafloor.com/news/sec-liquid-staking-activities-are-not-securities","name":"SolanaFloor — SEC: Liquid Staking Activities Are Not Securities","type":"news_article","credibility":2},{"url":"https://phemex.com/blogs/sec-ruling-crypto-etfs-staking","name":"Phemex — SEC Crypto Ruling Impact: What Changes for ETFs, Staking, and Institutional Access in 2026","type":"news_article","credibility":2}],"severity":"low"},{"content":"No confirmed historical depeg event specifically involving bSOL was identified in this investigation. Industry commentary generally notes that all Solana liquid staking tokens, including bSOL, carry inherent smart-contract, liquidity, and depeg risk layered on top of ordinary validator risk, and that a depeg is structurally possible for any LST because the peg mechanism has a duration/settlement component (instant-unstake liquidity can be exhausted, forcing secondary-market trading of bSOL away from its accounting-derived redemption value during periods of stress or thin liquidity). Because BlazeStake's TVL (~$69 million as of August 2026, per DeFiLlama) is materially smaller than larger Solana LSTs such as jitoSOL, bSOL's on-chain and DeFi liquidity is likely thinner in absolute terms, which could plausibly increase secondary-market slippage or peg deviation risk during stress relative to larger-TVL LSTs — this is a reasoned inference from TVL data, not a confirmed historical event, and is flagged as such.","heading":"Depeg and Liquidity Risk","sources":[{"url":"https://defillama.com/protocol/blazestake","name":"DeFiLlama API — BlazeStake TVL data","type":"on_chain","credibility":2},{"url":"https://www.diadata.org/liquid-staking/solana/bsol/","name":"DIA Data — bSOL liquid staking overview","type":"research","credibility":2}],"severity":"medium"}],"timeline":[{"date":"2022-05","event":"BlazeStake liquid staking protocol launches on Solana, issuing bSOL against pooled SOL delegated across a broad validator set (date approximate, per prior AVOID.NET investigation and general project history).","source":"Solana Compass project review","source_url":"https://solanacompass.com/projects/solblaze","date_original":"2022-05-01"},{"date":"2024-04-10","event":"SolBlaze publicly accuses MarginFi of failing to distribute BLZE emissions to depositors and of dumping SolBlaze governance-token airdrops; the accusation surfaces the same day MarginFi co-founder Edgar Pavlovsky announces his resignation.","source":"CoinDesk","source_url":"https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/04/11/marginfi-leader-resigns-on-fiery-day-for-major-solana-lender"},{"date":"2024-04-11","event":"MarginFi sees reported outflows exceeding $200 million amid the leadership shakeup and public dispute with SolBlaze; MarginFi's engineering team later acknowledges the reward-distribution oversight and commits to reimbursing affected users.","source":"Decrypt / The Block","source_url":"https://decrypt.co/225844/solana-project-marginfi-withdrawals-top-214-million"},{"date":"2025-08-05","event":"SEC issues a statement indicating liquid staking activities generally do not involve the offer and sale of securities, absent fixed/guaranteed rewards — a category-wide clarification relevant to BlazeStake and other Solana LST issuers.","source":"SolanaFloor","source_url":"https://solanafloor.com/news/sec-liquid-staking-activities-are-not-securities"},{"date":"2026-03-17","event":"SEC and CFTC reportedly issue a joint interpretive statement classifying SOL as a digital commodity and stating that solo, self-custodial, custodial, and liquid staking models generally do not constitute securities transactions.","source":"Phemex","source_url":"https://phemex.com/blogs/sec-ruling-crypto-etfs-staking"},{"date":"2026-08-08","event":"BlazeStake's tracked TVL stands at approximately $69.4 million per DeFiLlama's on-chain data feed.","source":"DeFiLlama API","source_url":"https://defillama.com/protocol/blazestake"}],"sources_used":[{"url":"https://stake-docs.solblaze.org/","name":"BlazeStake documentation — Welcome","type":"official","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260718140342/https://stake-docs.solblaze.org/","credibility":1,"archive_timestamp":"2026-07-18T14:03:42+00:00"},{"url":"https://stake-docs.solblaze.org/developers/addresses","name":"BlazeStake documentation — Developer Addresses","type":"official","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260718140330/https://stake-docs.solblaze.org/developers/addresses","credibility":1,"archive_timestamp":"2026-07-18T14:03:30+00:00"},{"url":"https://stake-docs.solblaze.org/protocol/security-overview","name":"BlazeStake documentation — Security Overview","type":"official","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260515013926/https://stake-docs.solblaze.org/protocol/security-overview","credibility":1,"archive_timestamp":"2026-05-15T01:39:26+00:00"},{"url":"https://stake-docs.solblaze.org/protocol/audits","name":"BlazeStake documentation — Audits","type":"official","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260722142506/https://stake-docs.solblaze.org/protocol/audits","credibility":1,"archive_timestamp":"2026-07-22T14:25:06+00:00"},{"url":"https://stake-docs.solblaze.org/protocol/delegation-strategy","name":"BlazeStake documentation — Delegation Strategy","type":"official","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260723225321/https://stake-docs.solblaze.org/protocol/delegation-strategy","credibility":1,"archive_timestamp":"2026-07-23T22:53:21+00:00"},{"url":"https://solanacompass.com/projects/solblaze","name":"Solana Compass — SolBlaze project review","type":"research","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260413115247/https://solanacompass.com/projects/solblaze","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-04-13T11:52:47+00:00"},{"url":"https://solanacompass.com/learn/Lightspeed/whats-next-for-solana-in-2026","name":"Solana Compass — Solana 2026 predictions: LST market shifts","type":"research","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260728210454/https://solanacompass.com/learn/Lightspeed/whats-next-for-solana-in-2026","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-07-28T21:04:54+00:00"},{"url":"https://defillama.com/protocol/blazestake","name":"DeFiLlama API — BlazeStake TVL data","type":"on_chain","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20250916232427/https://defillama.com/protocol/blazestake","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2025-09-16T23:24:27+00:00"},{"url":"https://www.diadata.org/liquid-staking/solana/bsol/","name":"DIA Data — bSOL liquid staking overview","type":"research","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20250825015442/https://www.diadata.org/liquid-staking/solana/bsol/","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2025-08-25T01:54:42+00:00"},{"url":"https://www.helius.dev/blog/solana-hacks","name":"Helius — Solana Hacks, Bugs, and Exploits: A Complete History","type":"research","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260313201041/https://www.helius.dev/blog/solana-hacks","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-03-13T20:10:41+00:00"},{"url":"https://www.rootdata.com/Projects/detail/SolBlaze","name":"RootData — SolBlaze project profile","type":"research","archive_url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260809093301/https://www.rootdata.com/Projects/detail/SolBlaze","credibility":3,"archive_timestamp":"2026-08-09T09:33:01+00:00"},{"url":"https://github.com/SolBlazeOrg","name":"SolBlaze GitHub organization","type":"official","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260802054252/https://github.com/SolBlazeOrg","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-08-02T05:42:52+00:00"},{"url":"https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/04/11/chaos-at-marginfi-shakes-up-solana-defis-borrow-and-lend-landscape","name":"CoinDesk — Chaos at MarginFi Shakes up Solana DeFi's Borrow-and-Lend Landscape","type":"news_article","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260124052847/https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/04/11/chaos-at-marginfi-shakes-up-solana-defis-borrow-and-lend-landscape","credibility":1,"archive_timestamp":"2026-01-24T05:28:47+00:00"},{"url":"https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/04/11/marginfi-leader-resigns-on-fiery-day-for-major-solana-lender","name":"CoinDesk — MarginFi Leader Resigns on Fiery Day for Major Solana Lender","type":"news_article","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20251228013104/https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/04/11/marginfi-leader-resigns-on-fiery-day-for-major-solana-lender","credibility":1,"archive_timestamp":"2025-12-28T01:31:04+00:00"},{"url":"https://decrypt.co/225844/solana-project-marginfi-withdrawals-top-214-million","name":"Decrypt — Solana Project Marginfi Withdrawals Top $214 Million After CEO's Resignation","type":"news_article","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260624185944/https://decrypt.co/225844/solana-project-marginfi-withdrawals-top-214-million","credibility":1,"archive_timestamp":"2026-06-24T18:59:44+00:00"},{"url":"https://www.theblock.co/post/287748/marginfi-outflow","name":"The Block — MarginFi sees $155 million outflow amid leadership shakeup","type":"news_article","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260725164543/https://www.theblock.co/post/287748/marginfi-outflow","credibility":1,"archive_timestamp":"2026-07-25T16:45:43+00:00"},{"url":"https://solanafloor.com/news/sec-liquid-staking-activities-are-not-securities","name":"SolanaFloor — SEC: Liquid Staking Activities Are Not Securities","type":"news_article","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260216031952/https://solanafloor.com/news/sec-liquid-staking-activities-are-not-securities","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-02-16T03:19:52+00:00"},{"url":"https://phemex.com/blogs/sec-ruling-crypto-etfs-staking","name":"Phemex — SEC Crypto Ruling Impact: What Changes for ETFs, Staking, and Institutional Access in 2026","type":"news_article","archive_url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260809093130/https://phemex.com/blogs/sec-ruling-crypto-etfs-staking","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-08-09T09:31:30+00:00"}],"source_tags":[],"addresses":[],"reviewed":false,"reviewed_by":null,"model_used":"claude-code-investigator","created_at":"2026-05-31T20:27:58.49484+00:00","updated_at":"2026-08-09T09:34:04.583347+00:00"}}