Sanctum: Innovator of Liquid Staking

In the first part of the Sanctum study, we explored how liquid staking is changing asset management in PoS networks. Liquid staking technology can issue liquid staking tokens (LSTs), representing the staked amount and accumulated rewards. Notably, Solana's staking rate exceeds 70%, much higher than Ethereum's 27%. However, LSTs only account for 6% of Solana's staking supply, while Ethereum exceeds 40%, presenting a significant market opportunity for Sanctum within the Solana ecosystem.

This article will focus on the recent token airdrop of Sanctum, token economics, the success of Alpha Vault, key DeFi partner integrations, and the growth of LSTs.

Token Economics

Sanctum uses a multi-token system to support its ecosystem. To ensure that LSTs have Liquidity, Sanctum has introduced the Infinity Pool, which is a multi-LST liquidity pool that allows for exchanges between all LSTs in the pool. Users can become liquidity providers by depositing any whitelisted LST and earn $INF tokens, which can accumulate stake rewards, benefit from trading fees from the pool, and can be directly used in DeFi protocols.

The governance token $CLOUD of Sanctum controls the capital and attention within the ecosystem. Partners need to stake $CLOUD to qualify for the Sanctum Verified Partner (SVP) program, while $CLOUD holders vote to decide which partners are accepted.

The total supply of $CLOUD tokens is 1 billion, distributed as follows:

• Launch Liquidity (20%):10% for the initial airdrop, 10% for launching liquidity
• Community Reserve (30%): Managed by the community, used for growth plans.
• Strategic Reserve (11%): for ecosystem growth and partnerships
• Team (25%): allocated to founders and core contributors
• Investor (13%)
• Jupiter LFG(1%)

Token Generation Events and Airdrops

The Sanctum airdrop took place on July 18, distributing 10% of the CLOUD tokens, with 5% allocated to the capital portion and 5% allocated to the honest portion. A total of 108,185 accounts were eligible for the airdrop.

Participants can choose the "Long-term Alignment" method to wait for token distribution and receive a larger reward, up to 100%. Alternatively, they can choose the "Sanctum Exploration" method to receive tokens immediately but without rewards. To receive the full 100% reward for the capital portion, a wait of 14 days is required. The full 100% reward for the honest portion is distributed after a wait of 180 days.

The community's reaction to the airdrop was not as expected, with some users expressing dissatisfaction with the distribution method. The Sanctum team acknowledged there were some issues and promised to review the submitted content more carefully in the future.

As of July 24, 12.44 million CLOUD tokens have been claimed, accounting for 24.24% of the total allocation.

On the same day, Sanctum TGE minted 1 billion CLOUD tokens, allocated 60/40 to the team and community cold wallets. 250 million tokens are for Liquidity, with 100 million launched through the Meteora DLMM startup pool. The tokens available in the first year reach 300 million, with up to 125 million tokens initially circulating.

The Success of Alpha Vault

Alpha Vault is a special feature created in collaboration between Sanctum and Meteora, allowing long-term supporters to purchase $CLOUD tokens at potentially better prices. Participants can deposit USDC into the vault to obtain $CLOUD tokens at a discounted rate, but these tokens have a six-month vesting period.

The vault has a limit of 50 million CLOUD tokens, with a maximum purchase limit of 7.5 million USDC. If the total subscription reaches 7.5 million USD TVL, the highest price paid by vault buyers will be $0.15 per CLOUD.

Alpha Vault was very successful, with an oversubscription of 416%, demonstrating strong interest and confidence in the Sanctum project.

Future Outlook of Sanctum

Exchange listing and DeFi collaboration

$CLOUD has been listed on major exchanges such as Kraken, Bybit, and Bitget, increasing its Liquidity and accessibility. In addition, Sanctum has partnered with DeFi platforms like Kamino, Drift, Texture, and Orca to expand its ecosystem capabilities.

Sanctum Launchpad

The Sanctum plan aims to create a Launchpad to support new projects and innovative products within the community. The platform will utilize LSTs to fund pioneering projects, such as using pathSOL yields to finance free NFT minting.

Sanctum Profiles V2

Sanctum is upgrading its profile feature to allow users to build and expand their reputation within the community. Users will be able to create their own LSTs to monetize their activities in various ways.

Sanctum Pay

Sanctum is collaborating with BasedApp to develop a Web3.0 financial platform, creating the first debit card supported by LST. This will allow users to make purchases directly from the staking rewards of cardSOL, without the need to liquidate their SOL holdings.

Summary

Sanctum provides an innovative solution to the liquidity issues in staking, significantly enhancing the utility and accessibility of staked assets. Its TVL is approaching $1 billion and integrates with multiple platforms, demonstrating strong growth potential.

However, the DeFi space on Solana is highly competitive, and Sanctum needs to continuously innovate to maintain its leading position. Considering its market capitalization and growth prospects, the $CLOUD token is worth paying attention to.