Solana's ecosystem is one of the fastest-growing in crypto. These are the top dApps every Solana user should know — for swaps, staking, lending, and more.
Jupiter is the leading DEX aggregator on Solana. It finds the best price across all Solana DEXs for your swap. $2B+ daily volume. Free to use — fees come from the DEX, not Jupiter. Best practice: always use Jupiter instead of going directly to any single DEX.
Kamino Finance is Solana's leading lending protocol with $2.1B TVL. Supply USDC for 7.2% APY, or borrow against SOL collateral. Cleaner UI than Aave, lower fees (Solana is cheap). Best for Solana-native users who want to earn yield or get liquidity.
Marinade is Solana's liquid staking protocol. Stake SOL, receive mSOL (liquid staking token). Currently earning ~7% APY. mSOL can be used as collateral in Kamino or other DeFi — so you stack yields: 7% staking + DeFi yield on top.
You need: SOL (buy on CoinDCX), Phantom wallet (free download), bridge SOL from exchange to Phantom. Then: Jupiter for any swap, Marinade for staking, Kamino for lending. Solana fees are $0.001 per transaction — so DeFi is actually affordable here.
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