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Introduction

Crest is a swap market on the crest of Solana staking yield. Here is what it does, who it is for, and where to go next.

Solana staking yield arrives in two parts. The base is inflation, minted on a published schedule. The crest is Jito tips: what traders and searchers pay validators to land their transactions first. You can plan on the base. The crest moves with on-chain activity, epoch by epoch.

Crest makes the crest tradable. A Crest swap pays the difference between the crest and a fixed rate, once for every epoch of a market, in SOL.

  • Long crest receives the crest and pays the fixed rate. It is paid when blocks are busier than the market priced in.
  • Short crest receives the fixed rate and pays the crest. For a validator, an LST issuer or a staker, it turns income that swings with activity into a known number.

How a swap works#

  1. A market opens#

    A market covers one to ten future epochs. Until its first epoch begins, anyone can place an order: a side, a notional in SOL and a fixed rate.

  2. Someone takes the order#

    Another wallet takes the whole order and gets the other side. Each side deposits enough to pay two worst-case epochs, plus a small reserve. The program holds both deposits.

  3. Every epoch settles#

    When an epoch ends, its crest is posted on chain as a checkpoint and can be challenged. Once it is final, the epoch settles: the difference between the crest and the fixed rate moves from one deposit to the other.

  4. The position pays out#

    After the last epoch, or earlier if one side can no longer cover the next epoch, the position closes and both balances go back to their wallets.

What to expect#

  • One number per epoch, read on chain. The program reads each cohort validator's Jito tip account itself when a checkpoint is posted, and again before it becomes final. Only the stake behind the rate is attested, and that is bonded and open to challenge.
  • Funded, not promised. Every payment comes out of deposits the program already holds, so nothing is owed once a position closes.
  • Exact integers. Rates are parts per billion per epoch and amounts are lamports. The app works out deposits and payments with the same integer arithmetic the program runs.
  • Your keys stay in your wallet. The app builds each transaction and your wallet signs it. Crest's services never hold a key that can move your funds.

Where to go next#

QuickstartConnect a wallet and place or take your first order.The crest indexWhat the index counts, and what it leaves out.Deposits and marginWhat each side deposits, and when a position closes early.Risks and trustWhat can go wrong, and which parts rely on someone else.