What you are looking at in your dashboard
Marinade Native positions show the token your rewards are paid in, such as "SOL rewards" or "BTC rewards."
Marinade Native with SOL rewards: Standard Marinade Native. Rewards compound back into your staked position in SOL.
Marinade Native with another reward token: Custom Reward Tokens (Marinade Recipes). Your SOL is still staked, but rewards are paid to you in your chosen token, such as cbBTC or USDG.
You can hold several Marinade Native positions at once, each with a different reward token and its own APY, so two "Marinade Native" rows can show different figures. The USDC Earn Vault is a separate product, not SOL staking.
Why the APY differs
Your SOL earns the same underlying Solana staking rewards (inflation and MEV) either way. The reward token adds no yield on its own. What differs is routing and payout:
Marinade Native: Your stake is spread across many validators through the Stake Auction Marketplace (SAM), and your rewards include a share of the bids validators pay to win that stake. The APY shown is a blended average across those validators. Rewards auto-compound in SOL every epoch, with nothing sent to your wallet.
Custom Reward Tokens: Your SOL is delegated to a dedicated Marinade validator, and the rewards are converted into your chosen token and sent to your wallet each epoch, roughly every 2 days. As with Marinade Native, Marinade takes no performance fee on the rewards.
Because the two use different validator routing and payout paths, their APYs can differ, and either can be higher at a given time. Your dashboard shows the realized rate for each position.
FAQ
Q: Is Marinade Recipes the same as Custom Reward Tokens?
A: Yes. Marinade Recipes and Custom Reward Tokens are the same thing. You may still see the older names USDG Strategy or Marinade USDG in community channels; they refer to the same feature, not a separate product.
Q: Do I receive SOL in my wallet?
A: No. You receive your chosen reward token, such as USDG. Your SOL stays staked.
Q: Do Marinade Native rewards compound automatically?
A: Yes. SOL rewards are added back into your staked position every epoch. No claiming or restaking needed.
Q: How often am I paid with Custom Reward Tokens?
A: Every epoch, roughly every 2 days.
Q: Does Marinade charge a fee on rewards?
A: Marinade takes no performance fee on staking rewards for any of its SOL staking products. Delayed unstake is free. Instant unstake is priced by the market, typically 0.10% to 0.40%, with no Marinade protocol fee.
Q: How does the Marinade Native APY compare to Custom Reward Tokens (Marinade Recipes)?
A: Native uses many validators at a blended rate and compounds in SOL. Custom Reward Tokens uses one full-passthrough validator and pays out in your chosen token, so the two APYs can differ.