Delayed Unstake returns your SOL at the start of the next epoch. In most cases that is 1 to 2 days. If you start in the last 4 hours of an epoch it takes one epoch longer, so up to about 4 days. When it is ready, you return to the app and claim.

It works for Marinade Native, Marinade Select, native stake accounts in your wallet, and mSOL.

Cost: a flat 0.003 SOL for Marinade Native and Marinade Select, including Native positions paid in a Recipe reward token, charged from your wallet's SOL balance rather than deducted from the amount you unstake. It is the same amount whatever the size of your position. Marinade Liquid (mSOL) carries a 0.2% protocol fee.

If you need SOL immediately, use Instant Unstake instead.

A Solana epoch lasts about two days. The diagram below splits it into three periods, and where you are when you start decides when your SOL arrives.

Why B costs you an extra epoch: starting that late, your stake does not begin deactivating until the following epoch, so it stays staked through the whole of it and only becomes claimable at the start of the one after.

The countdown in the app reflects current epoch progress and shifts slightly as block times vary.

The price of SOL does not affect this. Delayed Unstake is not a trade. You are taking your own SOL back out, plus the rewards it earned. Whether SOL is up or down in dollars makes no difference to the number of SOL you receive.

Marinade Native, Marinade Select, and other native stake accounts: you receive the full SOL balance of your stake account, rewards included. Rewards were added to that account every epoch while you were staked, so you get back more SOL than you put in.

mSOL: your mSOL is burned and redeemed for SOL at the current mSOL rate. That rate only goes up, because staking rewards accumulate in the pool rather than in your token balance. Your mSOL balance never changed, but each one is worth more SOL than when you received it.

Example. You staked 10 SOL and received 9.1 mSOL. Some months later, each mSOL redeems for 1.12 SOL. Unstaking all 9.1 mSOL returns about 10.19 SOL, less the 0.2% fee. You are holding the same 9.1 mSOL you always had. It is simply worth more SOL now.

The amount is fixed at the moment you start, not when you claim.

Q: Why does Instant Unstake show more SOL than Delayed Unstake for my mSOL?

A: Because the two carry different costs, and for mSOL they often favour Instant.

When mSOL liquidity is deep, that spread is smaller than 0.2%, so Instant returns more SOL and pays you immediately. When liquidity is thin, for example when many people are unstaking at once, the spread widens and Delayed becomes the better of the two.

There is no need to guess. Open both options in the app and compare the Receive amount. Both quotes already include every cost, so the larger number is the better deal.