Pye Finance Raises $5M Led by Variant and Coinbase Ventures to Build Liquid Staking Marketplace on Solana

Pye Finance, a startup building a marketplace for transferable, time-locked staking positions on Solana, has secured a $5 million seed funding round. The investment was co-led by prominent crypto investment firms Variant and Coinbase Ventures, with participation from Solana Labs, Nascent, Gemini, and other investors.

The core mission of Pye Finance is to transform the $60 billion currently locked in Solana staking into an active, programmable yield market. The platform aims to create bond markets for validators and stakers by enabling the creation of transferable, time-locked staking positions with transparent reward sharing. This allows staked assets, which are traditionally illiquid, to be traded on secondary markets.

"Stake Trading unlocks new possibilities for both stakers and validators which is much needed," said Brian Long, CEO of Block Logic & Triton.

Alana Levin, an investor at Variant, stated that Pye's marketplace could "fundamentally change how staking operates on Solana" by allowing validators and stakers to better align their preferences, such as enabling validators to offer higher yields for longer lockups.

The project is founded by Alberto Cevallos, co-founder of BadgerDAO, and Erik Ashdown, who has a background in traditional structured products. Ashdown described validators as "the underbanked layer of Web3" and stated Pye is building financial infrastructure to let them operate like asset managers.

The platform's technology upgrades Solana's native Staked accounts by splitting validator agreements into transferable 'Principal Tokens' and 'Rewards Tokens' (RT). This structure aims to give validators control over rewards and time locks, allowing them to offer more flexible products and tap into additional revenue streams while providing stakers with greater utility and liquidity options.

Dan Albert, Solana Foundation's Executive Director, commented that Pye's "tradeable, fixed-term positions at the validator level represent a major unlock for both rewards discovery and capital efficiency in proof-of-stake networks."

The funding follows a closed alpha phase. The team plans to launch a private beta in the first quarter of 2026, with early access currently available to validators and staking providers.