Marinade Appoints Former Fidelity and BNY Mellon Executive Hadley Stern as Chief Commercial Officer

Stern previously served as the global head of digital asset custody at BNY Mellon and was the founding president of Fidelity Digital Asset Services.

In 2014, he launched the Bitcoin Incubator at Fidelity Investments, which led to a number of key achievements such as the creation of a Bitcoin mining operation, bitcoin donations to the Fidelity Charitable Foundation, and the founding of Fidelity Digital Asset Services.

According to the press release, Stern will lead initiatives to strengthen Marinade’s position as the staking solution for Solana.

Marinade Labs CEO Michael Repetny noted Stern’s deep understanding of digital asset management and his unique expertise. He added that Stern’s addition to the team is a “significant milestone” for Marinade and the Solana community.

“With Stern joining the team, we are confident that Marinade will become the leading staking option for institutions with better rewards, better decentralization, and the most secure model,” Repetny said.

Marinade emphasized that for decentralized finance (DeFi) to become a standard financial services system, DeFi projects must attract both retail and institutional investors. Stern’s experience in digital asset management and traditional finance should help achieve institutional adoption of blockchain technologies and strengthen Marinade’s position in the staking marketplace for global institutions.

Stern added that Marinade’s staking marketplace model is “the best solution for validators, the Solana blockchain, and now, with Marinade Native, for institutions.”

Marinade Native allows institutions building real products and businesses on Solana to participate in decentralized network fortification.

Marinade also announced a partnership with asset custody companies Copper and Zodia Custody to provide institutional-grade security and compliance.

These partnerships will contribute to the overall adoption, stability, and security of Solana, the announcement noted.

"Using advanced digital asset infrastructure, institutions and investors will be able to experience a secure and optimized native SOL staking experience," the statement added.

Marinade currently holds the third-largest total locked value (TVL) on the Solana blockchain with $988.95 million, according to DeFiLlama.

Solana as a whole has a TVL of $4.709 billion at press time. Marinade serves over 100,000 users with over 10 million SOL staked.

The recently launched Stake Auction Marketplace (SAM), a public auction platform where validators can bid on staked SOL, has distributed over 6 million SOL to validators.