Tramplin.io founder on premium staking and bringing the ‘premium bonds’ model to Solana

We recently spoke with Ilya Tarutov, Founder of Tramplin.io, about bringing the “Premium Bonds” model to Solana staking and offering users a safe alternative to high-risk speculation.

Read more about Tramplin.io’s mission to give stakers meaningful upside without principal risk in the interview below.

You’ve said Tramplin.io is the first product you’ve built in years after focusing purely on investing. What was the moment when this idea crossed the line from “interesting” to “I have to build this”?

It happened almost on the same day we started testing the idea. The more we talked to people, the more we heard things like, “I love this. Why hasn’t anyone built it yet?” Those reactions were both exciting and a little scary, especially when you hear them on call after call.

Then we realised something wild. Without even knowing it at first, we had basically reinvented the mechanics behind Premium Bonds. That product already has tens of millions of users and over £130 billion invested in it, just in the UK alone. Similar savings products exist around the world.

What makes Tramplin.io fundamentally different from almost everything that has come out in crypto in recent years is this: we have finally found a way to give people a real shot at meaningful upside without risking their capital.

We never touch users’ funds or put them into risky strategies. It is built on social consensus: everyone pools together to give someone else a chance, knowing the same chance could come to them next. And the core is a built-in, tamper-proof random distribution mechanism that technically rules out any manipulation.

You’ve been in crypto since 2015. How did watching the 2021–2025 cycle shape your thinking about what wasn’t working anymore for everyday users? What problem felt most urgent to solve when you consider the industry as a whole?

The biggest thing I saw was people losing their last dollars chasing 10x or 100x moonshots. Back in the early days, most teams were genuinely driven by the belief that “we are going to change the industry and the world.” They really meant it.

Now, too many projects say, “we have figured out how to make users rich,” but what they are actually doing is redistributing capital from the less experienced or slower-moving people to the whales and the quick.

Or they promise sky-high APYs through risky strategies that often wipe people out completely. Crypto exchanges have turned from places where you buy assets because you believe in them into essentially casinos where you take leverage and pray.

I wanted to build something that actually gives people a real shot, not a guarantee, without putting their hard-earned capital at risk.

Small users today are pushed toward memes, leverage, or high-APY strategies. From your perspective, why do these options usually work out worse for people with small balances?

Because all the truly safe strategies scale meaningfully only with large capital. Take staking 10 SOL at roughly 6% APY. That is maybe $70 to $80 a year. It does not change anyone’s life.

To earn even $2,000 a month at similar risk levels, you would need to stake about $400,000. For at least 95% of people on the planet, that is simply not realistic.

So smaller holders are forced into the only places that offer a “chance,” namely memes, leverage, and wild speculation. And most of the time, they lose.

For someone who already understands staking, how would you explain what Tramplin.io is?

Tramplin.io is not a replacement for staking. It’s a new layer on top of it. We call it premium staking. The base, rock-solid mechanism remains exactly the same, but we change how the rewards are distributed.

You get a premium on top of regular staking, something you wouldn’t normally expect. Instead of small, predictable payouts, you get a shot at a disproportionately large outcome. The key is that your capital risk remains exactly the same, with no additional downside.

You’ve referenced UK Premium Bonds in describing Tramplin.io. What key insight from that established system has crypto largely missed until now?

Premium Bonds got one thing perfectly right: people care about more than just average return. They want the feeling of possibility. Millions of people happily accept zero or minimal base return in exchange for a no-risk chance to win big. That model has worked for decades.

Crypto has always done one of two things. It either promises fixed yields that do not scale for small amounts or offers a “chance” at the real risk of losing your principal. Premium Bonds proved that those two do not have to be tied together.

Premium Bonds work because of the trust built over decades. In Web3, trust has to be engineered differently. How does Tramplin.io approach that?

In Web3, you cannot rely on reputation or a long history. Trust has to be built into the architecture itself. At Tramplin.io, everything is transparent and set in stone from day one.

We use verifiable on-chain randomness and public data so anyone can confirm the system works exactly as promised. You do not have to trust us; instead, verify the code and the results.

One thing we are really proud of is that, even if, for some reason, we decided to shut down and turn off all servers tomorrow, users can still withdraw their funds from the network without any loss, restriction, or special technical knowledge. Everything stays native.

Compared to standard Solana staking, what stays the same under the hood, and what meaningfully changes for the user experience?

Under the hood, the most important parts remain unchanged. You retain full control of your assets, and staking happens natively on Solana. There is no smart-contract custody and no funny business.

What changes is the payout logic. We do not promise a fixed yield to everyone. Instead, all the staking rewards we earn are pooled and randomly redistributed among participants. Smaller distributions occur every 10 minutes, and there is one big monthly pool draw.

Walk me through the end-to-end user journey: deposit, staking, distribution mechanics, notifications, and withdrawals. Where do you expect users to get confused, and how are you designing around that?

The user begins by delegating SOL via nearly any popular wallet, as most major providers are already integrated. The stake activates during the following epoch, which typically takes about two days but can happen as quickly as an hour, depending on network timing.

Once active, the user’s address is automatically added to the participant list. They receive notifications whenever a distribution is sent, and if selected, they can claim the payout immediately. Users retain full control and can unstake or withdraw at any time, in accordance with standard Solana network rules.

Even in the unlikely event that the platform ceases operations, the user would simply use their standard wallet to unstake without issue. The primary source of confusion tends to be mindset rather than mechanics. Participants are often accustomed to either low fixed yields or unsustainable double-digit APYs.

While the protocol does not guarantee a specific return, testing has shown that participants with small balances achieved significant effective APRs. Clear communication is prioritised to ensure users understand this is a novel mechanism for distributing real staking yield rather than a deposit scheme or gambling.

Fair and randomised rewards redistribution is central to the model. How do you explain this concept to both new and seasoned DeFi users?

Tramplin’s randomised redistribution model does not compete with or seek to replace classic staking or blockchain economics. It is purely an add-on layer, a distribution module that sits on top of existing staking.

It can be implemented using smart contracts without altering the core consensus. This opens the door to entirely new business models centred on token emissions while preserving the safety and security of native staking.

How can a user independently verify that the redistribution is fair and that the rules are being followed?

It is completely transparent, and everything happens publicly on the blockchain. We publish a public snapshot for every round, and the link is always available on our site or dashboard. Paste your wallet address, and you will see your stake amount, points, and a special code (Merkle proof) that proves you are included.

No login is required. Go to our smart contract on Solscan. Look at the “Commit” transaction. It shows that we used the exact same snapshot, so the code matches. It also shows that we requested true randomness from an independent random number generator (ORAO VRF). No one can fake it.

In the very next “Reveal” transaction, you see the random number revealed, the winner’s position, and the prize size. Cross-check that ID against the snapshot, and you see the winner’s wallet.

Five years from now, what 2–3 measurable outcomes would convince you this was worth building?

If Tramplin.io helps improve the lives of thousands of families without putting their principal at risk, that is already a win.

Regarding metrics, I would want to see millions of active users, strong long-term retention, and a new category of savings-style crypto products, with Tramplin.io as a clear reference point.