Solana Foundation Tightens Support for Name-Only Validators to Promote Decentralization
In a new move to increase the level of decentralization of the network, the Solana Foundation has announced plans to cut support for validators who operate in name only, especially those who rely solely on delegated stake from the Foundation without community participation.
The information was confirmed by Ben Hawkins, head of staking ecosystem at the Solana Foundation, on April 23. Accordingly, the Foundation's staking delegation program will be restructured to remove validators with less than 1,000 SOL from external stake sources, despite having been eligible to participate in the program for at least 18 months.
Every new validator – Three validators removed
Specifically, for every new validator accepted into the delegation program, the Foundation will remove three other validators with low external stakes, as a measure of quality control and to encourage transparency in the network's operations.
This move clearly reflects the effort to move away from stake concentration, where a large number of nodes exist solely because of stake from the Foundation, without any real contributions from the user community or outside investors.
High Cost – Barrier to Decentralization
One of the reasons why many validators rely on the Foundation is because of the high cost of running a Solana node. According to some estimates, the cost of maintaining the server infrastructure for a node alone is around $45,000 to $68,000 per year, not including hardware and other technical costs.
In that context, small validators are almost unable to operate on their own without receiving stakes from the Foundation, creating an ecosystem that carries the risk of centralization, which goes against the fundamental principles of blockchain.
Solana still leads in staking ratio
Despite facing many challenges, Solana is still one of the chains with the highest staking ratio today. According to current data, 65% of the total circulating supply of SOL is staked, a ratio far exceeding competitors such as Ethereum (28%) or BNB (21%).
Solana's staking returns are also relatively attractive. According to Coinbase, users can earn 5.84% annual yield (APY) from staking SOL. However, this return is calculated in SOL, not USD, so users still face strong price fluctuations in the cryptocurrency market.
Conclusion
With the latest move from the Solana Foundation, the network is demonstrating a stronger commitment to improving the decentralization and sustainability of the staking ecosystem. However, to achieve this goal, Solana needs to continue to address cost barriers while also creating incentives for the community to participate more deeply in the network's validation activities.
