Author: Deep Tide TechFlow

In response to the recent community discussions on changes to the validator support policy, Jacob Creech, Vice President of Technology at the Solana Foundation, officially responded on November 10. The official clarification outlined a new governance direction aimed at shifting the original inclusive support structure to a practical selection based on network health.

According to the latest adjustments, the Solana Foundation Delegation Program (SFDP) will strictly limit the participation period to 12 months, with the cap reduced to 100 slots, while also mandating that teams operate their own nodes. The newly implemented regulations specify that external staking reaching 300,000 SOL will trigger an automatic exit mechanism.

Rule adjustments cut 70% of the threshold and accelerate node elimination

According to Crypto Briefing, the previous graduation threshold set by the old rules was an external staking of 1 million SOL, which has been directly reduced by 70% to 300,000 SOL in this adjustment. At the same time, the cost subsidies for voting previously provided by the foundation have also gradually ceased, and over-cap nodes will be removed in batches on a weekly basis.

According to Solana Compass on-chain analysis data, as of November 4 (Epoch 1077), there were a total of 693 active validators in the network, with total staking of 434.3 million SOL, resulting in a Satoshi coefficient of 18. Among them, 337 nodes relied on this support program, accounting for approximately 48.6%, and cumulatively attracted 23.74 million SOL in delegation.

Out of the originally supported 337 nodes, as many as 237 nodes will lose their original protection status, impacting 70.3% of them. Earlier mechanisms addressed startup difficulties through a minimum of 5,000 SOL and staking ratios but also fostered a large group reliant on cloud vendors renting machines to claim subsidies.

Support focus shifts to key clients and ecosystem building

Jacob Creech pointed out that the program initially undertook three functions: supporting new nodes, building test networks, and updating the verification network. As the network matures, machines lacking independent survival capabilities have occupied support funds, and a mechanical quota ratio is inadequate to cope with high concurrency and underlying elasticity requirements, necessitating operators to become self-sufficient.

The foundation has not completely shut down resource allocation but has shifted its focus to flexible incentives outside the mechanism. The official has previously implemented targeted delegation to the ecosystem developer platform Blueshift and is now focusing on rewarding early verification teams that assist in testing the new generation of client architecture, promoting the accelerated evolution of the underlying infrastructure.

Relevant testing focuses on the underlying architecture developed by Jump Crypto, with modularity and C language rewriting features presented on the Firedancer client page, which are gradually being pushed to practical testing through Frankendancer. Teams with technical contributions are receiving priority tilt.

Quality placed above scale and inventory phased out weekly

In response to doubts about whether reducing node scale harms decentralization metrics, Jacob Creech admitted that reducing nodes was not a subjective intention, but in the absence of sufficiently high-level contributors, a decline in the total number of validators is an acceptable incidental result. The network strategy is shifting from pursuing the numerical expansion of nodes to focusing on risk-resistant quality.

Currently, more than 100 validators across the network have submitted special materials to apply for continued support from the foundation under the new assessment framework. For the inventory nodes exceeding the cap of 100, the foundation is following an orderly reduction plan, phasing down staking shares on a weekly basis, and the reshuffling process of the validator landscape has entered a substantial implementation phase.