Solana Foundation Reshapes Validator Strategy: What’s Changing?

The Solana Foundation has announced a major policy shift concerning the onboarding of validators. Under the new approach, for every new validator added to the Solana Foundation Delegation Program (SFDP) on the mainnet, three existing validators will be removed if they meet specific criteria. 

The primary goal of this change is to decrease the dependency on Foundation-backed delegation while encouraging the growth of active validators.

Solana Reshapes Validator Onboarding Process

Ben Hawkins, Head of Staking Ecosystem, outlined the policy shift on Discord. Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Helius, shared his statement on X (formerly Twitter).

“Effective immediately, for every new validator onboarded into SFDP mainnet delegation we will remove three validators from the Solana Foundation Delegation Program that meet all of the following criteria,” he wrote.

The post further detailed the offboarding criteria. Validators with less than 1,000 SOL in external stake will lose their spot. Additionally, the Solana Foundation will remove any validator that has been eligible for a delegation on the mainnet for at least 18 months.

Notably, Lily Liu, President of the Solana Foundation, even labeled the eligible validators “VINO,” or “Validator in Name Only.” 

Hawkins emphasized that the move aligns with the Solana network’s ethos of decentralization. Limiting the number of validators reliant on centralized delegations will open up space for those who contribute more actively to the ecosystem.

This, in turn, will enhance the network’s operational efficiency by encouraging higher engagement and better resource utilization.

“Increasing disintermediation between the Foundation and the network itself is healthy long term. This actually marks a major achievement for Solana,” a user noted on X.

The Solana Foundation’s Delegation Program has long been a cornerstone of the network’s validator ecosystem. For context, SFDP seeks to support validators to ensure a more decentralized and resilient network.

The program provides several benefits, including covering vote costs for the first year, gradually decreasing over time, and a matching stake of up to 100,000 SOL from the Foundation.

Any remaining SOL with the Foundation is also allocated to this initiative. The SOL is evenly distributed among eligible validators. Nonetheless, receiving benefits from the Foundation is contingent on fulfilling the necessary performance benchmarks. Additionally, participants must also operate a Solana validator on the testnet.