Solana Foundation Delegation Criteria
How to get stake from the Foundation #
How to get stake from the Foundation #
Validators who are approved to participate in the Solana Foundation Delegation Program are eligible to receive a delegation from a pool of tokens held by the Solana Foundation. In order to receive this delegation, each eligible validator must meet certain criteria, which are polled regularly.
A validator must meet the Testnet Participation Criteria and all of the Residual Criteria to receive a “residual” delegation from the Solana Foundation. If any of the criteria are no longer met, the delegation will be removed until the validator meets all the criteria, at which point the delegation will be re-applied.
If a validator meets all criteria to receive the residual delegation and also meets all of the Stake Matching Criteria, the validator will receive a matching delegation equal to the stake they have outside the delegation program. The size of the bonus delegation is dynamic, as the Foundation’s Delegation Program attempts to continually rebalance and distribute all tokens within the program to those validators who have earned a delegation. As changes to stake delegations require a transition period on Solana, there is often a delay between a validator becoming eligible for a certain level of delegation from the Foundation and those stake tokens becoming active. This delay is often 1-2 epochs, or up to 4 days.
Residual requirements for Epoch 810 on Mainnet #
Residual requirement | Result |
---|---|
Vote credits | At least 97% of the cluster average vote credits |
Maximum commission | 5% |
Maximum Jito MEV commission | 10% |
Solana release | ≥ 2.2.16 |
Frankendancer release | ≥ 0.505.20216 |
Self stake | 100 SOL or more |
Infrastructure concentration | 10% or less |
Total stake | Total stake 1,000,000 or less |
Testnet criteria | Baseline in 5 of last 10 Testnet epochs |
Metric reporting on Mainnet Beta | Reported in 8 of the last 10 epochs |
Metric reporting on Testnet | Reported in 8 of the last 10 epochs |
Responsiveness | Within 24H |
Stake matching requirements for Epoch 810 on Mainnet #
Stake matching requirement | Result |
---|---|
5 epoch average skip rate | Must not exceed 10% + cluster average skip rate |
Required validator software versions for Mainnet #
Required software versions may also be fetched from the required versions API.
Epoch | Agave Min. | Agave Max. | Firedancer Min. | Firedancer Max. |
---|---|---|---|---|
811 | 2.2.16 | - | 0.505.20216 | - |
812 | 2.2.16 | - | 0.505.20216 | - |
Baseline requirements for Epoch 806 on Testnet #
Baseline requirement | Result |
---|---|
Vote credits | At least 85% of the cluster average vote credits |
Maximum commission | 100% |
Solana release | ≥ 2.3.1 |
Frankendancer release | ≥ 0.603.20216 |
Self stake | 0 SOL or more |
Infrastructure concentration | 100% or less |
Onboarding quickly | Started Mainnet Beta node within 10 epochs of onboarding date |
Metric reporting on Testnet | Reported in 8 of the last 10 epochs |
Responsiveness | Within 24H |
Required validator software versions for Testnet #
Required software versions may also be fetched from the required versions API.
Epoch | Agave Min. | Agave Max. | Firedancer Min. | Firedancer Max. |
---|---|---|---|---|
807 | 2.3.1 | - | 0.603.20216 | - |
808 | 2.3.1 | - | 0.603.20216 | - |
Bonus requirements for Epoch 806 on Testnet #
Bonus requirement | Result |
---|---|
5 epoch average skip rate | Must not exceed 40% + cluster average skip rate |
Calendar for Testnet #
Month | Epochs |
---|---|
July 2025 | 806–806 |
June 2025 | 792–805 |
May 2025 | 779–791 |
April 2025 | 766–778 |
March 2025 | 753–765 |
February 2025 | 742–752 |
January 2025 | 730–741 |
December 2024 | 717–729 |
November 2024 | 705–716 |
October 2024 | 698–704 |
September 2024 | 685–695 |
August 2024 | 673–684 |
July 2024 | 661–672 |
June 2024 | 647–660 |
May 2024 | 632–646 |
April 2024 | 618–631 |
March 2024 | 604–617 |
February 2024 | 591–603 |
January 2024 | 585–590 |
December 2023 | 564–577 |
November 2023 | 549–561 |
October 2023 | 534–548 |
September 2023 | 519–533 |
August 2023 | 505–518 |
July 2023 | 490–504 |
June 2023 | 476–489 |
May 2023 | 463–475 |
April 2023 | 450–462 |
March 2023 | 436–448 |
February 2023 | 425–435 |
January 2023 | 408–421 |
December 2022 | 393–407 |
November 2022 | 384–392 |
October 2022 | 369–383 |
September 2022 | 356–368 |