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Plain-language explanations for the Solana terms, acronyms, and metrics that shape a staker's yield — performance metrics, ecosystem programs, protocol upgrades, and the architectural distinctions stakers actually need.

The glossary is the wiki's vocabulary base. It defines the terms that recur across validator profiles, comparison pages, and Solana Foundation criteria, written from the staker's perspective rather than the operator's or protocol developer's. Entries are evergreen but their cited numerics carry a date — typically epoch 971 (~2026-05-15) — and are re-checked on each wiki refresh. The catalog grows as the network and its programs evolve.

Performance & quality

  • Skip rate — leader-slot failure rate; network median 0.14% at epoch 971; SFDP threshold = network average + 5pp
  • Vote credits — earned per timely vote under TVC scaling (1-16 per vote, SIMD-0123)
  • TVC (Timely Vote Credits) — the SIMD-0123 credit-weighting mechanism behind vote credits; deep dive on latency-based scaling
  • Wiz Score — Stakewiz composite 0-100 (skip rate, vote success, commission, version, decentralization signals)
  • Delinquent validator — >128-slot lag-behind-tip; excluded from consensus until recovery
  • Skip rate vs miss rate — terminology disambiguation

Economics

  • Commission rate — base + Jito MEV components; range 0-10% base, 0-100% Jito MEV in observed validators
  • APY (Solana staking) — inflation component (~6% typical low-commission, ~4.4% network average) + Jito MEV (~0.13% gross at epoch 971)

Time & state

  • Epoch — 432,000 slots (~2 days actual, ~2.5 days theoretical); when stake activates and rewards distribute
  • Stake activation — ~1-epoch warmup before new stake earns; symmetric deactivation cooldown

MEV ecosystem

  • Jito (disambiguation) — short hub distinguishing Jito client / Block Engine / Stake Pool; entry point before reading the MEV deep-dive
  • Jito MEV — Jito client / Jito Block Engine / Jito Stake Pool, three distinct things in detail
  • LST — Liquid staking tokens (mSOL, jitoSOL, bSOL); trade-offs vs native staking
  • Stake pool — Marinade, Jito Stake Pool, SolBlaze; algorithmic distribution vs single-validator delegation
  • Stake account — the on-chain account holding a staker's delegated SOL; distinct from validator identity, vote, and withdraw accounts
  • Marinade SAM — Stake Auction Marketplace; replaces deprecated Marinade Score system

Foundation programs

  • SFDP — Solana Foundation Delegation Program: residual delegation + 1:1 stake matching to 100,000 SOL + 4-bracket vote-cost taper + May 2026 infrastructure thresholds

Protocol upgrades & clients

  • Alpenglow — SIMD-0326; Votor (vote aggregation) + Rotor (block dissemination); 1.6 SOL/epoch VAT; expected Q3-Q4 2026
  • Firedancer & Frankendancer — Jump Crypto's validator client; Frankendancer at ~26% of staked SOL as of May 2026

Keypairs & wallets

Decentralization signals

  • ASN — Autonomous System Number; SFDP cap of 25% effective May 1, 2026; TeraSwitch (AS20326) ~29% concentration example
  • Nakamoto coefficient — smallest validator set holding 1/3 of network stake; a general PoS-chain decentralization metric, Solana sits above 20

Sources across the glossary: Stakewiz, Solana Foundation delegation criteria, BlockEden, Helius validator economics primer, vendor wallet docs (Ledger, Phantom, Solflare), Anza blog, on-chain RPC. Snapshot at epoch 971, 2026-05-15.