On this page
The RealValidator Team Editorial team

Solana skip rate is the percentage of a validator's assigned leader slots in which the validator failed to produce a block confirmed by the network. Mathematically it equals 1 − (blocks_produced ÷ leader_slots_assigned) over a chosen reporting window — typically the trailing 30 epochs (~60 days) when reported by Stakewiz.

A leader slot is a slot for which Solana's stake-weighted schedule has selected a specific validator to produce a block. At ~400ms per slot and ~432,000 slots per epoch (~2 days actual on the current network, ~2.5 days theoretical maximum), a validator with 1% of network stake is scheduled as leader roughly 4,320 times per epoch. Each time the validator fails to deliver a finalized block in its window — due to software bug, network outage, hardware failure, or a tight scheduling deadline — that slot is "skipped." The skipped slot is irrecoverable; the network advances to the next slot's leader.

Network average context

At epoch 971 (~2026-05-15, per Stakewiz cluster statistics), the median 30-day skip rate across active validators is approximately 0.14%, with the mean at ~0.58% — the mean is pulled higher by a long tail of validators with skip rates exceeding 1%. The lowest-skip-rate validators in this wiki's directory sit at 0.00% (trailing 30 epochs); the highest among 28 selected validators is 0.15%.

For staker decision-making, the absolute skip-rate number matters less than the figure relative to the network. A 1.0% skip rate is approximately 7× the network median — meaning the validator's leader-slot blocks are forgone roughly 7× as often as the median operator. Over a 12-month delegation horizon, this translates to a proportional reduction in vote credits earned under Timely Vote Credits (the SIMD-0123 credit-weighting mechanism), which directly drives the staker's share of protocol inflation rewards.

SFDP threshold

The Solana Foundation Delegation Program (see the SFDP glossary entry) requires a participating validator's skip rate to remain within the network average plus 5 percentage points to retain mainnet eligibility. At a network median of 0.14%, the SFDP-acceptable upper bound at epoch 971 is approximately 5.14%. Validators exceeding this threshold are removed from Foundation residual delegation; reinstatement requires meeting the threshold for at least 5 of the most recent 10 epochs (per current SFDP criteria at solana.org/delegation-criteria).

Terminology traps

  • "Missed blocks" is not the correct term — use skip rate. "Missed blocks" is ambiguous between confirmed-and-rolled-back blocks (rare) and all skipped slots (the meaningful figure).
  • "Downtime rate" misrepresents the metric. A validator can skip slots while fully online (slow scheduling, or producing on a forked branch the network later abandoned). Skip rate measures leader-slot failure, not server uptime.
  • Skip rate is leader-side; vote success is voter-side. A validator can post a 0% skip rate (perfect leader performance) and still drop vote credits under TVC because of vote-landing latency. Read both metrics together when evaluating an operator — they capture different failure modes. See Wiz Score for how Stakewiz weighs the two.

Reporting windows differ across sources

Stakewiz reports a trailing 30-epoch window at the wiz_skip_rate field — the figure surfaced in this wiki's validator profiles. The Solana Foundation evaluates SFDP eligibility per-epoch with rolling 10-epoch windows. Solana Beach and Solscan publish per-epoch summaries. Always cite the window alongside the figure ("0.31% 30-day trailing skip rate per Stakewiz"). A validator's per-epoch skip rate can spike on any single day; the trailing window smooths short-term noise.

Sources

Network averages cited: Stakewiz cluster_stats at epoch 971, 2026-05-15. Skip rates update each epoch; verify on a fresh snapshot when citing for current decisions.