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Monthly state-of-the-network snapshots for the Solana validator ecosystem — total active stake, validator count, Nakamoto Coefficient, top-stake distribution, network-wide APY, vote cost trends. Each snapshot is cited to a specific epoch and date; entries accumulate over months as a persistent timeline of the network's quantitative state.
This tracker exists because the Solana validator landscape's quantitative state changes meaningfully month-over-month, and no incumbent reference site maintains a clean, dated, cited monthly snapshot. Stakers, researchers, and AI search engines reach for "what is Solana's current Nakamoto Coefficient" or "how much is staked on Solana" and get either authoritative-but-static Foundation pages or live-but-undated dashboards. The wiki's monthly snapshots fill the historical-record gap.
Current state — May 2026 snapshot (epoch 971, 2026-05-15)
Source: Stakewiz cluster_stats at epoch 971; cross-referenced against Solana Beach network statistics.
| Metric | Value | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Total active stake | 428,332,735 SOL | Sum across all 771 active validators |
| Active validator count | 771 | Validators with delinquent: false and active vote credits |
| Nakamoto Coefficient | above 20 | Smallest validator subset whose combined stake exceeds 1/3 of total |
| Network median 30-day skip rate | 0.14% | Across all 771 active validators per Stakewiz |
| Network mean 30-day skip rate | 0.58% | Mean is pulled higher by a long tail of validators with skip rates exceeding 1% |
| Typical low-commission validator total APY | ~6% | Inflation + Jito MEV; representative figure |
| Network-wide mean total APY | ~4.4% | Lower than typical because high-commission validators drag the mean down |
| Per-validator vote cost | ~1.1 SOL/day | Approximately 400 SOL/year; eliminated when Alpenglow activates |
| Gross Jito MEV APY (Jito-enabled validators) | ~0.13% | Approximately uniform across active Jito client validators at this epoch |
| Largest single-validator stake | 15,439,773 SOL (Figment) | 1.000% of network |
| Wiki-directory top-10 stake share | approximately 7% of network | Across the 10 largest profiles in the validator directory |
Timeline
- 2026-05-15 (epoch 971): Snapshot established. Numerics in the table above. 771 active validators; 428.3M SOL total active stake; Nakamoto Coefficient above 20.
Future snapshots will append here in reverse-chronological order, each tagged with the source epoch and the canonical date the cluster_stats endpoint was queried. Entries are not edited or deleted once recorded; the timeline is the persistent monthly record of how the network's quantitative state evolves.
What this means for stakers
The network-state snapshot is context, not action. A staker reading their delegation decision against the May 2026 numbers learns:
- Solana's stake is meaningfully distributed. A Nakamoto Coefficient above 20 means no coalition of fewer than 20 validators could halt consensus by withholding votes. Compared to some proof-of-stake chains, this is healthier than several major peer networks.
- The top 10 by stake hold roughly 7%. Concentration exists but is not dominant. The largest single validator (Figment) holds 1.000% — meaningful, but not a single point of failure.
- The mean APY is pulled down by a long tail. Network mean is ~4.4% because hundreds of high-commission validators dilute the average. Stakers delegating to a low-commission, well-run validator earn closer to 6% gross. The mean APY is a network-aggregate metric, not a staker's expected return.
- Vote cost remains a structural overhead. Until Alpenglow activates, every validator burns ~1.1 SOL/day on vote transactions. This is operator-side cost, not staker-side — but it affects which validators can profitably operate at low commission rates.
- 771 active validators is a meaningfully high count. Smaller proof-of-stake networks operate with under 100 validators; Solana's count places it among the more validator-dense PoS networks.
Validators surfaced by criterion
This tracker doesn't profile individual operators directly; instead, it cites the validators that anchor specific aggregate metrics.
- Largest single stake: Figment, 15.44M SOL / 1.000% of network.
- Highest Wiz Score in directory: LimeChain at 99.8 (per Stakewiz, epoch 971).
- Lowest Wiz Score in directory: Helius at 20.42 (driven by version, concentration, and superminority penalties, per the Helius profile Decentralization signals section).
- Most concentrated ASN in directory cohort: AS20326 (TeraSwitch) at approximately 29% of total network stake; relevant to SFDP 2026 Rules Tracker.
- Top Marinade SAM recipient in directory: Lord Validates-a-Lot, approximately 508,635 SOL combined SAM and native delegation.
- Sole Frankendancer-running validator in directory: Orca.
Sources
- Stakewiz cluster_stats — total stake, validator count, network mean and median metrics
- Solana Beach validator statistics — cross-reference for network counts and Nakamoto Coefficient
- Messari Solana research — cross-chain Nakamoto Coefficient comparison context
- Helius validator economics primer — current vote cost per day per validator
- Solana Foundation — total stake and inflation rate authoritative source
Related
- Nakamoto Coefficient — what this metric measures and what it doesn't
- APY (Solana staking) — typical vs network-mean APY distinction
- Skip rate — network median context for individual validator comparison
- Alpenglow Mainnet Watch — vote cost economics that the post-activation snapshot will reflect
- Top validators by stake weight — directory ranking that anchors the top-stake metrics cited here
- Validator directory — the 28 per-validator profiles this snapshot's numerics aggregate over
Tracker since 2026-05-16. Snapshot numerics cited from Stakewiz cluster_stats at epoch 971 (2026-05-15) and Solana Beach cross-references through the same window. Future monthly snapshots will be appended to the Timeline above, each tagged with source epoch and query date.