Solana Staking Glossary
A comprehensive guide to common terms and concepts in Solana staking.
LST (Liquid Staking Token)
A token that represents staked SOL while maintaining liquidity. LSTs allow users to trade or use their staked assets in DeFi while the underlying SOL continues to earn staking rewards.
TVC (Timely Vote Credits)
A mechanism that incentivizes validators to vote quickly on blocks. Validators receive more rewards for voting within a shorter timeframe, promoting network efficiency and responsiveness.
Vote Rate
The percentage of blocks a validator successfully votes on. Validators may miss votes because they're on the wrong fork or, with TVC, because they're voting too slowly. The theoretical maximum vote rate is 100% minus the cluster skip rate.
Super Minority
A group of validators controlling more than 33.33% of the total stake. This is significant because in Solana's consensus mechanism, a super minority can halt the network by preventing consensus from being reached. This is why it's important to maintain stake distribution and avoid any single entity or group from controlling too much stake.
Skip Rate
The percentage of blocks a validator fails to produce when it's their turn. This metric directly reflects a validator's reliability in block production.
Cluster Skip Rate
The overall percentage of blocks that are skipped across the entire Solana network. This metric indicates the network's general health and performance.
Commission
The percentage of staking rewards that validators charge for their services. This fee is deducted from the staking rewards before distribution to delegators.
APY (Annual Percentage Yield)
The annualized rate of return on staked SOL, accounting for compound interest. The actual APY varies based on network conditions, validator performance, and commission rates.
Delinquent
A status indicating that a validator is not actively participating in consensus. Delinquent validators do not earn rewards, and delegators should consider moving their stake to active validators.
Epoch
A time period in Solana (approximately 2-3 days) during which the validator set and stake weightings remain constant. Staking rewards are distributed at the end of each epoch.
MEV (Maximal Extractable Value)
The potential profit validators can extract from their ability to include, exclude, or reorder transactions within blocks they produce. Some validators share MEV rewards with their delegators.