Solana validator count continues to fall as vote transactions drop 40%

Solana's daily validator count has fallen to under 800, a significant decrease from its 2023 peak of 2,500, representing a drop of over 65% in under three years. This reduction in validators, which secure the network by voting on blocks, has directly impacted vote transactions, which have decreased from about 300,000 to 170,000 daily. Contributors to this validator attrition include the phasing out of economic support mechanisms like the Solana Foundation Delegation Program's vote-cost support, making it economically unviable for smaller validators to cover infrastructure costs without sufficient delegated stake. Despite this contraction in network security participation, non-vote transactions, such as user-initiated actions like DEX trades and token transfers, have remained stable at around 100 million daily.

(Source：The Block)