The @SolanaFndn has announced the end of the Delegation Program as we know it. Currently there are 330-340 validators under the program and effectively immediately, that will be wound down to 100. Full write up: prostaking.com/blog/sfdp-cha…
Supporting data: github.com/ProStaking/sfdp-e…
Validators who have either over 300,000 external stake or have been a part of the program for more than 12 months are immediately considered retired. There is an AI-driven typeform that they can complete to prove their past contributions and worth, and maybe their delegation will be extended for 1 year (but only 1 more year), but it’s unclear who they will select if anyone and what their criteria is.
While this will likely impact @ProStaking_ at some point, as of now, our company is healthy. We continue to build and contribute to the Solana ecosystem as we’ve always done.
If you’re a validator (or just curious) you can stress test your validator’s health with our new Validator Profit Calculator: calc.prostaking.com
Our opinion on these changes is a mixed one. For a couple years now, the Solana Cabal as a whole has decided that the things that originally made Solana awesome (community) are no longer the focus. It’s just about building a decentralized NASDAQ now. The mission now is to support only those who bring transactions to the chain, and contribute to getting closer to huge blocks at 100-200ms. I think the part they aren’t saying loudly is they only envision that happens with ~100-200 validators that are geographically in 2-4 central hubs (NY, AMS, TYO, ___ ).
I get it, but it makes me sad that many active, skilled, engaged contributors who helped get the chain here (even with small but active contributions) are going to close shop soon.
knox | ProStaking.com retweeted
Achieving exceptional technical performance, according to objective criteria, isn't enough to attract stake outside of the SFDP
While I wish it wasn't true, our experience @ChainflowSol running a mainnet validator since genesis, trying to prove this thesis wrong, tells us it is
knox | ProStaking.com retweeted
Since early August, the Harmonic Searcher Network has generated over 25,000 SOL for validators and stakers.
Today it opens in public beta: backrunning only, no toxic MEV, and KYC/KYB-vetted searchers monitored by our compliance system.
knox | ProStaking.com retweeted
crime is no longer legal, so decentralization is actually valuable again
knox | ProStaking.com retweeted
Florida elected a Republican governor who backed a U.S. Bitcoin reserve. Texas elected a Democratic senator who voted to create one for his state. The case for holding Bitcoin crosses party lines.
knox | ProStaking.com retweeted
You can also remove the privileged window entirely. Yellowstone Jet is open source under Apache 2.0. Self-host it and send transactions straight to leader TPUs. The leader still sees your transaction, but no RPC provider sits in front of it.
Validators still do cool things
Our next experiment and findings: @jump_firedancer currently has a PR to enable native Intel NICs support in an architecture similar to their popular Mellanox support
We’ve tested it, submitted a smol fix, on @solana testnet prostaking.com/blog/native-i…
knox | ProStaking.com retweeted
Our second experiment continues enabling and measuring AF_XDP zero-copy on @jump_firedancer in @solana testnet
This time, Broadcom P4 series NICs. This required modifying the Linux driver itself
Spoiler: 1+ whole CPU core of savings
prostaking.com/blog/broadcom…
🧠 🔥 💃
Our first experimentation and research blog:
Enabling AF_XDP Zero-copy on an Intel X710 driver, and how that impacts @jump_firedancer performance on @solana testnet
Spoiler: 92.65% reduction in CPU kernel time
We are working on Broadcom NICs next
prostaking.com/blog/93-less-…
PLEASE check your kids’ candy this weekend. I found a Ledger with $ETH in my sons’ bag