Solana Foundation issued a significant policy release, with the intention of phasing out subsidies for 150 validators with fewer than 1,000 external SOL stakes. The action intends to encourage more decentralization of the network as well as motivate actively engaged and community-driven validators.
Validator Support Changes
According to its new policy, three of its existing validators will be replaced by the Solana Foundation in return for each validator that joins the Solana Foundation Delegation Program (SFDP). The replacement would be around 900 validators if the program were to be rescinded in full.
Mert Mumtaz, the founder of Helius Labs, described that it is a step towards node autonomy development. The validators were subsidized by SFDP previously, but now the foundation would prefer to cut delegations centrally.
Justifying the Cuts
The transition is also a part of the Solana network’s attempt at more effective operation. The overall stake was approximately 20% by foundation-backed validators in the past, but dropped to about 10.5% in 2025. The foundation backing accounted for over 80 million SOL in 2022 but dropped to about 40 million SOL.
There are approximately 1,224 validators on Solana with 389.4 million vested SOL tokens. Trends indicate a drastic decline in validator operator revenue from $15.9 million to a mere investment of $1.3 million during the period January to April 2025.
Community Response and Future Implications
Public opinion of these slashes from among the validators has been unclear. The slashes have been viewed as a move towards decentralization in a positive way, but individuals are concerned with how it would treat the small players who are dependent upon the beneficence of the Foundation.
On-chain analyst Dan Smith also observed that without validators like these, it would be in their interest if profitability persisted. Helius Labs has already rung the warning bell earlier, whereby if SFDP were to shut down at once, the count of some 897 validators, which make up 57% of total Solana validators, could not continue to remain profitable anymore.
Actually, Solana Foundation’s validator reduction by 150 is its community-driven and decentralized push initiative. The policy will have weight with the growth in the network as it determines the destiny of the Solana system.
