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Core Concepts#

Understanding these fundamental concepts will help you get the most out of Marinade and Solana staking.

Concept Quick Definition
Epoch ~2 day period; rewards distributed at boundaries
Validator Node that processes transactions and earns rewards
Stake Account Account holding delegated SOL
Lamport Smallest SOL unit (1 SOL = 1B lamports)

Solana Fundamentals#

Solana is a high-performance blockchain designed for speed and scalability. It combines Proof of History (PoH) with Proof of Stake (PoS) to achieve thousands of transactions per second with sub-second finality.

Key Components#

Validator#

A validator is a node that participates in Solana's consensus by:

  • Processing transactions - Validating and executing transactions
  • Voting on blocks - Participating in consensus to confirm blocks
  • Producing blocks - When selected as leader, creating new blocks
  • Maintaining the ledger - Storing and serving blockchain state

Validators earn rewards from: - Inflation (staking rewards shared with delegators) - Transaction fees (priority fees from block production)

Validator vs Delegator

Validators run node infrastructure and process transactions. Delegators (stakers) delegate SOL to validators without running nodes themselves.

RPC Node#

An RPC (Remote Procedure Call) node serves blockchain data to applications without participating in consensus:

  • Does not vote or produce blocks
  • Optimized for serving read requests
  • Forwards transactions to validators
  • Used by wallets, dApps, and developers

Block#

A block is a batch of transactions processed during a single slot. Each block contains:

  • Transaction list
  • Parent block reference (forming a chain)
  • Validator signature
  • State changes

Slot#

A slot is a ~400ms time window during which a validator can produce a block:

  • Each slot has one designated leader (validator)
  • ~2.5 blocks per second
  • Not all slots produce blocks (skip rate)

Epoch#

An epoch is a longer time period (~2 days) consisting of 432,000 slots:

Epoch Property Value
Duration ~2 days
Slots per epoch 432,000
Leader schedule Fixed per epoch
Stake changes Applied at epoch boundaries
Rewards Distributed once per epoch

Epoch Boundaries

Staking actions (delegation, undelegation) only take effect at the next epoch boundary. This means:

  • New stakes start earning rewards after activation (~1 epoch)
  • Unstaking requires waiting until the epoch ends

Stake Program#

The Solana Stake Program is the native program that handles all staking operations. It's built into the Solana runtime (not a smart contract).

Program Address: Stake11111111111111111111111111111111111111

Stake Account Structure#

A stake account holds staked SOL and tracks delegation:

Text Only
┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│         Stake Account               │
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Meta                                │
│   ├─ Rent Exempt Reserve            │
│   ├─ Authorized                     │
│   │   ├─ Staker (can delegate)      │
│   │   └─ Withdrawer (can withdraw)  │
│   └─ Lockup (optional time lock)    │
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Stake                               │
│   ├─ Delegation                     │
│   │   ├─ Voter Pubkey               │
│   │   ├─ Stake (active amount)      │
│   │   ├─ Activation Epoch           │
│   │   └─ Deactivation Epoch         │
│   └─ Credits Observed               │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

Stake Account States#

Stake accounts progress through defined states:

stateDiagram-v2
    [*] --> Initialized: Create account
    Initialized --> Delegated: Delegate to validator
    Delegated --> Activating: Wait for epoch
    Activating --> Active: Epoch boundary
    Active --> Deactivating: Undelegate
    Deactivating --> Inactive: Epoch boundary
    Inactive --> [*]: Withdraw
    Inactive --> Delegated: Re-delegate
State Description Earning Rewards?
Initialized Account created, not yet delegated No
Activating Delegated, warming up Partial
Active Fully delegated and earning Yes
Deactivating Undelegated, cooling down Partial
Inactive Fully deactivated, can withdraw No

Authorities#

Each stake account has two authorities:

Stake Authority
Can delegate, undelegate, split, and merge stake accounts. This is the authority that controls where stake is delegated.
Withdraw Authority
Can withdraw SOL from the stake account after it's deactivated. This authority controls fund withdrawal.

Authority Security

Never share your withdraw authority. Whoever controls the withdraw authority can take your funds once the stake is deactivated.

Common Operations#

Operation Authority Required Effect
Delegate Stake Assign stake to a validator
Undelegate Stake Begin deactivation process
Split Stake Divide into two accounts
Merge Stake Combine two accounts
Withdraw Withdraw Remove SOL (when inactive)
Set Authority Current authority Change stake or withdraw authority

Staking Economics#

Inflation Schedule#

Solana uses a decreasing inflation model:

Year Approximate Inflation
Initial 8%
Current (~2026) ~4-5%
Long-term target 1.5%

Inflation decreases by 15% year-over-year until reaching the 1.5% floor.

Reward Distribution#

Rewards are distributed once per epoch:

  1. Inflation creates new SOL - Based on current inflation rate
  2. Validators earn based on stake - Weighted by delegated stake
  3. Commission taken - Validator keeps their commission percentage
  4. Delegators receive remainder - Automatically added to stake

Factors Affecting APY#

Your actual staking yield depends on:

  • Total network stake - More staked = lower individual APY
  • Validator performance - Uptime, vote success rate
  • Validator commission - Higher commission = lower delegator APY

Next Steps#