Solana staking, answered
Short answers to the questions SOL holders ask most. Each one links to a longer guide if you want the details.
Can you lose SOL by staking?
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Your SOL stays in a stake account that only your wallet controls, and Solana has no on-chain penalty today that takes stake away. What you can lose is rewards: if your validator goes offline or raises its fees, you earn less. That's what our ratings and alerts help you watch.
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No. Delegating points your stake account at a validator; you lend it your voting weight, not your coins. Only your wallet can withdraw from the stake account. A bad validator can cost you rewards by going offline or raising its fees.
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Your stake stops earning while the validator isn't voting, but your SOL stays where it is. If it stays offline, you can move your stake to another validator from your wallet. Our Telegram bot can alert you when it happens.
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Staking from our validator page asks your wallet to sign one standard Solana staking transaction, which you can read before approving. We never ask for your seed phrase or private key — no legitimate site does.
Choosing a validator: start with the red flags
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Start with red flags: skip validators that are offline, blacklisted, keep 100% of inflation rewards or raised fees recently. Then compare fees and the last 30 days of rewards. Our "Good for beginners" filter applies these rules for you.
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Open the validator list: it shows each validator's two fees (on staking rewards and on MEV tips) next to its Score and its rewards over the last 30 days. Sort by Score or by 30-day rewards and compare. We don't pick a validator for you.
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The Solana Staking Score is a 0–100 rating of every Solana validator, worked out by one public formula. Reliability (uptime, performance, history and more) counts for 65 points and fees for 35. It describes a validator's record so far; it is not a guarantee. 70 and above is rated Reliable.
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It can be, but check how long it has kept 0%. New validators sometimes start at 0% to attract stake and raise fees later. Its page shows whether it changed its fees in the last 90 days and flags a recent raise, and the free Telegram bot can alert you within minutes if the commission changes.
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Partly. A validator's page says whether it changed its fees in the last 90 days and how many times, and mentions a recent raise or a spike that was lowered again. The validator list marks recent raises with a red "Fees raised" chip. There is no full history chart. For a heads-up, the free Telegram bot alerts you within minutes when your validator changes its fees.
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You can. Spreading stake over two or three validators means one going offline hurts less. Each stake account needs a small refundable deposit, so splitting very small amounts isn't worth it.
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More than 4,000,000 SOL staked with one validator — our own threshold. Very large validators concentrate the network; staking with smaller, well-run ones helps spread stake.
Rewards arrive every epoch, at a rate that changes
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Rewards are paid every epoch, about once a day, at a yearly rate that changes. Your result depends on your validator's fees and uptime, and it's not a promise.
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Once per epoch, about once a day. A new stake starts earning after the next epoch begins, so your first reward arrives one to two epochs after you delegate.
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Mostly from new SOL issued by the network each epoch. Validators also earn MEV tips and transaction fees and may share part of them with stakers. The validator keeps its commission before your share is paid.
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Extra income validators earn from the order of transactions in blocks, paid through Jito. Validators that run Jito share part of it with stakers after their MEV commission.
How soon can you withdraw your SOL?
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You can unstake any time. Your SOL is usually free to withdraw by the next epoch, up to about a day, sometimes longer when many stakers exit at once.
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Not today. Moving native stake means unstaking it, waiting for the cooldown and staking again with the new validator, so it stops earning for about one epoch. The main wallets don't offer a one-step switch.
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No. On an exchange, the exchange holds your SOL, picks the validator and keeps a share of your rewards. In your own wallet, you keep control and choose the validator.
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Native staking keeps your SOL in your own stake account with no extra smart-contract layer. Liquid staking gives you a token you can use or sell right away, but adds the pool's smart contracts and fees.
Free alerts and data you can check yourself
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It watches your stake account using only your public address and messages you your rewards every epoch, plus an alert if your validator goes offline or changes its fees.
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Not at a level you choose. The bot messages you within minutes when your validator goes offline, and again when it's back, and every report (about once a day) shows its uptime. For the longer picture, each validator's page has a 90-day uptime strip. The bot is free.
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No, it doesn't track rank. It sends your rewards about once a day, and alerts you within minutes if your validator goes offline (and when it's back) or changes its commission or its cut of MEV tips (extra income from transaction ordering). A validator's page shows its share of all staked SOL.
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Scores and rewards are recalculated after every epoch, about once a day; offline status updates every few minutes. Every page shows the epoch its data comes from.
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You don't have to take our word for it. Every validator is scored by the same formula, published in full on the methodology page with a dated change log, and every number comes from public network data you can check yourself.