A viral post claiming Solana lost 84% of its validators sparked fresh centralization fears, comparing the network to a "centralized database." However, Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko has countered these claims, stating the real drop in validator participation is closer to 20% and is directly tied to the winding down of a subsidy program, rather than a network collapse.
Yakovenko clarified that validator participation fell by approximately 20% over the past 12 months. He attributed this decline to the conclusion of the Solana Foundation's Delegation Program (SFDP), a one-year initiative designed to cover voting costs for smaller validators.
Furthermore, Yakovenko contested the social media post's conflation of validators with full nodes. He explained that "Validators are not full nodes" and highlighted that Solana operates approximately 5,000 full nodes. This figure is contrasted with Ethereum, which has around 8,300 full nodes, despite Ethereum's market capitalization being significantly larger than Solana's.
Despite the clarifications, critics have continued to question Solana's decentralization. Comparisons to centralized databases have persisted, with one social media user alleging that operating costs of $20 million per validator prevent broader participation. This specific figure could not be independently verified.
Industry reports indicate that operating a self-hosted, fully validating Solana node requires substantial financial investment. Hardware costs alone can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars. Additionally, voting costs can escalate annual expenses into the tens of thousands of dollars, according to node operators.
For some Solana validators, the commitment involves staking millions of dollars worth of tokens and incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars in operational expenses, as reported by industry participants. In response to these challenges, multiple startups are actively developing solutions aimed at enabling network verification on consumer-grade hardware and home internet connections. However, these products are currently in alpha testing phases.