Blockchain Efficiency Comes at a Price: Small Validators Priced Out of Solana

Solana’s decentralized infrastructure is facing a significant stress test as the active validator count collapses to a two-year low. New data flagged by blockchain journalist Colin Wu reveals that the network has shed nearly 70% of its validator base since March 2023, dropping to approximately 800 active nodes as of Tuesday, December 9, 2025.

The decline cited by Wu has led to diverging opinions among the Solana community. Optimists consider the development positive, describing it as a way of pruning the network of Sybil nodes. However, opposing views insist that many recent exits were genuine operators who could no longer bear the operational costs of running Solana nodes.

For context, running a Solana node, which qualifies a network user as a validator, involves setup costs of between $3,000 and $9,000 in addition to $500-$1,000 monthly server fees.

Validators on the Solana network also pay between 300 and 350 SOL yearly in vote costs, making it difficult for small operators to stay profitable without investing significantly huge amounts in delegated stake.

It is worth noting that the declining number of validators on the Solana network reflects on its decentralization reputation, with pessimists suggesting that the blockchain may slide into centralization.

Solana’s Nakamoto Coefficient holds at 20, with the network performance reflecting relative strength with a 0.17% skip rate and over 900 TPS.

It is obvious that participants and users of the Solana network are split over the potential effect of the declining number of validators on the network. Many of them have responded based on individual preference and what they believe could be behind the decline.

For instance, one such participant has dismissed the idea that the decline in validators will hurt the network’s decentralization. According to him, decentralization is about aligned incentives, and DAO could bootstrap validator co-operations to reverse the bleed.