What's the point?
What are the advantages of a stake pool over old-school direct validator delegation?
Solana Network and Validators
For the Solana network to be fast, efficient, and censorship-resistant, it requires a number of independent validator nodes (or simply Validators). The Validators participate in adding new blocks to the blockchain, which happens every 400 milliseconds.
The Solana network is using the Proof-of-Stake model. This means that each Validator, in order to perform its crucial functions, needs to hold a so-called Stake – a bunch of SOL delegated by other people. The Stake is used to vote on each new block.
Every epoch, the network mints new SOL to give out rewards to Delegators. The effective APY (annual percentage yield) of such rewards is about 6.5–8%, depending on the performance of the Validator you stake with.
Stake Pool is a new concept that has been introduced in 2021 to improve the Stake distribution across the Validator network.
Delegating via Stake Pool is good for the Solana network, which increases the value of your SOL over time:
Direct Staking | Staking via Stake Pool |
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