Inclusion and removal criteria

How the Strategy decides on what validators are included in the JPool Delegation Program

At each recalculation cycle (5 epochs), JPool updates all validator data and runs a complete recalculation, adding new participants and redistributing its stake among nodes that meet all of the delegation criteria below. Each eligible validator receives a JPool Rank based on its performance. Every epoch, JPool checks validators and removes the ones that no longer meet the criteria.

• Not blacklisted as a malicious validator (based on internal and external block lists).

• Not a member of the Superminority group.

• Maximum stake is under 500,000 SOL.

• Commission on inflation and MEV rewards is under a threshold value (currently 10%).

• Name is published.

• Logo/avatar is published.

• Not tagged as suspicious (for details, see Suspicious status).

• JPool score is at least 10 (for details, see Validator scoring system).

• Must be in top 500 by APY in the last 10 epochs.

• Resulting JPool rank above Top 200 (for details, see How JPool rank is calculated).

To stay in the Program, a validator needs to maintain the JPool Rank above Top 350.

If you believe your validator was unfairly removed from the Program, please contact us and we will help you solve the problem.

How JPool rank is calculated

JPool validator selection is based on a JPool rank. Validators in top 500 by APY over the previous 10 epochs (apy10) are ranked based on Community Good and early adoption scores. Nodes with higher scores are ranked higher. If multiple validators have identical scores, priority is assigned first to validators with an earlier creation timestamp, and then, if needed, to those with higher apy10. Finally, validators ranked in the top 200 according to this JPool rank are selected for inclusion in the JPool liquid staking pool.

Suspicious status

If a validator is flagged as suspicious, its stake is cut by 50%. The suspicious status is assigned if any of the following occurs:

• Raises its commission by a threshold value within one epoch (currently 3%).

• Cumulative commission increases over a certain period exceed a threshold value (currently 3% over 20 days).*

• APY drops by over MaxAPYdrop compared to previous epoch (currently 20%).

• Percentage of low-latency votes falls into Proof 2 range of the Gaussian distribution.**

• Validators.app sends a warning Suspicious activity with vote accounts.
• Validator removes its published name or logo/avatar.

* Commission decreases are not taken into account. This check is in place to prevent validators from temporarily raising their commission at the end of an epoch to steal their delegators' rewards.

** Basically, this weeds out validators tampering with code to vote after the correct block has already been decided upon by others.

Poor performer status

If a validator is flagged as a poor performer, its stake is cut by 50%. The poor performer status is assigned to validators that meet Stakeview's poor performance criteria.