FAQ

Joining the program

How do I join the JPool Delegation Program?

There are three steps: meet the baseline requirements, fund a bond (minimum 1 SOL), and compete for a slot in the category that fits your strengths (Community Good, Direct Stake, or Performance). See How to Join for the full walkthrough.

What are the baseline eligibility requirements?

Your validator needs non-JPool stake below 750K SOL, commission at or below 10%, a published identity, and no blacklist flags. You can check your eligibility with the Analytics feature of the Smart Validator Toolkit. Full details are on the Eligibility and Slots page.

How is stake allocated across validators?

Stake is distributed across several buckets rather than concentrated in a few nodes: up to 40% to Community Good validators, 45% to direct stake matching (the largest bucket), and the remainder rewarding Performance. JPool also enforces a strict 750K SOL limit per validator to keep the network decentralized. See the Delegation Program overview.

How many slots are there, and how often does stake rebalance?

JPool adds one validator slot per 10,000 SOL of TVL, so the validator set grows linearly with the pool. Stake is redistributed on a fixed cycle by the Smart Delegation Strategy, and the Target APY benchmark is recalculated every epoch (roughly every 2 days).

Bonds

What is a bond and why do I need one?

A single, unified bond serves two functions: security (protecting delegators against misbehavior, downtime, or exit risk) and performance (covering any gap between your actual APY and the network Target APY, up to the posted bond amount). See Bonds.

How much bond do I need?

The security portion is 0.5 SOL per 1,000 SOL of your total validator JPool stake (JPool delegation plus direct delegations). The performance portion is calculated dynamically from the size of the APY gap and your delegation amount, and is strictly zero if your native performance matches or exceeds the Target APY. The minimum to join is 1 SOL.

What happens if my bond runs low?

Your bond is funded security-first, and delegation is gated by bond health:

Health level	What happens
At or above 100%	Full delegation, no action needed
80 to 99%	Grace period starts; time to top up
50 to 79%	Stake cut by 50%
Below 50%	Stake capped to bond capacity if funded; flagged for removal if the bond is zero

As long as your security bond is fully funded, performance exhaustion alone can only push you down to the 80% Warning level.

What is Target APY?

Target APY is a benchmark rate that your performance bond is measured against. JPool takes eligible mid-size validators, sorts them by past 10-epoch average APY, and averages the top 30. Charging a commission does not disqualify you: if your actual yield falls short, your bond simply covers the difference.

Growth and matching

How does direct stake matching work?

Validators who attract external delegators receive proportional matching from JPool's largest bucket (45% of pool stake), up to 1:1. Matching capacity depends on available liquidity and is capped at 10 times your direct stake per validator, and no single validator can receive more than 5% of pool delegation. See Direct Stake Matching.

What is Community Good?

Community Good rewards teams building open-source tools, DeFi protocols, developer infrastructure, and community resources with a dedicated stake allocation proportional to their impact. Apply and learn about scoring on the Community Good page.

Can I get support without a large bond or a Community Good project?

Yes. Holding direct stake alone is enough to qualify for matching support. JPool provides additional matching stake on top of your existing direct delegations to help you grow.

What are incentive campaigns?

Incentive campaigns are on-chain reward campaigns that you fund to attract direct stake from delegators. You can run fixed-rate or proportional campaigns. See Incentive Campaigns.

Removal

Why was my validator's stake cut or removed?

Common reasons are a bond falling below the health thresholds above, persistently poor performance, entering the superminority, exceeding the 750K SOL non-JPool stake limit, or appearing on a blacklist. See Eligibility and Slots for the full inclusion and removal rules.