The daily number of Solana validators has fallen below 800, returning to the situation of 2021. In less than three years, their number has decreased by 65%. At the beginning of 2023, the number of validators in the network was a record 2500, experts from The Block reminded us.

The main activity of Solana validators is to confirm transactions and create blocks. To participate in the Solana Proof-of-Stake consensus, validators, as independent nodes, stake SOL and vote on blocks to ensure security. However, daily activity has now decreased: the number of transactions sent by validators to confirm blocks has nearly halved, from 300,000 to 170,000 per day.

This means that many validators are leaving Solana due to the deteriorating economics of the network. Initially, the support program from the Solana Foundation helped cover their expenses, but gradually this assistance is being reduced. As a result, smaller validators may struggle to cover the voting fees, and their infrastructure costs sometimes exceed the income from rewards, writes The Block.

Despite the reduction in the number of validators, the number of transactions in the Solana blockchain not related to voting remains relatively stable at around 100 million daily. These transactions may be related to trades on decentralized exchanges, interactions with decentralized applications, and the movement of tokens. Thus, the activity of Solana users remains resilient since the rise of meme coins, experts from the publication noted.

The influx of capital into exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tied to the cryptocurrency SOL reached $23.5 million in mid-January. The leaders in fund inflows were the BSOL fund from Bitwise, GSOL from Grayscale, and FSOL from Fidelity.