A validator's on-chain attestation affirming that it has verified and replayed a specific block, recorded as a hash of the validator's state at that slot. Ledger votes are submitted as vote transactions to the Vote Program and form the basis of Tower BFT consensus. Each vote carries increasing lockout commitments that make fork-switching progressively more expensive.
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A validator's on-chain attestation affirming that it has verified and replayed a specific block, recorded as a hash of the validator's state at that slot. Ledger votes are submitted as vote transactions to the Vote Program and form the basis of Tower BFT consensus. Each vote carries increasing lockout commitments that make fork-switching progressively more expensive.
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Consensus, leader rotation, slots, epochs, and the runtime.
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Ledger Vote (ledger-vote) Category: Core Protocol Definition: A validator's on-chain attestation affirming that it has verified and replayed a specific block, recorded as a hash of the validator's state at that slot. Ledger votes are submitted as vote transactions to the Vote Program and form the basis of Tower BFT consensus. Each vote carries increasing lockout commitments that make fork-switching progressively more expensive. Related: Vote Account, Tower BFT, Vote Transaction
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An on-chain account that records a validator's Tower BFT votes and tracks their voting history. Each validator has one vote account that stores the last 32 vote slots with their confirmation counts. The vote account also tracks earned credits used to calculate epoch rewards. Vote transactions constitute ~70-80% of all transactions on Solana.
Solana's custom BFT consensus algorithm built on top of Proof of History. Tower BFT uses PoH as a clock to reduce communication overhead in traditional PBFT from O(n²) to O(n). Validators vote on forks with exponentially increasing lockout periods—each consecutive vote doubles the lockout, making rollbacks progressively more expensive. A fork is finalized when it reaches supermajority (66.7%+ of stake).
A special-purpose transaction submitted by each validator every slot to record its vote on the current fork of the blockchain, serving as the on-chain mechanism for Solana's Tower BFT consensus. Vote transactions are exempt from compute unit limits and priority fee requirements, are processed by a dedicated vote transaction path separate from user transactions, and account for the majority of raw TPS on the network (typically 70–80% of all transactions). Validators pay vote transaction fees from their vote account, which is one reason validator economics require sufficient stake to cover ongoing operating costs.
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The complete ordered history of all transactions processed by the Solana cluster. The ledger is composed of sequential blocks (one per slot), each containing entries of transactions ordered by PoH. Validators store the ledger locally in Blockstore, and warehouse nodes or Bigtable archives provide long-term historical access.
The next-generation Solana program loader designed to replace the current Upgradeable BPF Loader (v3). Loader v4 introduces improvements including a simpler deployment process (single-step instead of buffer + deploy), built-in finalization (replacing the separate upgrade authority revocation), and more efficient program management. It streamlines the program lifecycle while maintaining backward compatibility with existing SBF bytecode.
An on-chain account that records a validator's Tower BFT votes and tracks their voting history. Each validator has one vote account that stores the last 32 vote slots with their confirmation counts. The vote account also tracks earned credits used to calculate epoch rewards. Vote transactions constitute ~70-80% of all transactions on Solana.
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An on-chain account that records a validator's Tower BFT votes and tracks their voting history. Each validator has one vote account that stores the last 32 vote slots with their confirmation counts. The vote account also tracks earned credits used to calculate epoch rewards. Vote transactions constitute ~70-80% of all transactions on Solana.
Solana's custom BFT consensus algorithm built on top of Proof of History. Tower BFT uses PoH as a clock to reduce communication overhead in traditional PBFT from O(n²) to O(n). Validators vote on forks with exponentially increasing lockout periods—each consecutive vote doubles the lockout, making rollbacks progressively more expensive. A fork is finalized when it reaches supermajority (66.7%+ of stake).
A special-purpose transaction submitted by each validator every slot to record its vote on the current fork of the blockchain, serving as the on-chain mechanism for Solana's Tower BFT consensus. Vote transactions are exempt from compute unit limits and priority fee requirements, are processed by a dedicated vote transaction path separate from user transactions, and account for the majority of raw TPS on the network (typically 70–80% of all transactions). Validators pay vote transaction fees from their vote account, which is one reason validator economics require sufficient stake to cover ongoing operating costs.
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A clock mechanism that cryptographically proves the passage of time between events. PoH uses a sequential SHA-256 hash chain where each output becomes the next input, creating a verifiable ordering of events without requiring consensus. The leader produces ~400,000 hashes per slot (~400ms), and any validator can verify the sequence in parallel, enabling Solana's high throughput by removing the need for validators to agree on time.
Solana's custom BFT consensus algorithm built on top of Proof of History. Tower BFT uses PoH as a clock to reduce communication overhead in traditional PBFT from O(n²) to O(n). Validators vote on forks with exponentially increasing lockout periods—each consecutive vote doubles the lockout, making rollbacks progressively more expensive. A fork is finalized when it reaches supermajority (66.7%+ of stake).
A time window during which a designated leader validator can produce a block. Each slot lasts approximately 400 milliseconds. Slots are numbered sequentially from genesis and grouped into epochs of 432,000 slots (~2-3 days). Not every slot produces a block—a skipped slot means the leader was offline or too slow.
A set of entries produced by a leader during a single slot. A block contains transactions bundled into entries, each with a PoH hash proving ordering. Blocks are broken into shreds for network propagation via Turbine. Maximum block size is limited by compute units (48M CU cap per block) rather than byte size.