Network

Skip Rate

The percentage of assigned leader slots in which a validator fails to produce a block, either due to being offline, misconfigured, behind on the fork, or unable to process transactions fast enough. A high skip rate indicates validator unreliability; it reduces staking rewards for both the validator and its delegators because skipped slots produce no block rewards. Solana publishes per-validator skip rates via the `getVoteAccounts` RPC method, and delegators use skip rate as a key signal when selecting validators.

IDskip-rate

Plain meaning

Start with the shortest useful explanation before going deeper.

The percentage of assigned leader slots in which a validator fails to produce a block, either due to being offline, misconfigured, behind on the fork, or unable to process transactions fast enough. A high skip rate indicates validator unreliability; it reduces staking rewards for both the validator and its delegators because skipped slots produce no block rewards. Solana publishes per-validator skip rates via the `getVoteAccounts` RPC method, and delegators use skip rate as a key signal when selecting validators.

Mental model

Use the quick analogy first so the term is easier to reason about when you meet it in code, docs, or prompts.

Think of it as a building block that connects one definition to the larger Solana system around it.

Technical context

Place the term inside its Solana layer so the definition is easier to reason about.

Clusters, nodes, MEV actors, routing, and operating environments.

Why builders care

Turn the term from vocabulary into something operational for product and engineering work.

This term unlocks adjacent concepts quickly, so it works best when you treat it as a junction instead of an isolated definition.

AI handoff

AI handoff

Use this compact block when you want to give an agent or assistant grounded context without dumping the entire page.

Skip Rate (skip-rate)
Category: Network
Definition: The percentage of assigned leader slots in which a validator fails to produce a block, either due to being offline, misconfigured, behind on the fork, or unable to process transactions fast enough. A high skip rate indicates validator unreliability; it reduces staking rewards for both the validator and its delegators because skipped slots produce no block rewards. Solana publishes per-validator skip rates via the `getVoteAccounts` RPC method, and delegators use skip rate as a key signal when selecting validators.
Related: Validator, Leader Schedule, Slot
Glossary Copilot

Ask grounded Solana questions without leaving the glossary.

Use glossary context, relationships, mental models, and builder paths to get structured answers instead of generic chat output.

Explain this code

Optional: paste Anchor, Solana, or Rust code so the Copilot can map primitives back to glossary terms.

Ask a glossary-grounded question

Ask a glossary-grounded question

The Copilot will answer using the current term, related concepts, mental models, and the surrounding glossary graph.

Concept graph

See the term as part of a network, not a dead-end definition.

These branches show which concepts this term touches directly and what sits one layer beyond them.

Branch

Validator

A node that participates in the Solana network by validating transactions, voting on blocks, and (when selected as leader) producing new blocks. Validators run the Agave, Firedancer, or Jito client software, require significant hardware (128+ GB RAM, high-core CPU, NVMe SSD), and earn rewards from inflation and transaction fees.

Branch

Leader Schedule

A deterministic mapping of slots to validators for an entire epoch, computed from stake weights. Validators with more stake are assigned proportionally more leader slots. The schedule is derived using a seed from the previous epoch's randomness, so all validators independently compute the same schedule without coordination.

Branch

Slot

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.

Next concepts to explore

Keep the learning chain moving instead of stopping at one definition.

These are the next concepts worth opening if you want this term to make more sense inside a real Solana workflow.

Core Protocol

Validator

A node that participates in the Solana network by validating transactions, voting on blocks, and (when selected as leader) producing new blocks. Validators run the Agave, Firedancer, or Jito client software, require significant hardware (128+ GB RAM, high-core CPU, NVMe SSD), and earn rewards from inflation and transaction fees.

Core Protocol

Leader Schedule

A deterministic mapping of slots to validators for an entire epoch, computed from stake weights. Validators with more stake are assigned proportionally more leader slots. The schedule is derived using a seed from the previous epoch's randomness, so all validators independently compute the same schedule without coordination.

Core Protocol

Slot

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.

Network

Skipped Slot

A slot in which the assigned leader validator fails to produce a block, resulting in no entries being added to the ledger for that slot. Slots are skipped when the leader is offline, too slow to produce a block within the time window, or unable to reach other validators. Skipped slots do not increment block height and contribute to a validator's skip rate metric.

Commonly confused with

Terms nearby in vocabulary, acronym, or conceptual neighborhood.

These entries are easy to mix up when you are reading quickly, prompting an LLM, or onboarding into a new layer of Solana.

Networkstaking-rewards

Staking Rewards

SOL earned by validators and their delegators each epoch as compensation for participating in consensus and securing the network, funded by protocol inflation rather than solely transaction fees. Rewards are proportional to a validator's active stake and are credited at the end of each epoch to stake accounts automatically; the effective APY depends on the current inflation rate, the percentage of total SOL staked, and the validator's commission rate. Validators set a commission (0–100%) representing the fraction of rewards they keep before passing the remainder to delegators.

Networkinflation-rate

Inflation Rate

The annualized rate at which new SOL tokens are minted by the protocol to fund staking rewards. Solana launched with an initial inflation rate of 8% per year, which decreases by 15% of the current rate each epoch year (the 'disinflation rate'), gradually approaching the terminal inflation rate of 1.5%. As of 2025, the effective inflation rate is approximately 5.0%. The actual rate of SOL supply dilution depends on the percentage of total SOL that is actively staked.

Networkterminal-inflation-rate

Terminal Inflation Rate

The long-term floor for Solana's annual SOL issuance rate, set at 1.5% per year. Once the decreasing inflation schedule reaches this target, the protocol will mint new SOL at a fixed 1.5% annual rate indefinitely to continue funding staking rewards. This terminal rate was chosen to balance validator incentives with SOL holders' desire to limit dilution. Transaction fee burns provide partial deflationary pressure against this base issuance.

Related terms

Follow the concepts that give this term its actual context.

Glossary entries become useful when they are connected. These links are the shortest path to adjacent ideas.

Core Protocolvalidator

Validator

A node that participates in the Solana network by validating transactions, voting on blocks, and (when selected as leader) producing new blocks. Validators run the Agave, Firedancer, or Jito client software, require significant hardware (128+ GB RAM, high-core CPU, NVMe SSD), and earn rewards from inflation and transaction fees.

Core Protocolleader-schedule

Leader Schedule

A deterministic mapping of slots to validators for an entire epoch, computed from stake weights. Validators with more stake are assigned proportionally more leader slots. The schedule is derived using a seed from the previous epoch's randomness, so all validators independently compute the same schedule without coordination.

Core Protocolslot

Slot

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.

More in category

Stay in the same layer and keep building context.

These entries live beside the current term and help the page feel like part of a larger knowledge graph instead of a dead end.

Network

Mainnet Beta

Solana's primary production cluster where real SOL and real economic activity occur; the "beta" designation reflects the network's ongoing protocol development despite being fully live since March 2020. It uses the same architecture as other clusters but with real validator stakes, live staking rewards, and permanent on-chain state. All production dApps, tokens, and NFTs exist on Mainnet Beta.

Network

Devnet

A persistent public Solana cluster intended for application development and testing, running the same software version as Mainnet Beta but with no real economic value. Devnet SOL can be freely airdropped via the CLI or faucet APIs, and the ledger may be reset periodically by Solana Labs. Developers use Devnet to test programs and integrations before deploying to Mainnet Beta.

Network

Testnet

A public Solana cluster used primarily by the Solana core team and validators to test new software releases, performance benchmarks, and network upgrades under real network conditions before they reach Mainnet Beta. Testnet SOL has no monetary value, and the ledger is reset more frequently than Devnet; it is less suitable for application development and more suited for validator operators validating their infrastructure.

Network

TPS (Transactions Per Second)

The rate at which a Solana cluster processes and commits transactions; Solana's theoretical maximum exceeds 65,000 TPS due to its parallel execution model, though real-world sustained throughput on Mainnet Beta typically ranges from 2,000–5,000 non-vote TPS under normal load. Vote transactions (used for consensus) make up a significant portion of all on-chain activity and are counted separately. High TPS is enabled by Proof of History timestamps, Sealevel parallel execution, and Gulf Stream mempool-less forwarding.