Bonds

JPool simplifies collateral by using a single, unified bond that serves two critical functions: securing the network and covering APY shortfalls from validator bonds.

1. Security

• Purpose: Protects delegators against validator misbehavior, extended downtime, or exit risk.
• Requirement: 0.5 SOL per 1,000 SOL of your total validator JPool stake (both JPool delegation and direct delegations).
• Why total stake? By covering your full stake rather than just the pool's allocation, the bond is sized to your full stake and covers specified validator risks (APY shortfall and validator misbehavior) up to the posted bond amount.

2. Performance

• Purpose: Covers any gap between your actual (native) APY and the network target APY.
• Requirement: Dynamically calculated based on the size of the APY gap and your JPool delegation amount.
• Advantage: If your native performance matches or exceeds the target APY, your performance bond requirement is strictly zero.

Target APY

JPool calculates a Target APY, a benchmark rate backed by validator bonds. Shortfalls relative to the target are covered from validator bonds, up to the posted bond amount.

1. Take all Solana validators with non-JPool stake ≤ 750K SOL and total stake ≥ 5K SOL
2. Exclude blacklisted, superminority, and validators with credits ratio below 95%
3. Sort validators by past 10-epoch average APY
4. Target APY = mean of the top 30 validators

Recalculated every epoch (~2 days). The target reflects what the best mid-size validators on Solana are actually delivering.

For delegators: Shortfalls relative to the target APY are covered from the validator's bond, up to the posted bond amount.

For validators: Charging a commission does not disqualify you from receiving a delegation. You don't need to match the target APY strictly through raw performance. If your actual yield falls short, whether due to your commission rate or slight technical variance, your bond simply covers the difference between the actual and target APY. This lets builders and community operators maintain their revenue models without being penalized.

Bond health

Your bond balance is split security-first: the security bond is fully funded before any remainder goes to performance coverage.

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

When a validator's stake is reduced due to bond health gates, the freed stake is not left idle. It is redistributed to healthy validators in the DS Matching bucket, proportional to their direct stake.

Security floor: As long as your security bond is fully funded, performance exhaustion alone can only push you down to 80% (Warning). Your delegation is not reduced until the security portion is actually impacted.

How to use bonds

Deposit bond

Step 1. Navigate to Validators.

Step 2. Choose a validator.

Step 3. Press Details.

Step 4. Navigate to JPDP → Bond.

Step 5a. Press Create Account and Top Up Bond if you use bonds for the first time.

WARNING

When a bond is deposited for the first time, you must deposit at least 1 SOL. After that, the bond balance can be topped up with any amount of SOL.

Step 5b. Press Top Up if the account already exists.

Step 6. Enter the amount of SOL you want to deposit as a bond.

Step 7. Press Top Up.

Success

A confirmation pop-up will appear and your bond balance will increase accordingly.

Withdraw bond

WARNING

The Withdraw button only appears when the connected wallet holds the validator's identity key pair or is an assigned withdrawal authority. If you do not see the button, make sure you are connected with the correct wallet.

Step 1. Navigate to Validators.

Step 2. Choose a validator.

Step 3. Press Details.

Step 4. Navigate to JPDP → Bond.

Step 5. Press Withdraw.

Step 6. Enter the amount of SOL you want to withdraw from the bond balance.

Step 7. Press Withdraw.

Success

A confirmation pop-up will appear and SOL will be transferred from the bond balance to your wallet.

INFO

Prefer the command line? See the CLI Reference for bond management via jbond commands.