Eligibility and slot allocation

Baseline requirements

Every validator in JPool must meet these requirements:

• Not on any blacklist (Solana Foundation, Jito Foundation, or internal)
• Not in the superminority
• Non-JPool stake under 750,000 SOL (your total stake minus any JPool delegation)
• Commission ≤ 10% on inflation and MEV rewards
• Published name and avatar
• Active JSOL bond posted (minimum 1 SOL)

The Cascade: how slots are allocated

The total number of available slots in JPool is calculated by dividing Total Value Locked (in SOL) by 10,000. This means one new validator slot for every 10,000 SOL in TVL.

Validator slots are allocated through a cascading priority system. Unused slots from higher-priority tiers flow down to the next:

Priority	Category	Allocation	Who qualifies
1	Community Good (CG)	40%	Validators with approved CG status
2	Direct Stake (DS)	40% + CG overflow	Validators with direct stake delegations
3	Performance	20% minimum + DS overflow	Top-30 APY validators (past 10-epoch average)

CG overflow: If there are fewer CG validators than slots available, unused slots go to Direct Stake.

DS overflow: If there are fewer DS validators than available slots, unused slots go to Performance.

Performance floor: Performance always gets at least 20% of total slots, so high-APY operators are never fully crowded out.

Within-tier ranking

Within each tier, validators compete on merit:

Community Good, ranked by:

1. Ecosystem impact score (CG score assigned by the review committee)
2. Direct stake size
3. APY

Direct Stake, ranked by:

1. Direct stake size
2. APY

Minimum 10 SOL direct stake to qualify for a DS slot. Validators below 10 SOL can still receive reduced matching if they hold a slot in another category and have posted a bond.

Performance, ranked by:

1. APY-30 (30-epoch average)
2. Credits ratio
3. APY-10 (10-epoch average)
4. APY-3 (3-epoch average)
5. Current APY
6. Validator age

INFO

If you are running a validator or plan to bootstrap one, check out SVT. It's a free validator management tool that can improve your node's performance and make your life easier.

Operations

Rebalancing

Stake changes are gradual, with no sudden large shifts:

• Maximum 2.5% total pool change per epoch
• Full rebalance every 5 epochs
• Up to 10 new validators per epoch
• Direct stake delegation available instantly

Suspension and recovery

Bond health below 50% triggers suspension (delegation zeroed). Standard validators have 5 epochs to recover; DS-protected validators get 10 epochs. Failure to recover means permanent removal.

Suspicious activity

Validators that exhibit unusual behavior receive a suspicious flag and a warning visible in the dashboard. This does not trigger removal on its own, but serves as an early signal for operators to investigate.

A validator is flagged as suspicious if any of the following conditions are true:

• Missing name or avatar in published validator metadata
• Poor performer according to cluster-wide analysis (average leader-leader vote latency below one standard deviation from the cluster average)
• Suspicious APY drop of more than 20% relative to the previous epoch, unless the validator's bond health is at 100% (a fully funded bond exempts the validator from this check)

TIP

If your validator is flagged as suspicious, check the warning message in the Validator Dashboard for the specific reason. Most flags can be resolved by updating your metadata, improving node performance, or topping up your bond.

Instant removal

The following conditions trigger instant removal from the program:

• Commission > 10%
• Non-JPool stake > 750K SOL
• Added to a blacklist
• Entering the superminority
• Missing name or avatar
• Bond depleted (< 50%) while not DS-protected
• Very suspicious APY drop (absolute change exceeding 50%)

INFO

If you believe your validator was unfairly removed from the Program, please contact us and we will help you solve the problem.