Solana’s proposal to double the network’s disinflation rate passed by the narrowest of margins in the chain’s first binding governance referendum, and Jito Foundation governance lead Nick Almond said the measure would not have made it through without JitoSOL’s override voting mechanism.
Speaking on The Defiant Podcast, Almond said the proposal, SGP-0002, cleared the required two-thirds threshold by 0.334 percentage points. He said Jito directed roughly 10 million SOL, then worth close to $1 billion, toward the vote through the JitoSOL stake pool.
「We got 13% of the TVL in the end and the whole JitoSOL stake pool voted during the actual on-chain vote」, Almond said.
SGP-0002 passed by 67.001%
The vote was one of three proposals that closed on Aug. 28, after Solana’s constitution went live earlier that month and created the framework for binding validator referendums.
SGP-0002 doubles the rate at which Solana’s annual issuance declines. That change brings forward the network’s 1.5% terminal inflation rate by about three years, to early 2029. The proposal passed with 67.001% support, just above the 66.667% supermajority requirement.
A separate proposal to split Solana’s flat transaction fee into resource and inclusion components did not reach the same threshold and has returned to the proposal stage, Almond said.
How the JitoSOL override works
The override mechanism was built under JIP-30, which was ratified last year. It allows holders of JitoSOL, the largest liquid staking token on Solana, to signal a voting preference during a window that opens roughly three epochs before validators cast their votes.
If at least 10% of JitoSOL’s total value locked takes part, the entire stake pool votes as a single bloc based on the holders’ preference. That replaces the default arrangement in which the decision would otherwise sit with the roughly 350 validators to which the pool dynamically delegates stake.
Almond said the broader override rule in Solana’s new constitution applies beyond JitoSOL and covers all stake accounts. 「What this allows is basically any Sol holder that’s staked their Sol can vote individually」, he said. 「For me, that really decentralizes the network out to almost the individual level」.
A late swing involving Kraken and JitoSOL
Almond recalled the count flipping in the final seconds. On-chain tallies show the decisive move came earlier. With about 70 minutes left before the epoch closed, the yes side was still around 58 million SOL short of the threshold.
Then Kraken’s validator reversed its position, flipping roughly 8.1 million SOL. Combined with JitoSOL’s bloc vote, that shift pushed SGP-0002 across the line.
The proposal reduces margins for staking providers, including exchanges such as Kraken that pass part of Solana’s inflation rewards on to customers. 「We’re asking them to earn less money by being staking providers」, Almond said. 「So you can imagine the rational economic actors in the network don’t necessarily want that to happen」.
Validator count has fallen, but Almond disputes the simple decentralization read
Almond said Solana’s validator count has dropped to around 700 from roughly 1,000. He tied that decline to rising hardware requirements as the network pushes for larger blocks and shorter block times.
He argued that validator count alone does not capture decentralization. Referring to Solana and Ethereum, Almond said stake concentration looks much closer than raw validator numbers suggest. He added that a recent comparison he ran found validator stake on the two networks to be similarly distributed across data centers geographically.
Three August proposals and the earlier SIMD-228 vote
The first of the three August proposals, SGP-0001, ratified the Solana Constitution itself. It passed with 85.97% support on 51.96% turnout of eligible stake.
The new framework replaced an earlier off-chain process. That older system produced Solana’s first major economic vote in 2025, SIMD-228, a proposal to cut inflation that failed after opposition from smaller validators, even though large stakeholders including Multicoin Capital backed it.
Almond said that failed vote was one reason he moved to Solana from prior DAO governance work 18 months ago.
Revenue pressure and Robinhood Chain
According to a report from 21Shares, Solana’s network revenue fell 87% year over year in the first half of 2026, dropping to $141 million from $1.09 billion. Over the same period, memecoin trading’s share of Solana spot volume fell to 16% from 40%.
Almond said part of the decline reflects a deliberate tradeoff. Over the past year, Solana has roughly tripled block sizes, which reduces competition for block space and lowers both priority fees and Jito’s own MEV tips, two major parts of network revenue.
「The network intentionally is compressing its own margins」, Almond said. 「We’re trying to build a network that can swallow 10x the demand or 50x the demand」.
Solana is also facing a new rival in tokenized-equities trading, an area it has been trying to attract. Robinhood Markets launched Robinhood Chain this year as an Arbitrum-based layer 2. In early September, Robinhood Chain’s gas fees rose 82-fold over 11 days and briefly exceeded the combined fees of Ethereum, Solana, and Tron on a single day.
Almond said Robinhood chose to build its own chain instead of deploying on Solana in order to capture sequencer revenue directly. 「They get to own their rails to a degree where they can capture the rents on the chain as much as possible」, he said. He also noted that Robinhood Chain’s fees have run higher than Ethereum mainnet’s even though it operates as a layer 2.
SGP-0003 may return in smaller pieces
Almond said Solana’s failed August fee proposal, SGP-0003, is likely to come back in smaller parts. Developers of applications including the perpetuals exchange Phoenix had warned that the proposal could raise their operating costs.
He also pointed to buyback-and-burn programs as a more active tool protocols are using to connect token value with network activity while the fee debate continues. Jito plans to route its own revenue lines through such a program next year, he said.
Market prices and TVL
According to CoinGecko, SOL traded at $99.48 on Thursday, up 2.4% over 24 hours and down 1.7% over the past week. Jito’s JTO token traded at $0.4254, up 3.4% over 24 hours.
DefiLlama data showed Jito’s total value locked at just over $1 billion.