Solana validators approved SGP-0002 on Aug. 28. The vote raises the network’s annual disinflation rate from 15% to 30% and puts token issuance on a sharper downward track. Based on estimates in the proposal, nominal staking yield should drop from about 5.25% to roughly 2.25% over the next three years.
This was the first binding proposal to pass under Solana’s new governance framework. It was also the first time validators agreed to cut issuance. When Forbes filed its report, SOL was still trading near $102. The market did not treat the vote as an instant crash trigger. Nor did it immediately reprice the token around lower future issuance. The real change was on the governance record: a new issuance curve has approval in principle, but no live code implements it yet.
The proposal passed by just 0.334 percentage points
SGP-0002 needed a two-thirds supermajority. It got 67.001% support, just 0.334 percentage points above the 66.67% bar.
The raw numbers leave little room for debate. About 176.29 million SOL supported the measure. About 66.19 million opposed it, while roughly 20.63 million abstained. The snapshot showed around 433.49 million SOL in eligible stake, with turnout at 60.7%. In all, 1326 validators voted—the highest participation ever recorded in Solana on-chain governance.
Use a narrower formula—yes votes divided by yes plus no—and support reaches about 72.7%. But that is not how the rules work. Governance counts a supermajority of participating stake. By that standard, the proposal barely got over the line.
Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz later gave a blunt account of the finish. The group made about 500 calls over several hours and “only managed to gather the votes in the final seconds.” The article also pointed out that SIMD-0228, which took a similar approach, won only about 61% support in March 2025 and failed. This time, late vote changes made the difference. Disagreement did not suddenly vanish.
Kraken first held the proposal down, then helped push it through
Kraken sat at the center of the final tally. The exchange had two validator nodes in the vote. Its larger node, holding about 8.918 million SOL, was 100% opposed earlier that day. At 10:37 UTC, it flipped to 90.34% in favor and 9.66% against. That moved about 8.1 million SOL from the no column to the yes column. Kraken’s smaller node held about 3.31 million SOL and stayed 100% opposed throughout.
One exchange. Two nodes. Two different votes. Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi later said, “Custodians should be a pipeline, not a voice.”
On-chain records show just how much that switch mattered. One estimate found that, if Kraken’s larger node had stayed opposed, support would have dropped to about 63.9%—well below the passage threshold. Galaxy also shifted during the final hour, moving from near-total abstention to partial support. JitoSOL holders used a mechanism that lets them override validator votes. One analysis cited by the article said the proposal would have failed without those override votes.
The vote also laid bare the tradeoff in custodial staking. People who leave SOL on an exchange generally have their voting power follow the exchange’s validator by default. Override tools are available. But using them takes attention and some technical know-how. In this case, holders who chose convenience mostly did not cast an independent vote.
A faster disinflation schedule does not mean issuance stops tomorrow
SGP-0002 changes how quickly issuance falls. It does not turn off new supply overnight. Solana’s inflation schedule already steps down over time and is designed to reach a long-term floor of 1.5%. At the old 15% annual disinflation rate, that floor would have arrived around 2032. At 30%, it moves to the first half of 2029. The runway shrinks from about 5.7 years to about 2.8 years.
Helius contributors Lostin and 0xIchigo wrote the proposal. Its technical companion is SIMD-0550. The model used in the proposal estimated that Solana would issue about 18.9 million fewer SOL over the next six years. That equals about 2.6% of supply under the old schedule. Using prices around the voting period, the article valued the reduced issuance at roughly $1.5 billion to $2 billion. As of June 2026, the network’s annual inflation rate was about 3.82%.
One distinction came up again and again: doubling the disinflation rate does not halve inflation right away. New SOL continues to enter circulation under the current schedule. The change affects the future slope. It cuts the extra supply that would otherwise be minted over the next six years, not the tokens already circulating.
SGP is not an automatic chain upgrade, either. Developers still have to encode the new curve in SIMD-0550, test it, coordinate client support, and activate it with a feature gate. One participant estimated that validator coordination alone could take at least four and a half months. On the evening of Aug. 28, daily issuance was unchanged.
Staking economics face the immediate pressure
Solana’s nominal staking yield is currently about 5.25%. Protocol inflation supplies most of that return. Fees and MEV add something extra, but they remain secondary. Calculations from 21Shares and the proposal put the new curve at about 4.34% yield in year one, about 3% in year two, and roughly 2.25% in year three. Under the old curve, year-three yield would still be about 3.52%.
The wallet math is stark. Stake 100 SOL today and the position earns about 5.25 SOL in a year. At roughly $102.55 at the end of August, that equals close to $538. Three years from now, a nominal yield of about 2.25% would produce around 2.25 SOL—or about $231 at that same price. New token income would fall about 57%.
For people who do not stake, lower issuance brings a different benefit: less dilution. New supply effectively flows to stakers. Cut that supply, and the rest of the holder base absorbs less dilution.
The proposal also estimated the hit to validators. Two nodes could become unprofitable in the first year, rising to 30 by the third. So opposition from staking and custody firms such as Figment and Everstake was hardly a surprise. Figment’s no vote, at about 17.07 million SOL, was one of the largest individual opposition blocks in the public record. For companies in that business, thinner staking income would squeeze node economics first, then spread into institutional custody and exchange staking products.
About two-thirds of Solana’s supply is staked today. By the end of the second quarter, staked SOL stood at roughly 427 million. Staker revenue for the quarter reached about $487 million, down 23% from the first quarter. Issuance still supplied more than 98% of that income. Jito tips were only a small extra. If issuance drops faster, keeping a high staking ratio will depend more on actual network use, fees, and MEV—not token printing alone.
Three proposals were on the table that night, but only two passed
Two other measures appeared in the same governance round. Their results went in different directions.
- SGP-0001, the Solana Constitution, passed with about 86% support and set the rules for future governance votes.
- SGP-0003, covering resource and inclusion fees, won only 53.9% support and failed to reach the two-thirds threshold.
SGP-0003 sought to divide fees into inclusion fees and resource fees. It also aimed to lift daily token burn from about 650 SOL to as much as 9000 SOL. Together, the proposals looked like a simple “issue less, burn more” package. Only the issuance measure passed. The burn measure failed, leaving the supply change only half finished.
For investors betting on long-term SOL scarcity, the full case is still incomplete. For people who saw a stronger burn as the main fix for token economics, that missing half is just as important.
SOL stayed near $102 as the market logged the direction, not the implementation
SOL reached about $103 during the voting window. Later reports cited prices around $106, a 24-hour drop of about 3%, and a weekly gain of about 10%. By the time Forbes finished the article, the token was still near $102.
The price action makes sense. Lower issuance is a medium-term change to the curve, not a switch that flips the next day. Lower staking yield hurts exchanges and validators that depend on staking products. Less dilution helps holders who do not stake. Both forces are present, so sideways trading is hardly mysterious.
The article also described a split among market participants. ETFs, treasury companies, and institutional allocators may welcome an earlier tightening of future supply. Staking desks that need yields above 5% to attract deposits face a harder job. They may have to rebuild product pricing, commission structures, and validator strategies. Kraken, the report said, still offers SOL staking in flexible and roughly three-day unbonding formats, with fees that are not low. Customers pay for convenience. The exchange handles validator operations and voting. SGP-0002 made that convenience cost impossible to ignore.
What the market is watching next
First: when does the code change? Passing the proposal did not alter inflation. No activation date has been set. The four-and-a-half-month estimate from one participant is only a lower bound.
Second: can staking remain near current levels if nominal yield falls to about 2.25%? A drop from slightly above 5% to slightly above 2% would test liquid staking, institutional delegation, and smaller validators. Those pressure points matter to the network’s security budget.
Third: what happens in the next major governance vote? Custodian influence, override tools, and the silence of many delegators will not disappear because of one executive comment. When Solana votes again on fees, burns, or inflation, the market will probably check where the large custodians stand before anything else—and whether they move again near the deadline.
The scorecard was simple: the constitution passed, disinflation passed, and the burn measure failed. Solana used its new governance system to cut issuance for the first time. It cleared the vote by just 0.334 percentage points, with a late switch from one exchange helping settle the result. The 2.25% figure is not tomorrow’s staking rate. It is the direction implied for roughly three years from now. For now, SOL remains near $102, and the new curve has yet to activate on-chain.