Solana: 150 validators to be removed – A gamble on decentralization?

• Solana Foundation will cut support for validators with less than 1000 SOL external stake. 
• 150 validators will be affected; 900 operators could be axed if the program is scrapped. 

The Solana[SOL] Foundation will cut support for about 150 validators in a push for self-reliance and more network decentralization. 

In an X post on the 23rd of April, Mert Mumtaz, Helius Labs founder and developer support for Solana, deemed the update bullish and stated, 

“Solana Foundation is now gradually reducing the number of validators it delegates to incentivize nodes to be more self-reliant. Extremely bullish.” 

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A risky bet on decentralization?

For closure, nodes or validators stake SOL to propose blocks and ensure network security effectively.

Removing validators that rely solely on the Foundation’s Delegated Program (SFDP) for staked SOL could affect small operators.

According to on-chain researcher Dan Smith, about 150 validators will be axed by the policy. 

The attached chart shows that the Foundation validator support accounted for 20% of the total stake as of 2022 (over 80 million SOL). This has declined to 40 million SOL as of 2025, about 10.5% of the total stake. 

There were about 1,224 active Solana validators at the time of writing, with a total staked SOL of 389.4 million tokens.

Blockworks data revealed that about 900 out of the 1,224 validators were supported by the SFDP, but the top nodes/validators don’t rely on the Foundation.  

That said, validator operator revenue has dropped from $15.9 million to $1.3 million between January and April, and could put more downward pressure on small validators.

In fact, Helius Labs warned about this last year,

“We estimate that if the SFDP were to be immediately discontinued, approximately 897 of the program’s participants—accounting for 57% of all Solana validators—would struggle to maintain profitable operations.” 

Overall market sentiment was negative for the past two days, and the validator update didn’t change anything.

Simply put, the SOL price could falter at $150 unless BTC climbs higher towards $100K. 

On the price chart, price action was still strong per Stochastic RSI and whale positioning (green Whale vs Retail Dleta indicator).

However, bulls need to reclaim the $150-$160 level (red) to demonstrate greater strength.