Solana validators recently voted on an improvement proposal called SIMD-0096. The proposal aims to send all transaction priority fees (i.e. the additional fees users pay to have their transactions prioritized) sent in full to the validators who produce those blocks, instead of the previous 50%. Burn (destroy) these fees and give 50% to the validators.
The purpose of this proposal is to improve the incentive mechanism of validators and ensure that they focus more on the security and efficiency of the network rather than gaining profits through private transactions. The original proposal stated:
“This ensures that validators are appropriately incentivized to prioritize network security and efficiency, rather than being incentivized to engage in potentially harmful private transactions,”
The proposal received 77% support in on-chain voting, with backers including validators such as Jito, Helius, Solend, Everstake, and Stakehaus. However, there are some validators that oppose this proposal, such as Step Finance, Triton, and Solana Compass.
A priority fee is an optional fee that users can choose to add to their transactions in order to ensure that their transactions are processed with priority. The SIMD-0096 proposal proposes to stop burning these priority fees but still maintain a 50% burn on base transaction fees (i.e. normal transaction fees).
This proposal is expected to be implemented on the Solana mainnet within a few months.
This article What is Solana Improvement Proposal SIMD-0096? Transaction priority fees 100% belong to the validator. First appeared in Zombit.
