Solana Takes Historic Governance Vote Amid Revenue Decline and Robinhood Chain Competition

Solana's historic governance vote marked its first on-chain vote, where any SOL holder could participate in deciding the network's constitution, inflation, and fees. The vote was a significant step towards decentralization, allowing individual holders to weigh in on important decisions.

Nick Almond, Head of Governance at the Jito Foundation, explained how the vote played out. A proposal to double Solana's disinflation rate passed by 0.334 percentage points above the two-thirds threshold required. This decision would move the network's terminal inflation rate up by roughly three years, to early 2029.

The vote was made possible by a mechanism built for liquid staking, which allows holders of JitoSOL to signal their vote preference during a window before validators cast theirs. If at least 10% of JitoSOL's total value locked participates, the stake pool casts its entire holding as a single bloc, reflecting how those holders voted.

Solana's revenue fell 87% year-over-year in the first half of 2026, to $141 million from $1.09 billion, due in part to deliberate tradeoffs such as tripling block sizes over the past year. This has lowered competition for block space and reduced priority fees.