Solana Staking Rewards Explained
Solana automatically re-stakes your rewards at the end of every epoch (≈ 2 days). When a validator earns rewards, those lamports are credited to the same stake account and immediately become part of the active stake after the next warm-up phase. In practice, that means SOL rewards compound for you — you never have to “claim” or “re-stake” manually.
1 How Auto-Compounding Works
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Epoch ends (~2 days) → validator earns vote-credits.
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Protocol mints new SOL and credits each stake account after deducting the validator’s commission.
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New lamports enter the “activating” state; they become fully active (earning their own rewards) 1 epoch later.
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The cycle repeats, so every epoch your base stake grows slightly.
Key points
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Reward frequency | Every epoch (≈ 2 days) |
| Warm-up time | 1 epoch for new rewards |
| Manual action required | None—compounding is on-chain |
| Slashing on Solana | Currently limited to extreme downtime/double-vote; rare |
2 Reward Simulation — 10 000 SOL for 1 Year
Assumptions
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Starting stake | 10 000 SOL |
| Network inflation / nominal APY | 7 % ¹ |
| Validator commission (Moonlet) | 5 % |
| Epochs per year | 182 (≈365 days ÷ 2) |
¹ Mid-2025 average; actual rate fluctuates between ~6 % and 8 %.
2.1 Raw protocol rewards (before commission)
Effective compounded balance after one year:
Ending SOL = 10 000 × (1 + 0.07 / 182) ^ 182 ≈ 10 724.94 SOL
Raw reward earned: 724.94 SOL (≈ 7.25 % effective APY).
2.2 After Moonlet’s 5 % commission
Moonlet keeps 5 % of each epoch’s reward:
Net reward = 724.94 × 0.95 ≈ 688.70 SOL
Ending SOL = 10 000 + 688.70 = 10 688.70 SOL
Net effective APY ≈ 6.89 %.
Because compounding happens every epoch, the difference between simple and compounded APY on Solana is modest (~25 SOL on 10 000 SOL staked for a year).
3 What Affects Your Actual Yield?
| Factor | Impact |
|---|---|
| Validator uptime & vote-credits | Fewer credits → lower share of epoch rewards. |
| Commission rate | Higher commission = smaller net reward. |
| Epoch length variability | Slight drift in annualized yield (epoch time can vary 1.5–3 days). |
| Inflation schedule | Solana inflation decays ~15 % per year toward a floor of 1.5 %. |
4 Viewing Rewards in Moonlet
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Connect your Solana wallet.
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Open Stake → Rewards.
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The dashboard aggregates per-epoch rewards and displays:
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Current principal (includes compounded lamports)
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Lifetime rewards earned
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Effective APY net of commission
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Because Solana rewards auto-compound, your “staked amount” grows silently; Moonlet highlights this delta so you can audit growth over time.
5 FAQ
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Do I ever need to “claim” SOL rewards? | No. They’re automatically added to your stake account each epoch. |
| Can I withdraw just my rewards? | Not directly; you must split or deactivate a portion of stake, wait one epoch, then withdraw. |
| Does compounding slow if the validator skips slots? | Yes—missed vote credits mean fewer rewards that epoch. Choose reliable validators with ≥ 99 % uptime. |
| Is there an auto-compound toggle in Moonlet? | No toggle is needed—compounding is native to the Solana protocol. |
With automatic per-epoch compounding, Solana makes long-term staking largely hands-off. Delegate once in the Moonlet dashboard, monitor your validator’s performance, and watch your SOL balance grow epoch by epoch.