Solana Tokenomics

The circulating supply is the amount of SOL that is currently circulating across exchanges, DEXes and user wallets, and includes both staked SOL (eg activated and delegated to a validator), and unstaked SOL..

Note that 'Locked' in the context of Solana means the account is frozen until a specific date. The majority of staked SOL is unlocked, however once it is delegated to a validator there is a deactivation / 'cool-down' period of up to 2-3 days before it can be withdrawn. The activation + deactivation process - or warm up / cool down - is a separate concept to 'locking'.

Non circulating supply takes two main forms:

1. SOL that is locked in a stake account. Usually staked, this SOL is generally the result of an investment in SOL or a grant by the Solana foundation. Each stake account has its own unlock date, with some arrangements vesting regularly over time.
2. SOL that is owned by Solana Labs or the Solana Foundation. This is also kept in stake accounts but is not locked. A large chunk of this is used by the foundation for their delegation program, where stake is delegated to over 2,000 validators to aid decentralization. This stake may be frequently redelegated amongst validators based on performance.

Solana's annual inflation rate is currently 4.834% and will decrease by 15% every year. Note that this is an 'epoch-year', or ~180 epochs. As the length of an epoch varies from ~2.5 - 3.5 calendar days dependent on network performance, actual inflation rate will vary.

This is one reason why staking APYs are often higher than the inflation rate. The other key reason is that APYs account for the compounding of SOL within a stake account over the course of a calendar year.

Solana's inflation effectively means that non-stakers pay stakers for delegating their SOL to ensure network security. It is offset somewhat by transaction fees: 50% of every transaction fee is burned, while the remainder is given as a 'block reward' to the validator who processed the transaction. Over time it is thought that fee volume should increase to compensate validators for the fall in staking rewards

SOL that is staked accrues rewards based on the current inflation rate, network performance and the performance of the validator it is delegated to. To undelegate stake, a user must wait until the end of the epoch. Depending on their timing, this may take from a few minutes up to 3 days.

Holders of unlocked stake accounts are free to delegate or undelegate at their leisure. Neither Solana Labs nor Foundation have any powers to postpone an unstaking action on stake they do not own. Should there ever be an epoch where the total staked or unstaked exceeds 25% of currently active stake, automated safeguards will split these activations and deactivations across multiple epochs to prevent network instability.

Locked stake accounts can be undelegated, split into smaller accounts and redelegated to other validators, but they cannot be withdrawn or transferred to another wallet until the lockup period expires.

Alameda's locked stake: Currently 0 SOL in locked stake is owned by Alameda's wallets. This represents 0.0% of all locked stake. Given they are subject to Chapter 11 bankruptcy it is unlikely this stake will immediately move once unlocked, until the liquidation process is completed. Similar cases have taken as much as ten years to complete.

Upcoming Unlocks

Largest Holders Of Locked Stake

I have attempted to identify Alameda's locked stake based on the unlock dates and lockup size reported on Solana.com. These tagged withdraw authorities are the best match I have found, but I can't guarantee they are correct.

Unlocked, still staked: Please note that this only includes accounts that were never withdrawn. If a locked stake recipient withdraws their stake, then re-stakes it, it is not included here.

Avg Days To Withdrawal: This is the average number of days it took for a stake account to be withdrawn (eg deleted) after it's unlock date. Solana Compass does not have data prior to Epoch 170, so this only includes stakes that were deactivated after Epoch 170 (2021-04-13).