You’ve probably seen memes suggesting that Solana has “working hours” and doesn’t work on a weekend. While funny, these jokes stem from real technical challenges. For instance, on April 30, 2022, Solana halted when bots flooded the network with 6 million transactions per second, causing validators to crash. The network’s low transaction costs make it an easy target for spammers attempting to front-run legitimate transactions, resulting in congestion and degraded performance for everyday users.
To address this, Solana introduced Stake-Weighted Quality of Service (SWQoS) in H1 2024. This feature prioritizes transactions from highly staked validators, significantly increasing their chances of being included in a block —while reducing the influence of spammy, low-stake transactions.
What is SWQoS?
Stake-Weighted Quality of Service (SWQoS) is a feature on Solana that helps validators prioritize transactions based on stake. The more stake behind a validator, the more likely it is that transactions coming through it will be processed quickly — even during times of high network congestion.
This system makes it harder for spam or low-priority transactions to clog the network. Instead, it gives priority to those coming from validators with strong backing.
To use SWQoS, a validator needs to be connected to a trusted RPC (Remote Procedure Call) node. Ideally, the validator and RPC are part of the same infrastructure, or at least have a pre-established agreement to work together. Once the setup is in place, the validator can give that RPC “virtual stake,” allowing its transactions to be treated as if they’re coming from a high-stake validator.
Why SWQoS Matters for Solana
SWQoS helps make the Solana network faster, more secure, and more efficient — especially when it’s under heavy load. Here’s how it benefits users, validators, and RPC providers alike:
- Your transactions go through faster: If you’re using a trusted RPC connected to a high-stake validator, your transactions are much more likely to be confirmed quickly—even when the network is busy.
- The network becomes harder to spam: Because SWQoS gives priority to staked validators, attackers can’t easily flood the system with fake transactions. This makes Solana more secure for everyone.
- Overall performance improves: Validators with more stake get better bandwidth access, so the network processes more real transactions with less delay and fewer dropped messages.
- Stronger partnerships between validators and RPCs: SWQoS encourages collaboration between these two key parts of the network. When they work together through trusted channels, the result is a more stable, high-performing blockchain.
How does SWQoS work?
Let’s start from the basics. Every transaction on Solana begins with a user action — usually through a wallet or Web3 app. These transactions are first sent to RPC nodes, which act as messengers to validators.
Not all RPCs are treated equally. RPCs connected via SWQoS receive prioritized access to validator bandwidth. But RPCs themselves don’t stake SOL — so how do they qualify?
Here’s where virtual stake assignment comes into play. Validators use the –staked-nodes-overrides flag to allocate virtual stake to selected RPCs. A YAML file defines how much stake (in lamports) each RPC receives.
For example:
- A validator might have 2,000 SWQoS connection slots and 500 standard ones.
- If you assign 1 million SOL of virtual stake to an RPC, that RPC receives a proportional share of the validator’s SWQoS bandwidth.
- No real SOL is transferred—this is simply a configuration to simulate prioritization.
Even if a validator isn’t currently the block leader, transactions from its trusted RPCs can still be routed through other validators’ reserved SWQoS channels.
How SWQoS affects on validators?
SWQoS significantly enhances validator efficiency and profitability. Here’s how:
- Higher Fee Revenue: By prioritizing high-value transactions (often carrying higher fees), validators make better use of their limited bandwidth during periods of congestion.
- Improved Network Position: Validators that regularly assign stake to reputable RPCs can become go-to destinations for developers, RPC providers, and institutional users.
- Stronger Ecosystem Partnerships: Collaborating with trusted RPCs creates a mutually beneficial relationship — validators gain transaction priority, and RPCs enjoy faster throughput.
If you want to know more, read details on Chainflow’s blog
How to Set Up SWQoS
To activate Stake-Weighted Quality of Service (SWQoS) on Solana, both the validator and the RPC node need to be properly configured. Here’s how to do it:
For Validators
Validators must define which RPC nodes receive virtual stake by using the –staked-nodes-overrides flag. This tells the validator to treat certain RPC nodes as if they have a specific amount of stake.
1. Add this flag to your validator startup command:
--staked-nodes-overrides /path/to/overrides.yml2. Create a YAML file (overrides.yml) with the RPC identity keys and virtual stake in lamports:
staked_map_id: {
IDENTITYaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa1: 150000000000000,
IDENTITYbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb2: 150000000000000
}
1 SOL = 1,000,000,000 lamports.
You can assign any virtual stake amount—this doesn’t move real SOL, but affects transaction priority.
For RPC Nodes
RPC nodes must send all transactions directly to the validator using the TPU (Transaction Processing Unit) peer connection.
Add this flag to your RPC node startup command:
--rpc-send-transaction-tpu-peer VALIDATOR_IP_ADDRESS:8009Port 8009 is the default TPU port, but this may vary depending on your validator’s setup.
For the latest details and configuration options, check out the official guide:
Sоlana Developer Docs – Stake-Weighted QoS
Everstake and SWQoS
Everstake, as one of the biggest validators on a market, have a partners that send us transactions through SWQOS connections from their RPC nodes. This helps to improve stability of the network and profit for stakers.
Looking to improve your RPC performance or ensure faster transaction processing? Partner with Everstake and benefit from our robust infrastructure, trusted validator status, and superior SWQoS integration.
Conclusion
Solana’s exceptional throughput comes with equally complex performance challenges. SWQoS was created to solve one of the most critical: ensuring that real users and applications aren’t crowded out by spam.
With SWQoS, transactions from trusted RPCs are prioritized, validators operate more efficiently, and the entire network becomes more resilient. Whether you’re a user, RPC operator, or validator — adopting SWQoS is a step toward a faster, fairer Solana.
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