Solana Validators Unstake Over 31 Million SOL Tokens Amid Price Rout

According to Solana Compass data from the Solana blockchain explorer, the network has just seen over 31.2 million SOL tokens (worth around $438 million at current prices) deactivated by validators who provide security to the blockchain at the end of epoch 370.

The unlocked tokens come from approximately 250 accounts and amount to about 5.4% of the total supply of SOL. Meanwhile, the figure of unstaked tokens during the epoch would have been higher.

In an update, the Solana Foundation has postponed plans to unstake 28.5 million SOL during the epoch. The unstaking was in connection with the removal of “many of Solana’s independent validators” by cloud service provider Hetzner in connection with a policy change. 

This would have brought the total amount of tokens unstaked during the epoch to over 63 million SOL. However, the foundation says it is not concerned by the volume of tokens unstaked during the epoch as the network has handled similar amounts before. 

“The network has handled similar levels of destaking before: Epoch 140 saw over 44 million SOL unstaked and Epoch 72 saw over 30 million SOL unstaked,” it wrote in the blog post.

What has been driving the stakers flight?

However, analysts have noted that the massive exodus of stakers is connected with the tanking price and Solana’s connection with the beleaguered crypto trading firm Alameda Research. The Sam Bankman-Fried-founded firm was known to hold SOL as one of its most significant investments and might need to sell some of its holdings. 

Sean Farrell, head of digital assets strategy at Fundstrat, opined that the amount of staked SOL reduction might indicate that investors are looking to sell all or part of their position.

“A reduction in the amount of SOL staked might indicate that investors are looking to sell all or part of their position. Due to these factors, we think it is wise to reduce exposure to Solana (SOL) in the immediate term,” he wrote in a Fundstrat investor note.

Meanwhile, the blockchain network has continued to battle outages and growing claims of centralization. The price of SOL has fallen 54.9% in the last week. It is currently trading at around $14.33.

FTX’s native token FTT has also been caught in a similar price plunge as the exchange has reported an about $8 billion shortfall in its liquidity that has not let it keep up withdrawal requests.

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