The Solana
Constitution

Stake Sovereignty. Every staked SOL token carries proportional voting power.

Validator Stewardship. Validators translate stakeholder will into action, run the network securely and transparently, and are collectively accountable to stakers through governance participation and open performance data.

Network Level Control. Developers write proposals, validators endorse them, and all stakers have the ability to vote on them. Validators and stakers hold developers accountable and steward the network to optimal outcomes, thus mitigating the threat of a network fork.

Transparency & Auditability. Every vote and vote override is recorded on-chain and publicly visible.

Optimistic, Agile, and Consent-Driven. The governance system is tuned to maximize holder consent, while balancing rapid development and iterative improvements, and limiting spam proposals and excessive voting.

Decentralization, Positive-Sum Economics and Neutrality. Permissionless validation and governance are foundational to the network. Censorship-resistance, positive-sum economics, and neutrality are paramount.

Solana Governance follows two tracks: a Solana Improvement Document (SIMD) — a technical specification document following the implementation pathway of SIMD-001, not voted upon — and a Solana Governance Proposal (SGP) — a more expansive proposal establishing consensus for a development or strategic network trajectory. All SGPs are voted on at the network level.

Systemic Changes Should Trigger SGPs. To eliminate overvoting and to maintain core developer agency and agility, SGPs should be limited to systemic network changes only, meaning a fundamental change to network economics or system architecture.

Draft SGP to SGP Conversion. A Draft SGP is created and iterated in the SGP repository; authors signal Final Draft status; a validator holding at least 100,000 SOL of active stake creates the on-chain proposal. Once the draft exceeds the Proposal Sponsor Threshold, it becomes an official SGP and the Review Period is triggered.

SIMD to SGP Elevation. All SIMDs pass optimistically, ensuring rapid development paths, unless sufficient stake signals that a SIMD is systemic or contentious — in which case elevation to a network-wide vote is triggered by the Proposal Sponsor Threshold. If quorum is not met, the SIMD continues to pass optimistically.

Drafting and Numbering. SIMDs and SGPs are numbered and sequenced by the maintainers of the SIMD repository, who inherit the practices of SIMD-001 and publish reasoned justifications for exclusions.

Format. All SGPs follow the structure of the Solana Governance Proposal Template (Appendix I).

Official Discussion Channels. The canonical sites of deliberation are the proposals' GitHub repositories; community discussion elsewhere is welcomed as advisory input.

Staker. Each stake account may cast a vote For, Against, or Abstain on every SGP. By default a staker's vote is delegated to their validator; stakers retain vote sovereignty and may vote before, after, or in the absence of validator turnout, overriding their validator.

Validator. A group of validators with at least 15% of staked SOL may elevate an SGP to a network-wide vote. Validators cast their full or split stake in the final vote.

Maintainers. The procedural and operational stewards of the framework: editorial control of proposals, maintenance of the governance process, and publication of the formal record — with justifications for classification decisions stated for the network record.

Review Period. A review period of 7 epochs follows on-chain proposal creation. The proposal's GitHub commit SHA is immutable from the moment of creation; the review period exists to study the frozen text, not to amend it.

NCN Snapshot Period. A snapshot period of 1 epoch follows the Review Period, during which the Node Consensus Network establishes the canonical stake snapshot fixing voting weights for the duration of the vote.

Vote Quorum. Each vote requires a quorum of one-third of network stake to be considered a valid signal. Participating stake is the sum of For, Against, and Abstain allocations.

Supermajority Threshold. A supermajority of two-thirds yes votes among the participating quorum is required to pass. Abstain counts as participation but not as a For vote.

Voting Period. A voting period of 3 epochs occurs for each SGP.

Voting Options. Validators may Block Vote — 100% of stake on one option — or Split Vote, allocating stake across options in basis points summing to 10,000.

Quorum Failure. Quorum failure signals network indifference rather than proposal failure. This governance process is a veto process: an SGP passing indicates the network will not veto a change. Inconclusive proposals leave development free to continue at its own risk.

Lifecycle States. Draft → Final Draft → Support → Voting → Accepted | Rejected → Implemented → Activated; with the side states Withdrawn, Expired, and Inconclusive.

Network Sovereignty. The Solana Constitution is a living document, and the network, and the network alone, has full sovereignty over its articles and their application.

SGP Directed. Changes to articles and Key Governance Parameters are governed by the SGP process articulated in this Constitution.

The Amendment Process. Minor amendments — language and articulation — may be batched as a single SGP. Major amendments — Key Governance Parameters, or addition or deletion of entire articles — must be standalone SGPs.

Justification. All amendment SGPs must arrive with clear justification and empirical evidence for the change.