Vote Cost (Validator Economics)
Core Protocol · Deep
The ongoing SOL expense validators incur from submitting vote transactions every slot, constituting the largest operational cost alongside hardware. Each vote transaction costs approximately 5,000 lamports in base fees, and validators submit roughly 432,000 votes per epoch, totaling 2-3 SOL per epoch in vote fees alone. Vote costs are paid from the validator's vote account balance. This constant drain means validators with insufficient stake delegation may operate at a loss, as their share of inflation rewards must exceed vote costs plus hardware expenses to be profitable.