Kraken's late vote decides Solana's disinflation proposal

A fiercely debated proposal, SGP-0002, to change SOL's inflation rate was approved with exactly 67% of votes in favor. According to the official rules, a two-thirds majority of participating stake is needed, meaning the proposal passed by only 0.33 percentage points.

Following the vote, SOL's disinflation rate will double to 30% from 15%.

SGP-0002 directs the network to keep minting new SOL while reducing the inflation rate at twice the previous speed.

Kraken's staked SOL holders changed their vote at the last moment, swaying the result. The exchange's validator, called "Kraken 2," which holds 8.9 million SOL, voted 90.34% of its stake in support.

If Kraken had voted No instead of Yes, the proposal would have failed at around 63.9%, below the required 66.66%.

Passed. LFG

— The White Whale (@WhiteWhaleLabs) August 28, 2026

Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz praised Kraken for flipping its stance from No to Yes in the final moments.

Many of the technical proposals for SGP-0002 were authored by contributors from Mumtaz's company.

Kraken was mathematically crucial but not solely accountable. Galaxy and other late participants also shifted the count.

Nevertheless, Kraken provided enough Yes votes to ensure a winning margin and received widespread credit on social media for changing the outcome.

Higher disinflation rate does not mean Solana inflation ends

Solana remains inflationary. The adjustment does not make the inflow of new SOL negative.

To clarify, SOL will always be inflationary at a positive rate; the only question was the degree of positivity.

Solana validators approved a reduction of future SOL issuance by about 18.9 million tokens across six years, but over time those tokens will still be released.

The technical details of the change maintain terminal (or 'long tail') inflation at 1.5%, but projections indicate reaching that level 2.8 years after activation rather than 5.7 years.

This is the first Solana governance proposal to succeed under the network's new binding on-chain voting system. An earlier attempt at a similar change, SIMD-0228, failed in March 2025 with approximately 61% support.

Developers now estimate that around 18.9 million fewer SOL will be created in the next six years.

With the previous 15% annual reduction, SOL was not expected to reach the 1.5% floor until about 2032. Doubling the reduction to 30% pushes that timeline to around 2029.

Developers still need to re-anchor the supply curve, test the modification, and activate its feature gate. This means the vote does not cause an immediate supply shock.

The vote bolsters SOL's scarcity narrative for the next several years in the short term. If demand for SOL continues, a reduced inflow of coins should result in less supply overhang.

Solana's other two proposals see split outcomes

The disinflation vote was the most significant, but the overall vote also encompassed two other proposals, SGP-0001 and SGP-0003.

Stakeholders approved SGP-0001, the 'Solana Constitution,' with 85.97% support. It codified the governance procedures that accompanied today's close vote.

In recent years, Solana network governance has largely taken place off-chain, and this new constitution seeks to move more democratic processes on-chain.

Voters rejected SGP-0003 with 53.90% support, short of the two-thirds requirement.

The proposal, related to Solana inflation, aimed to burn a usage-based resource fee while compensating block leaders with a fixed inclusion fee.