According to new research by Bitwise, the Solana validator network shows significant geographic concentration: 72.8% of delegated SOL is allocated to validators operating in Europe.
According to Bitwise's staking report for Q4 2026, published on 20 October, a significant portion of the network's staking is concentrated in the corridor connecting Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and London. These figures come amid Solana developers shortening block creation intervals, which creates new performance challenges for validators operating outside the network's main hubs.
The report found that validators from North America accounted for 16.2% of delegated SOL, followed by Asia with 10.6% and South America with 0.4%. European operators held more than four times the share of validators from the other three regions combined.
Bitwise mapped the distribution using data from Allium, Solana RPC, and Marinade. The geographic data describes the validators' places of operation, not the investors' places of residence or the jurisdictions that ultimately control the underlying tokens.
Solana validators process transactions, participate in consensus, and receive rewards for the network's operation. Token holders can delegate their SOL to these operators without transferring ownership, meaning a validator's location does not determine the citizenship of its delegators.
The report named Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and London as the main operational hubs, alongside other European locations. However, the regional data does not reveal what share belongs to each city, hosting provider, or individual validator operator.
A recent study of Solana decentralization used a different concentration metric, showing that 19 validators hold enough combined capital to exceed the 33% threshold. That analysis used older geographic data, making it unsuitable for direct comparison with the current distribution of capital in Europe.
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