# Solana Reward Metadata Omits Validator Rates, Complicating Audits

By Simon Yoon

Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/technology/45707
Published: 2026-11-01T05:19:46.000Z
Updated: 2026-11-01T05:19:46.000Z
Section: Technology

> Agave still uses a rate to calculate rewards; the missing field is in returned metadata and does not show that payouts fell short.

Solana (SOL) staking reward records omit the validator commission rate from outward-facing metadata when a protocol feature is active, making past payouts harder to audit even though Agave still uses a rate to calculate rewards.

Anza merged the change to its Agave client on May 20, 2026. When SIMD-0232 is active, Agave leaves commission_bps empty in reward data returned through RPC getBlock and Geyser blockSubscribe. The feature lets validators direct commissions on inflation rewards and block revenue to custom collector accounts.

The calculation still selects a commission rate from vote-account state and applies it to rewards. The missing field is in the accompanying reward metadata; it does not mean the rate is absent from all records. Historical rates can be reconstructed from commission history and the stake account’s delegation for the relevant period.

The timing matters because a validator’s current setting may differ from the rate used for an earlier payout. Under Solana’s commission-delay rule, inflation rewards earned in epoch E are calculated at the start of epoch E+1 using the inflation-rewards commission rate in vote-account state at the start of E−1. For a vote account that did not exist at the start of E−1, the protocol checks its state at the start of E and then E+1. Auditors must match the reward epoch with the validator’s historical state and the stake account’s delegation at that time.

“Only the record of which rate produced each payout is gone,” wrote André Caldeira, author of the report. The missing metadata can complicate an audit, but does not establish that a staker lost SOL or was charged incorrectly.

An Agave issue opened Oct. 18 proposes an optional getVoteAccounts response that would show the effective inflation commission for rewards earned in the current epoch, plus the epoch and bank slot. The request remained open Nov. 1, with no assignee or linked pull request. A Vote Account v5 proposal would record when each commission rate takes effect. Its related pull request returned to draft status while the design was under discussion.