Kraken Changes Vote to Save $1.5 Billion Inflation Plan

Solana’s first-ever on-chain vote on tokenomics reform has entered its final hours, with U.S. crypto exchange Kraken completely reversing its position and backing the deflationary proposal under pressure from the retail community.

This move has fundamentally reshaped the balance of power in the tug-of-war between whales and the community.

For those not familiar with the situation, developers put two proposals to a vote. The main initiative — SGP-0002 (Double Disinflation) — doubles the disinflation rate from 15% to 30%, cutting SOL issuance by 18.9 million tokens ($1.5 billion) to reach the terminal inflation rate of 1.5% as early as 2029.

For investors holding the coin above $105, the calculation is obvious: a severe supply shortage should provide long-term momentum for the asset’s price. The related SGP-0003 initiative was aimed at radically increasing the daily burning of transaction fees.

Kraken, with a pool of 8.92 million SOL, initially joined Figment, Everstake and P2P.org in blocking the inflation reform to preserve staking yields. The decision triggered a wave of criticism, while Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz publicly accused the exchanges of mathematical irrationality.

The community’s reaction turned this high-stakes process around: Kraken officially changed its vote from “NO” to “YES.” Nevertheless, the suspense remains. With overall turnout at 60.17% — comfortably above the one-third quorum — support for SGP-0002 stands at 65.15%, representing 169.91 million SOL.

Reform’s fate still hinges on 1.5% of the vote

Supporters of the deflationary proposal are still around 1.52 percentage points short of the mandatory two-thirds approval threshold of 66.67%. Meanwhile, 25.39%, representing 66.22 million SOL, have voted against it, while 9.47%, or 24.69 million SOL, have abstained.

Activists such as Helius’ Mert have already called on Solana founder Anatoly Yakovenko to help mobilize the remaining validators. Meanwhile, the related SGP-0003 fee reform has already officially failed, as major validators abstained en masse, leaving the plan to burn up to 9,000 SOL per day with no chance of passing.

Even if supporters of the deflationary proposal secure victory on SGP-0002, the changes to Solana’s tokenomics will not take effect immediately. 
The outcome of the referendum provides only a political mandate. Activation will require the implementation of the SIMD-0550 technical upgrade, whose coordination and rollout will take validators at least 4.5 months.