SWQoS
Stake-weighted quality of service is how a transaction jumps the queue on Solana. A validator gives connection capacity in proportion to stake, so a sender that has stake behind it, or leases it, gets its transactions in front of the leader before the public RPC path does. Jito, Astralane, Temporal, bloXroute, Node1, FlashBlock and BlockRazor each run such a path, each with its own stake, its own peering to the current leader and its own latency that changes from slot to slot.
Provider racing
No single provider is fastest every slot. A Lightspeed does not pick one; it sends to all of them at the same instant.
- One copy per provider. The trade is built once, then signed once per provider with that provider's own tip account inside. Each copy is a distinct transaction with its own signature.
- Fired together. All copies leave our server in the same moment, in parallel, not one after another. The response lists every provider with its signature and the milliseconds until it acknowledged.
- Fastest path wins. Whichever copy reaches the leader first is the one that executes. The others fail on chain before they move any funds, so the trade happens once and only one tip is paid, to the provider that landed it.
- A slow provider costs nothing. Its copy simply loses the race. That is why racing beats choosing: the worst slot for one provider is covered by the others.
Your priority fee is in every copy, so a failed copy costs only that. The tip is a transfer inside the same transaction and fails with it.
Steering the race
tipis per copy. Only the landed copy pays it, so a higher tip is not multiplied by the number of providers. It must clear the minimum of every provider you want in the race; a provider under its minimum drops its copy.providersnarrows the race to the names you list, for example to leave out one you have seen lag from your region. The plain RPC always rides along, untipped.priorityFeestill matters inside the leader's block once a copy is delivered; keep it competitive on hot launches.
Providers
Every trade is raced across all of these at once. Each provider gets its own copy of the transaction, tipped to that provider's own account, and whichever path is fastest that slot wins.
| Provider | Minimum tip (SOL) | Name |
|---|---|---|
| Jito | 0.00001 | jito |
| Astralane | 0.00001 | astralane |
| Temporal (Nozomi) | 0.0001 | temporal |
| bloXroute | 0.0001 | bloxroute |
| Node1 | 0.0001 | node1 |
| FlashBlock | 0.0001 | flashblock |
| BlockRazor | 0.0001 | blockrazor |
| Plain RPC | none | rpc |
This is what a trade races across today; more providers are added as we bring them online. A provider drops its copy when the tip is under its minimum; tip: 0.0001 reaches all of these.