Polygon Validator Priority Fee Payout Report — February 28

Polygon Mainnet (PoS)
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Polygon Priority Fee Payout — What Does the February 28, 2026 Data Show?

Based on the payout data from February 28, 2026 (Nonce 10, TX: 0x20c982c83dab08217296010b6510ba44b28e2f6ddec869bcae68663062aba72f), the distribution of priority fees across the validator set is clearly concentrated.

Key Facts

  • 103 validators received a payout
  • Total distributed: 5,994,031 POL
  • Of all stake in this set, 99.66% is delegated and 0.34% is self-stake

Concentration

The share captured by the top is significant:

  • The top 5 validators received 2,534,031 POL — 42.3% of the total payout
  • The top 10 validators received 3,854,786 POL — 64.3% of the total
  • The top 20 validators received 5,389,278 POL — 89.9% of all priority fees distributed

The Other Side

On the other end of the spectrum:

  • 66 out of 103 validators are marked as LOSS (fee payout below estimated infrastructure cost)
  • Only 37 validators are marked as OK
  • The median payout is 3,636 POL
  • The average is much higher at 58,194 POL, showing that a small top group pulls the total significantly upward

Distribution Breakdown

  • 26 validators received less than 1,000 POL
  • 15 validators received less than 500 POL
  • 2 validators received less than 100 POL

Largest Recipients

# Validator Payout (POL)
1 Upbit Staking 717,325
2 Coinbase 616,490
3 Binance Node 475,834
4 Luganodes 408,728
5 Anonymous 93 315,654

What This Payout Shows

The current priority fee distribution is not spread broadly across validators. A large share goes to a relatively small top layer.

This makes a monthly measurement useful as a baseline:

  • How much goes to the top 5 / top 10 / top 20
  • How much is left for the rest
  • How many validators operate at a loss based on payout data
  • Whether this concentration changes over time

Methodology

Priority fee payouts are on-chain verifiable from the multisig transaction. The LOSS/OK classification uses PIP-65’s infrastructure cost estimate of 8,523 POL/month ($929 at $0.109 price at payout), based on Jerry Chen’s (Polygon Labs) GCP cost analysis for post-VEBloP validator hardware. Actual validator costs vary by provider and configuration.

Full validator payout spreadsheet available upon request.

Author: Just Hopmans (@HopmansJust) — see also: PIP: Priority Fee Sharing for Delegators

1 Like
Pre-PIP: Base Reward for Priority Fee Distribution
PIP-85: VEBloP PIP-65 Priority Fee Formula Adjustment
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Let’s get a delegator friendly validator in the Top 5, so they can share the rewards with delegators

1 Like
3

Thanks for putting the numbers together, the concentration figures make a useful baseline. One thing that may be worth stating next to the LOSS/OK classification is the infrastructure cost assumed per validator, and whether it is a flat estimate or varies with the operator’s setup, since the label seems to depend heavily on that figure. Because 99.66% of the stake is delegated, it could also help to show payout per unit of delegated stake alongside the totals, which might separate the effect of size from the effect of performance. As far as I can tell, the median is also a better summary here than the average, given how far the top group pulls the mean up.