The number of Solana validators has plummeted by 68% from a peak of 2,560 in March 2023 to 795 as of Wednesday, according to Solanacompass data. This decline is accompanied by a 35% drop in the network's Nakamoto Coefficient, a measure of decentralization, from 31 to 20. Industry experts attribute this trend to rising operational costs and zero-fee competition from larger validators, which are driving smaller validators out of the network due to insufficient economic returns. Validators face initial costs of approximately $49,000 in SOL tokens and annual voting fees of about 401 SOL, in addition to hardware expenses.