Tips

A tip is how you get scheduling priority on a Rakurai validator. It is the virtual priority boost building block of TIN: a plain SOL transfer to one of the eight Rakurai tip accounts, which the Rakurai scheduler counts as value when it decides what goes into the block first.

The boost is additive, not a substitute. Rakurai bounds how far a tip can carry a transaction that pays almost no priority fee, so tips cannot cannibalize priority fees. The validator's share is collected separately from block rewards, in a Tips Collection Account (TCA).

This page covers how to send a tip, why there are eight tip accounts, how the scheduler turns a tip into priority, how to register a custom tip account, and how tips are drained and distributed each leader turn and each epoch.

Audience: Searchers, transaction inclusion services, and traders sending tips to Rakurai validators.

Stream access and backrun profit sharing are not tips — they use PSA then MCA. See Post-pack confirmations.

1. What are tips?

Tips help traders and searchers land bundles (or transactions) on Rakurai nodes. Bundles (or transactions) that pay higher tips are generally prioritized over those that pay lower tips.

2. How are tips transferred?

2.1. Sending a tip

Tips are plain SOL transfers to one of the eight Rakurai tip accounts. No special program instruction is required to send a tip — include a SystemProgram.transfer in your transaction (or bundle) that moves lamports from your wallet to any of those tip PDAs.

Why eight accounts? Write-lock contention. If every tipper hit a single account, transactions would serialize on that account lock. Eight parallel tip accounts let many tippers land simultaneously.

3. How do tips prioritize my transaction?

When your transaction includes a SOL transfer to a Rakurai tip account, that transfer amount is the tip signal the scheduler uses to prioritize your transaction (or bundle).

3.1. Virtual priority boost

Rakurai improves inclusion efficiency through virtual priority. Add an additional transfer instruction (just like Jito tips are paid) to one of Rakurai's tip accounts in your transaction or bundle. Virtual priority can boost both TPU transactions and bundles.

3.2. What you should do

1. Include the tip inside your transaction (or bundle) as a SystemProgram.transfer to one of the eight Rakurai tip accounts.
2. Higher tip → higher scheduling priority when the current slot leader is running the Rakurai scheduler. The scheduler weighs reward (tip + fees) relative to estimated compute cost, similar to Solana's standard priority formula: transactions that pay more per compute unit are prioritized.

3.3. What tips do not do

1. A tip is not a replacement for regular priority fees. If a transaction has very low priority fees and a very high tip, tip-based / virtual prioritization will be less significant, which discourages priority-fee cannibalization.
2. Tips are independent of Solana's base transaction fee and prioritization fee — they are an additional incentive for validators.

4. Can I use my own tip account instead of Rakurai's eight accounts?

The preferred mechanism is to send tips to Rakurai's tip accounts. However, for the time being, if you need to receive tips in your own account(s), contact the Rakurai team on Slack or Telegram to configure your custom tip accounts.

4.1. How it works

1. Register your account — provide your tip account addresses (e.g., ABC...DEF) to the Rakurai team and agree on a commission percentage you will share with Rakurai (e.g., 30%). A sample JSON list:

{
  "tip_account_1": 0.20,
  "tip_account_2": 0.25,
  "tip_account_3": 0.30
}

2. Rakurai adds your account to the validator flow — the team configures the system so that tips sent to your custom account are recognized by the Rakurai scheduler. Validators control which tip accounts are effective through Admin RPC.
3. Prioritization — when someone tips your custom account, the agreed Rakurai share (e.g., 30%) is used by the scheduler to prioritize the transaction, the same way standard Rakurai tip accounts work.
4. Settlement — after the epoch ends, settle the agreed Rakurai share into the validator's Tips Collection Account (TCA) using the Partner Tip and MevShare Revenue Settlement CLI (transfer --revenue-kind Tip), following the same tip distribution flow.

5. How are tips accumulated?

On every Rakurai leader turn, the validator client automatically submits a tip-receiver claim transaction (change_tip_receiver_v2) that:

1. Drains all eight tip accounts (lamports above rent exemption from the previous leader period).
2. Transfers Rakurai's commission percentage to the Rakurai commission account.
3. Transfers the remaining share to the validator's Tips Collection Account (TCA).

6. How are tips distributed?

Tip distribution happens in two stages. The mechanism differs depending on whether tips land in Rakurai's tip accounts or in an external custom tip account.

See how tips vs backrun vs subscription are split. Partners can inspect pending amounts and settle with the Partner Tip and MevShare Revenue Settlement CLI.

P2C subscription fees (prepaid, stake-priced) use a PSA — pay this first to keep the stream on. See rakurai-p2c. Backrun profit sharing is a separate MCA.

6.1. Leader-turn stage (every leader turn)

On every Rakurai leader turn, the claim transaction processes tips from the previous leader period:

• Rakurai's eight tip accounts — drained directly. Rakurai's share is transferred to the Rakurai commission account (the commission percentage is set on-chain via the Tip Manager config account), and the remaining share is transferred into the validator's TCA.
• External custom tip accounts — cannot be drained (Rakurai does not control them), so the attributed amount is only recorded on-chain in the relevant per-validator, per-service TCA ledger each leader turn. No lamports move at this stage.
• MevShare (MCA) — nothing happens on-chain during leader turns. Post-pack / MEV-share revenue stays in the searcher or transaction landing service's own accounts until the epoch ends.

6.2. Post-epoch stage (after epoch ends)

After the epoch ends, TCA and MCA revenue is distributed following the claim and settle flow:

• Rakurai's eight tip accounts — the Rakurai tip balance in the relevant TCA is transferred to the validator identity account (with the option to convert it into block rewards). If conversion is on, do not count the tip and the converted block reward — see double-counting note.
• External custom tip accounts — the external tip account holder must first settle their agreed share into the relevant TCA (use Partner CLI transfer --revenue-kind Tip). Once settled, commission is deducted (credited to Rakurai's account) and the remaining share is transferred to the validator identity account (with the option to convert it into block rewards).
• PSA (P2C Subscription Account) — top up the prepaid subscription or post-pack stops. See PSA.
• MevShare (MCA) — when you start using post-pack, Rakurai creates your MCA; you must hold its record_authority. After the epoch ends, the service records the owed revenue on the MCA once (Partner CLI record-revenue), then settles it (Partner CLI transfer --revenue-kind Mev-share). Once settled, commission is deducted and the validator share is credited. Full flow: MCA.

If a holder does not settle within 2 epochs, their account stops being used for prioritization starting from the next epoch (two-epoch grace period).

7. Common questions

Q7.1: Do I need to interact with the Tip Manager program to send a tip?
A: No. A normal SOL transfer to any of the eight tip accounts is sufficient.

Q7.2: Can I tip multiple accounts in one transaction?
A: Yes, but one transfer to one tip account is typical. Multiple transfers to the same account in one transaction still accumulate correctly.

Q7.3: What happens if tips are never claimed?
A: They remain in the tip PDAs until the next Rakurai validator leader turn, when the validator runs change_tip_receiver_v2.

Q7.4: Where does the validator's tip share go?
A: The validator's share is transferred to the TCA on every leader turn. After the epoch ends, it is transferred to the validator identity account.

Q7.5: How is this different from a priority fee?
A: Priority fees are paid through Solana's native fee mechanism. Rakurai tips are direct SOL transfers to tip PDAs that are used by the Rakurai scheduler to prioritize traders' and searchers' bundles. Bundles with higher tips are generally scheduled before bundles with lower tips.

Q7.6: Can I use a custom tip account instead of the eight Rakurai accounts?
A: For the time being, yes. Contact the Rakurai team on Slack or Telegram to register your own tip account and configure a commission share. See custom tip accounts.

Q7.7: Where do I read about TCA, PSA, MCA, and post-pack?
A: Reward Distribution and Post-pack confirmations.

Appendix: Program and tip account addresses

This is the canonical list. Tip any one of the eight accounts for your cluster with a SystemProgram.transfer; they are equivalent, and the eight exist only to spread write-lock contention.

Mainnet Tip Accounts

1. BjqjPHFmwr19YFmkH8CMNJFbj1wzX9k9ngr4am2nQEdq
2. 9CNKnAqJgLA4pL6KByzhhdY4mKoQP5wcPdhJgnvvi5Ve
3. 5wy4C2VMFhHE4i8PWKNS1K4SV275zjNwhLwfKBwajrro
4. AgMdA97pk2i2Ry4YQ4iVPNrRiFhcH3x3ARUCiQGt3vJG
5. 4Qf8JFV5vmpADXNouoJriQ9KiniT5DENrz9JM2mKGH9m
6. AuFAFzbzE9dzMajy4RNdyJZBTskeiuJQqT2wd9xoGSRD
7. 8aLaHz8595MAvgxKoBJEyZmDfqQp8CorezFGYnC7CPjy
8. H6hyJo6rpBmwHbvVuWCEHExJ2bE4rcn1hTPeiBtypus4

Testnet Tip Accounts

1. 3ahyXyni1jLj8kJ13VgGEFDJzB374dgQW273nJSg8cdm
2. 3aebD4TAn1somZfiaKRrMypUfmbDzT7XMVWRM5TFHuKW
3. Hm4LFyTAbrgH4eejYmNXQJ9oejQyq8frD2qeJbmkCAWR
4. AffPqNJ8jSrFGgfiouVfXcra1Vd6gHUjNhpoL8uW8dY5
5. 9Z4pSxRZzE1T2e6587yzMWtvo8RHKW3R5Rb2FcprUPz
6. J2JdwcRrxWyCHKrgi2ipwCFXK2oRSgzPN4P7Q6Kz9XZ9
7. DscP7KHpAvfnboSKEQ5KEcwuFuRWn6MTjKYYTftuqY6z
8. Ur14r1oNyLvYeFLngGoEwYV4zwFVcui72vJqAavDXhZ

Program mechanics for these accounts: Rakurai Tip Manager.