Tips

A tip is a small SOL payment that raises how urgently a Rakurai validator schedules your transaction or bundle. Send it as a normal SOL transfer to one of the eight Rakurai tip accounts. The scheduler treats that amount as extra value when choosing what enters the block first — this is the virtual priority boost used across TIN.

Tips are extra on top of priority fees, not a replacement. A large tip with almost no priority fee still gains little. The validator’s share is tracked in a Tips Collection Account (TCA), separate from block rewards.

This page covers how to tip, why there are eight tip accounts, how tips turn into priority, custom tip accounts, and how tips are collected and paid out.

Audience: Searchers, transaction inclusion services, and traders who tip Rakurai validators.

Related: TIN overview · Revenue settlement · Post-pack confirmations · TCA program docs

Minimum Tip Requirements

1. What are tips?

Tips help traders and searchers land bundles (or transactions) on Rakurai nodes. Higher tips generally receive higher scheduling priority than lower tips.

2. How are tips transferred?

2.1. Sending a tip

Tips are ordinary SOL transfers to one of the eight Rakurai tip accounts. You do not need a special program call — add a SystemProgram.transfer in your transaction or bundle from your wallet to any of those accounts.

Why eight accounts? If everyone tipped the same account, transfers would queue on one write lock. Eight accounts let many tippers land at the same time.

3. How do tips prioritize my transaction?

When your transaction transfers SOL to a Rakurai tip account, the scheduler uses that amount as a priority signal for your transaction or bundle.

3.1. Virtual priority boost

Add a transfer to one of Rakurai’s tip accounts in your transaction or bundle (same idea as Jito tips). The boost works for both TPU transactions and bundles.

3.2. What you should do

1. Put the tip inside your transaction or bundle as a SystemProgram.transfer to one of the eight Rakurai tip accounts.
2. Tip enough to meet the Minimum Tip Requirements. Higher tips generally get higher priority when a Rakurai validator is leader.

3.3. What tips do not do

1. A tip is not a replacement for regular priority fees. Very low priority fees plus a very high tip still yield little tip-based prioritization.
2. Tips are independent of Solana's base 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?

Prefer Rakurai's tip accounts. For interim custom tip accounts, contact the Rakurai team — see Setup guide — to register your accounts and agree a commission share.

4.1. How it works

1. Register your account — provide tip account addresses 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 — 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 TCA using the Partner Tip and Mev Revenue Settlement CLI (transfer --revenue-kind Tip), following the 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 TCA.

6. How are tips distributed?

Tip distribution has two stages. The mechanism differs for Rakurai's tip accounts vs an external custom tip account.

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

P2C payments: PSA (epoch fee by volume) for reselling, MCA for backrun MevShare — you can use either or both. See rakurai-p2c / rakurai-revshare.

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 goes to the Rakurai commission account (commission percentage is set on-chain via the Tip Manager config account); the remainder goes 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 / MevShare revenue stays in the searcher or 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 (optionally converted 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 holder must first settle their agreed share into the relevant TCA (use Partner CLI transfer --revenue-kind Tip). Once settled, commission is deducted and the remaining share is transferred to the validator identity (optionally converted into block rewards).
• PSA (P2C Subscription Account) — keep the account funded for epoch volume fees 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, record the owed revenue on the MCA once (Partner CLI record-revenue), then settle 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 use Solana's native fee mechanism. Rakurai tips are direct SOL transfers to tip PDAs that the Rakurai scheduler uses to prioritize bundles. Higher tips are generally scheduled before 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 via Setup guide to register your 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.