Polkadot cuts to 400 validators on November 18, with the bar at 1.68 million DOT

Polkadot is heading into the second stage of its validator cut. Under Referendum 1969, from around midday on Wednesday, November 18, the network is set to elect only 400 validators into the active set instead of 500. The current ranking already shows where it gets tight: the validator in 400th place has 1,684,180 DOT of backing, while the weakest of today's 500 active validators has only 1,653,900. If you nominate your own Polkadot coins and picked validators in the bottom fifth, review your selection before the deadline.

What is documented: the date, the staged plan and the vote count come from the referendum and from the proposal on the Polkadot forum, the backing per validator from staking data on the Polkadot Asset Hub, and the price from CoinGecko. Our own assessment follows further down in a separate, clearly labelled section.

Referendum 1969: the second stage of the Polkadot validator cut arrives on November 18

Referendum 1969 was submitted on Wednesday, November 11, and has been open for voting since. It lowers the number of active validators from 500 to 400. The motion names block 33,929,900 of the relay chain as the point of enactment, which according to the proposers means Wednesday, November 18, around midday Central European Time. By Saturday morning the aye side had 336,845 weighted votes, the nay side practically none.

A validator is an operator who runs a node on the network, confirms blocks and posts DOT as collateral in return. A nominator is a DOT holder who backs up to 16 validators with their coins and shares in their rewards. A validator's backing is the sum of its own stake and the DOT of its nominators. At every election, held once per era of roughly 24 hours, only the validators with the most backing make it into the active set.

The first stage followed the same pattern. Referendum 1966 cut the number from 600 to 500, as we described in Polkadot: Referendum 1966 passes, only 500 validators from Tuesday. The change was enacted on a Tuesday and took effect with the first election afterwards. The first era with 500 places began on Wednesday, November 11, at 12:36 CET. The second stage is expected to run the same way: enactment on Wednesday, then the first era with 400 places.

Forum roadmap: from 600 to 500 and 400, then 320 Polkadot validators

The cut follows a plan that Polkadot developers presented on the Polkadot forum on October 16. It states that a set of 600 validators exceeds what the network needs. The target is 320 validators, reached in three steps over three weeks: first 500, then 400, then 320. The stages are meant to leave time to monitor the network and to pause if problems arise.

Behind the plan is a redesign of the operator role. Those who stay in the smaller set are to run collators for the Asset Hub and the People Chain as well, and to serve requests from the Polkadot App. A collator is a machine that gathers transactions on a parachain and prepares blocks. Asked on the forum, one developer wrote that the reward per validator stays the same while the total shrinks with the number of places. More money for individual operators is only meant to come with the additional duties.

For DOT holders it is therefore clear that the November 18 stage will not be the last. The third stage, down to 320, needs its own referendum. No motion has been filed for it so far.

Validator rank 400: 1.68 million DOT of backing

How tight it will get is shown by the election for era 2354, which starts on Saturday at midday. It elects 500 validators. The weakest of them has 1,653,900 DOT behind it, the median one 1,782,257 DOT. The validator in 400th place has 1,684,180 DOT, the one in 320th place 1,750,167 DOT.

Only 30,280 DOT, or 1.8 percent, therefore separate today's last place from place 400. The 100 validators ranked 401 to 500 carry a combined 166.88 million DOT. That is 18.4 percent of the 907.51 million DOT bonded in the active set in era 2354. This backing does not disappear, but after the cut it only works if it is reallocated to other validators.

cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on November 14, 2026. It is based on staking data on the Polkadot Asset Hub for eras 2350 to 2354, covering all 500 elected validators of era 2354 and, for comparison, the 600 of era 2350.

Minimum stake after the cut: what the first stage says about the second

The ranking before the cut understates the bar afterwards. The first stage showed this. In era 2350, the last with 600 places, the validator in 500th place stood at 1,416,769 DOT. After the cut, the actual floor in era 2351 was 1,640,130 DOT, or 15.8 percent higher. The reason: the election redistributes nominators' votes, and anyone who had only backed validators at the bottom of the list gets assigned to other validators.

If the effect repeats at the same size, the new floor would work out at around 1.95 million DOT. That is a calculation using the values of the first stage, not a forecast. The redistribution depends on how many nominators mixed several validators and who reallocates beforehand. The only thing the data make clear is the direction: anyone behind a validator with 1.65 to 1.70 million DOT on November 18 has little buffer.

The smallest stake with which a nominator is counted in the election at all remains unchanged. According to the blockchain it is 191.28 DOT. New nominations still require at least 250 DOT.

Active staking since November 12: 907 million DOT instead of 900 million

On Thursday, in Polkadot after the cut: 15 million DOT less in active staking, we showed how the first stage played out. Part of that has since reversed. In era 2351, 900.62 million DOT were bonded in the active set; in era 2354 the figure is 907.51 million. That is 6.89 million DOT more, just under half of the 15.21 million drop at the first cut.

The floor has moved too, if only slightly: from 1,640,130 DOT in era 2351 to 1,653,900 DOT in era 2354, an increase of 0.8 percent. The number of registered validator candidates fell from 720 to 717, and there are 28,097 nominators. The payout per era stayed the same at 69,215.6 DOT. These figures suggest that some nominators reallocated after the first cut.

Nominating before the deadline: rank 401 earns no rewards

For nominators, November 18 decides whether their DOT keep earning rewards. A validator that ends up in 401st place or lower in the election produces no blocks and pays out nothing. Its nominators' DOT stay bonded but earn nothing as long as none of their chosen validators is elected.

Which validators are active is shown on the official Polkadot staking dashboard once you connect your wallet. If you use all 16 slots and choose mainly validators with well over 1.75 million DOT of backing, you are very likely to remain in the active set after the cut. A change only applies from the next election, so if you only react on Wednesday you may lose an era.

A nomination pool is simpler. It is a group of many holders whose operator selects the validators and distributes the rewards; you can join from 1 DOT. A third option is staking through an exchange, which sets the validators and deductions itself. Which platforms offer DOT staking and how much they keep is shown in our comparison of staking platforms. The coins are then held by the provider and not in your own wallet.

Since the spring, nominators have benefited from a change that helps with reallocating: unbonding from staking takes them two eras instead of 28, as we described on November 12. Anyone who wants to exit or switch routes can therefore have liquid coins again within about two days.

Strategy mandate 1954: 97.3 percent for users over network size

In parallel, Polkadot has decided on its direction. Referendum 1954, a so-called Wish for Change titled DOT DAO Strategy Mandate, was confirmed on Wednesday, November 11, at 16:39 CET. The aye side had 9.65 million weighted votes, the nay side 0.27 million. That amounts to 97.3 percent approval. The votes actually cast represented a combined 2.16 million DOT, a small fraction of all coins.

A Wish for Change does not alter any code. It sets what developers, the Fellowship and funded teams should align with in future. The mandate was brought by the Polkadot Community Foundation. Its core: for the time being, Polkadot is to put user acquisition ahead of other metrics, such as the number of projects or the capital locked. Literally, the motion speaks of a shift from competing with other smart contract platforms to competing with Web2 and mobile offerings.

dotUSD and dotStables: how users are meant to become DOT demand

The second element of the mandate is the dotStables. These are stablecoins backed by DOT whose value is pegged to a currency; the first is dotUSD, pegged to the US dollar. A stablecoin is a token designed to hold a fixed value. dotUSD is created when users deposit DOT as collateral and mint dotUSD against it. The mandate cites as its model Liquity, a collateralised stablecoin of this kind on Ethereum.

The idea behind it: users prefer to pay and save in a stable currency rather than a volatile coin. If demand for dotUSD rises, for example through payments in the Polkadot App, more DOT have to be deposited as collateral. In this way, demand for the stablecoin is ultimately meant to turn into demand for DOT. As a third element the mandate names a product platform on which Polkadot bundles applications for end users, starting with the Polkadot App.

For investors this is a statement of intent for now. The mandate names no dates, targets or budget. How much DOT will be locked as collateral in future depends on whether the app actually wins users.

DOT price at $0.79: 8.7 percent above the all-time low

On Saturday morning DOT costs $0.79 or €0.72, according to CoinGecko. That is down 3.2 percent in 24 hours, 11.6 percent in seven days and 28.0 percent in 30 days. The daily range runs from $0.786 to $0.848. On Thursday DOT was still trading at $0.84; the support at $0.82 mentioned at the time has since broken.

The next level to the downside is the all-time low of August 18 at $0.727, around 8 percent below the current price. To the upside, the first hurdle is $0.848, the high of the past 24 hours, followed by $0.90. The data show no link between the validator cut and the price. DOT has been falling with the whole market for weeks, and bitcoin has lost 11.5 percent in seven days.

Several price targets and scenarios for the coming months and years are collected on our Polkadot prediction page. If you still want to buy DOT, the fees of regulated providers are listed in our crypto exchange comparison.

How staking rewards and DOT sales are taxed depends on the country you live in; tools that record the payout of every era automatically are listed in our comparison of crypto tax software.

Editorial view: stage two hits the crowded middle of the ranking

Our assessment: the second stage affects fewer nominators than the first but could prove more costly for those it does hit. The ranking supports this. Only 1.8 percent of backing separates place 400 from today's last place, whereas at the first cut the gap between places 500 and 600 was around 3 percent. The field is so tight that even small reallocations will decide places 380 to 420. On top of this, the first stage showed that the actual bar after the cut was around 16 percent above the value in the old ranking.

Against this, 6.89 million DOT have already returned to the active set since Thursday. Many nominators have therefore reacted, and pools adjust their selection continuously anyway. The strategy mandate changes nothing about this situation in the short term; it describes a direction without a date. Neither development amounts to a buy or sell signal. As with any coin, a total loss is possible.

Polkadot staking: there is time to renominate until November 18

1. Review your nominations: Use the staking dashboard to see which of your validators are active in era 2354 and how much backing they have. If they sit below 1.75 million DOT, switching before Wednesday makes sense; alternatives are listed in our comparison of staking providers.
2. Choose your route: With less than 250 DOT, or without time to follow elections, a nomination pool is the direct route. If you still need to buy DOT, compare the costs of the crypto exchanges first.

(As of November 14, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)