Your staked SOL is not at risk if a validator goes offline. It sits in stake accounts you own, and a validator has no ability to take it, move it, or spend it. Downtime affects rewards for that period, not your stake.
So what is the actual impact?
On Solana, staking rewards depend on a validator voting reliably. If a validator stops voting, delegators to that validator can receive reduced rewards, or no rewards, for that epoch.
Two things limit how much that matters to you:
Your stake is spread across many validators. No single one carries your whole position, so one going offline affects only a small portion of your stake.
Marinade rebalances every epoch, moving stake away from validators that stop performing.
Are the lost rewards compensated?
Often, yes. Marinade runs Protected Staking Rewards (PSR), where validators post a SOL bond that can compensate stakers for rewards lost to prolonged downtime and certain validator-side changes, such as a validator raising its commission unexpectedly.
Downtime is the part of an epoch when a validator is not voting. A validator with 99% uptime in an epoch has 1% downtime.
Up to 1% downtime is not covered. For example, a validator with 99.5% uptime in an epoch is within this 1%, so nothing is compensated.
Above 1% downtime, the validator's bond covers 100% of the lost rewards, including that first 1%. For example, a validator with 90% uptime has 10% downtime, and the bond covers the full 10%.
How spread out is my stake?
Q: How spread out is my stake?
A: Marinade limits any single validator to 15% of its TVL, so no one validator can hold a large share of the stake Marinade directs. The 40% per country and 30% per hosting provider limits in Marinade's auction are network-wide caps, measured against all stake on Solana rather than against Marinade's own stake.
Do I need to claim anything?
No. It is handled through the protocol. There is no form to fill in and no deadline to watch.
I can see an inactive validator in my position. Is that a problem?
Usually not. Seeing a few inactive validators is normal while Marinade rotates stake in the background.
For more on how Marinade selects and monitors validators, see Marinade Native Staking Overview.