Epoch
Plain English
A period of time on Solana (approximately 2.5 days) used for organizing staking rewards and leader schedules. At the end of each epoch, staking rewards are distributed and the validator rotation schedule is recalculated. Think of it like a pay period or season.
Technical
Time unit of exactly 432,000 slots (~2.5 days at 400ms/slot) used for validator set management and reward distribution. Each epoch: leader schedule computed deterministically based on stake weights, staking rewards calculated and distributed, stake activation/deactivation processed. Validators earn proportional rewards for blocks produced and votes submitted during epoch.