Slashing
Plain English
A penalty where validators lose some of their staked cryptocurrency for breaking network rules or acting maliciously. Like getting fined for bad behavior. This economic punishment encourages validators to follow the rules and keeps the network secure.
Technical
Penalty mechanism in PoS networks where validators lose a portion of their staked tokens for provably malicious or negligent behavior: double-signing, voting for conflicting blocks, or extended downtime. Slashing enforces honest behavior through economic deterrence. Solana implements slashing for egregious consensus violations but generally favors other penalty mechanisms.