Solana banned a group of validators for their participation in sandwich attacks

The Solana Foundation announced the exclusion of a group of node operators from the delegation program due to their participation in “sandwich attacks” against users. This was announced by the head of the department for relations with blockchain validators, Tim Garcia, in the Discord channel.

I’m sure a lot of super honest people who have a perfect understanding of MEV on Solana and the Foundation Delegation program will try to misrepresent reality to feel better about their bags

For those genuinely curious, I’ll summarize:

— a sandwich attack is a malicious form of… pic.twitter.com/KhfGBgGuyT

—mert | helius | hSOL (@0xMert_) June 10, 2024

Back on May 7, a representative of the organization warnedthat such activities are contrary to the rules of the ecosystem:

This move ensures that the fund will not delegate authority to validators who carry out harmful actions towards retail users, the CEO noted RPC– Helius Labs supplier Mert Mumtaz.

He explained that a “sandwich attack” is a malicious form of MEV bots that takes all the profits from certain trades, leaving ordinary traders with assets at worse prices.

According to Mumtaz, such operations were initially impossible to perform in Solana because the blockchain client did not have a mempool. However, some validators have added “modifications”.

Mumtaz also emphasized that excluded validators will be able to continue to participate in the governance of the blockchain, but only without funding from the Solana Foundation.

Previously, the MEV bot operator jaredfromsubway.eth spent more than 215 ETH (~$830,200) on commissions and became the largest consumer of gas in Ethereum.

Network co-founder Vitalik Buterin identified MEV as one of the three main threats to the decentralization of the network, along with liquid staking and the cost of running a full node.

The EU regulator called the technology a clear example of market abuse.