Key Points
- Solana Foundation removed a group of validators from its delegation program due to sandwich attacks.
- Sandwich attacks involve crypto manipulation exploits.
According to the latest reports, the Solana Foundation announced it removed certain validator operators from its delegation program. The reason was their involvement in sandwich attacks on Solana users.
Solana Validator Relations Lead Tim Garcia on the Solana Foundation’s Discord server wrote on the platform that decisions in the matter are final.
He said that enforcement actions are ongoing as the team detects operators participating in mempools which allow sandwich attacks.
Mert Mumtaz, the co-founder of Solana RPC provider Helius, explained that this move will ensure that the foundation will not delegate validators who carry out malicious sandwich attacks on retail users.
He also noted that such attacks are not natively possible on Solana as the client does not have a mempool. However, certain bad actors added modes to their validators to enable the attacks on Solana.
Sandwich attacks are against the rules on Solana
In a May 7 Discord post, Garcia wrote that sandwich attacks are against the rules laid out by the Solana Foundation.
Sandwich attacks are front-running exploits where an attacker places two transactions around a victim’s transaction in order to manipulate the price and profit from the difference.
He said that operators engaging in such malicious activities such as participating in a private mempool to sandwich attack transactions or harming Solana users in any other way will not be tolerated by the delegation program.
Garcia noted that anyone found engaging in such activity will end up rejected from the program and any stake from the Foundation will be removed immediately and permanently.
Solana Foundation Delegation Program helps validators operate
Officially, the Solana Foundation Delegation Program was created in order to help validators operate by delegating SOL tokens to them. This removes the need to hold a substantial amount of tokens.
Validators are selected based on their performance. But, the participation comes with caveats and expectations of good practices from them.
Solana is a permissionless network and the specific group of operators can still contribute to the blockchain. The difference is the fact that they will not be subsidized with SOL delegated to them by the foundation.
MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) issues on Solana arise when validators manipulate transaction ordering to maximize profits.
Such manipulation consists of front-running and sandwich attacks which cause higher costs and slippage for users.
Mumtaz highlighted the fact that the validators can do whatever they want, but they just won’t have the foundation subsidizing them to “rob retail.”
