While even the validators in question can still operate on the network, they will no longer be subsidized by the Solana Foundation nonprofit, as Helius co-founder Mert Mumtaz explained.
While even the validators in question can still operate on the network, they will no longer be subsidized by the Solana Foundation nonprofit, as Helius co-founder Mert Mumtaz explained.
The Solana Foundation sanctioned validators involved in sandwich attacks
As of today, June 10, 2024, an unknown number of validators have been removed from the Solana Foundation group for being involved in sandwich attacks against other on-chain SOL accounts. Violators will not receive support from SOL injections from the Solana Foundation, says experienced ecosystem developer and entrepreneur Mert Mumtaz (@0xMert_) in X.
Mumtaz explained that the malicious validators were detected thanks to the use of specific modifications. MEV practices in Solana (SOL) are not natively allowed as their clients do not access mempools.
Removing incorrect validators from the Solana Foundation-supported pool does not mean termination or additional sanctions. Instead, the foundation is simply stopping supporting them with money:
Since people are abusing the system to steal from retail and then keep the profits, the Solana Foundation is not interested in retail users being stolen, especially with their own involvement.
To provide context, Mumtaz emphasized that the Solana Foundation is only responsible for 16% of the pool of validators in its consensus.
SOL, Solana’s main native cryptocurrency, lost 0.8% in the last 24 hours. The asset is changing hands at $158.65 on spot crypto exchanges.
Solana (SOL) still has ‘many other forms of MEV’, says developer
The effects of this step by the Solana Foundation are limited since, as with other permissionless networks, all validators can still do whatever they want.
As a result, there is still a good chance of MEV attacks occurring on Solana (SOL), Mumtaz admitted.
MEV (short for “maximum mined value” or “miner mined value”) is a technique that leverages on-chain traders by attacking mempools.
Vladislav SopovIn the Ethereum (ETH) ecosystem, the biggest MEV snipers are spending hundreds of millions on gas, as Guru-Investingpreviously reported.
