Solana Foundation Removes Some Validators Following Malicious Attacks against Users

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As an experienced analyst in the blockchain industry, I strongly approve of the Solana Foundation’s decisive action against validators involved in sandwich attacks. The integrity and security of any blockchain network depend on its adherence to fair practices and rules. Malicious activities such as sandwich attacks harm retail users and undermine trust in the ecosystem. By taking a firm stance against these malfeasors, Solana is setting an important precedent for other blockchain projects.

Recently, the Solana Foundation made public its decision to expel certain validator operators from its delegation program. These validators are under scrutiny for allegedly participating in “sandwich attacks” against Solana users. In simpler terms, they are suspected of exploiting a loophole to make profits by trading ahead of other users in the Solana ecosystem.

Tim Garcia, the Solana Validator Relations Lead said:

In this particular issue, our decisions are non-negotiable. Simultaneously, we’re actively implementing measures against individuals operating in pools that facilitate sandwich attacks.

The Foundation’s decision to take action against validators engaging in malicious attacks against retail users makes it abundantly clear that such behavior will not be tolerated. According to Garcia, these “sandwich attacks” violate the rules established by the Solana Foundation.

Garcia described in a Discord post how a sandwiched attack functions as a sophisticated form of front-running exploit. By placing two transactions on either side of a victim’s transaction, an attacker attempts to influence the market price and subsequently gains from the resulting price discrepancy.

Malicious operators attempting unscrupulous actions like manipulating transactions through private mempools for sandwiching attacks or causing harm to Solana users will not be accepted by the delegation program. Discovering such misconduct will result in immediate expulsion from the program, and any stake held by the Foundation will be irrevocably forfeited.

Garcia made it clear during his announcement that the removal of operators involved the Solana Foundation Delegation Program. This initiative is designed to support validators in carrying out their duties by transferring SOL tokens to them, thereby relieving the need for a substantial token holding. Furthermore, the program selects validators based on their past performance.

Solana Prepares for Mainnet Upgrade

The Solana Foundation is gearing up for another major network update, encouraging validators to adopt the latest stable version. This revision intends to alleviate network overload and stress resulting from the intense hype surrounding Solana’s meme coin projects.

The Solana development team advises adopting version 1.18.15 for the upcoming network upgrade, as suggested in a post by Solana Status on June 10th. This update is intended to alleviate significant network congestion resulting from the recent introduction of Solana-native meme coins. Mainnet beta validators are encouraged by the Solana team to make the transition to version 1.18.15.

The update brings about significant modifications, such as advancing the Bump version to a stable v1.18.15 for Mainnet Beta deployment. Furthermore, this release on GitHub showcases crucial improvements like integrating CA certificates into the Docker container, resolving bugs that guarantee transactions with validity are processed effectively, and introducing metrics to handle threshold failures.

It’s time for all friends to upgrade to the latest version 1.18.15 of Solana on the mainnet-beta, with a stake ratio of no more than 5% unpaid. Please make sure to update accordingly.

v1.8 has landed bros.

— Rex St. John (@rexstjohn) June 10, 2024

The update introduces improvements to the scheduler through the inclusion of worker precompile verification and modifying shallow threshold checks, which will now only generate logs during the consensus process.

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2024-06-10 17:15