The Solana Foundation has recently taken action against a group of validator operators involved in sandwich attacks on traders, resulting in their removal from the delegation program.
A sandwich attack is a malicious tactic employed by traders where they identify a pending transaction on a network like Ethereum and strategically place orders before and after it. By executing a front-run and a back-run simultaneously, the attacker manipulates the asset’s price to maximize their profit at the expense of retail investors receiving the worst possible price.
These nefarious validator operators were pinpointed through mempools, which facilitate sandwich attacks. As per the rules set by the Solana Foundation, validators engaging in such malicious activities are not tolerated and have been stripped of their delegation responsibilities.
Tim Gracia, the lead of Solana validator relations, made the announcement on Discord, emphasizing that any operators engaging in harmful activities, like participating in private mempools to conduct sandwich attacks, will face consequences within the delegation program.
The Solana Foundation’s Delegation Program was initiated to assist validators by assigning them Solana’s (SOL) tokens, alleviating the burden of holding a large number of tokens. Delegation allows users to assign staking rights to a stake pool or validator who are responsible for creating blocks and verifying transactions based on their performance.
It is unacceptable for validators to exploit retail users by using third-party meme pools to scam them out of money. Mert Mumtaz, co-founder of Solana RPC provider Helius, highlighted the issue of operators seeking to profit unfairly from retail users in a post, mentioning that some validators have incorporated mods to enable sandwiching on Solana.
The Solana Foundation delegates SOL to validators to aid them in their endeavors, with a commitment to safeguarding retail users from exploitation and fraudulent activities that could jeopardize their investments. The Foundation is particularly vigilant about protecting users from falling victim to such schemes for personal gain.
In related news, leaked information revealed a celebrity price list linked to Caitlyn Jenner’s meme coin “mastermind,” sparking further discussions on market manipulation claims.