Criticism of Solana after 'eviction' of validators

A group of validators has been expelled from Solana's funding program for participating in "sandwich attacks." The criticism is not long in coming.

The Solana Foundation expelled a group of validators from the delegation program because of their involvement in so-called "sandwich attacks". This is contained in a message from the Validator Relations Lead, Tim Garcia, at Discord.

The delegation program is a Solana Foundation funding measure to cover the costs of validators with SOL tokens. Participation is subject to certain conditions for validators.

The group in question would have clearly violated these conditions. The measure is intended to protect Solana users from becoming unwitting victims of MEV attacks.

Validators can rearrange the order of transactions to maximize their profits (Maximum Extractable Value - MEV).

A sandwich attack is a type of front-running exploit in which an attacker places two on-chain transactions around that of his victim to manipulate the price and profit from the difference.

The Solana Foundation's measure received much criticism in the crypto community. Many questioned the decentralized nature of the blockchain because the ability to exclude validators violates the principle of "consentlessness."

However, Solana Foundation officials pointed out that the group excluded from the program could continue to validate transactions. Only the funding for this was withdrawn. Thus, the criticism is a misinterpretation.

The uproar comes just before the release of a major update for the blockchain. The v1.18.15 upgrade is intended to further improve network performance and much-needed stability.

A launch date has yet to be set, but the update has already been "recommended for wider release," as the CEO of Helius-Labs said announced on X.