Solana verifiers were fined as the network protects retail users

The Solana Foundation has removed several authentication operators from its network delegation group citing their involvement in sandwich attacks against users.

As reported, bad actors have added mods to their authenticators to enable sandwiching on Solana.

A proxy program struck by verifiers to target retail users

The Solana Network has terminated several certifiers from the Ecosystem Representation Program for violating the foundation's best practices. According to reports, bad actors have added mods that enable them to sandwich the retail users.

A “sandwich attack” is a malicious high-extractable value attack where retailers always accept the worst price, while bad actors keep all the profits for themselves. MEV for blockchain, affects the security, efficiency and fairness of the transaction. It can also compromise network security by encouraging miners or validators to engage in double spend attacks or transaction censorship.

“Decisions on this matter are final. “Enforcement actions are underway as we see operators engaging in Mempool that allow sandwich attacks,” said Tim Garcia, Solana's Head of Assertive Communications.

In May, Solana's validator revenue from MEV surpassed that of the Ethereum blockchain. MEV revenue has been growing rapidly since mid-March, hitting new highs recently.

Read more: What is Maximum Extractable Value (MEV)? Everything you need to know

In a follow-up post on X, Mert Mumtaz, co-founder of Solana RPC provider Helios, discussed the implications of the ouster. According to the post, this step ensures that the foundation is not exposed to malicious authenticators who can perform sandwich attacks on retail users.

Especially since Solana is a permissionless blockchain, these operators can still participate in their activities on the network. However, it does not enjoy their usual privileges: the Solana Foundation's proxy program aims to support validators by giving them SOL tokens, allowing them to operate without holding large amounts of tokens. Validators are selected based on performance merit.

“After all, these operators can still do whatever they want; it's an unlicensed network – it's not subsidized by the foundation,” Mumtaz said.

Read more: How to buy Solana (SOL) and everything you need to know

This decision did not go down well with the community members. It has rekindled the argument that the SOL blockchain is centralized. This conversation always comes up when the network is down for one reason or another.

“Solana's true scalability issue is trying not to expose how centralized it is while trying to protect the network from malicious attacks in the process,” Mike Three wrote in a post on X .