Solana Foundation Blocks Validators Over Sandwich Attacks

The Solana Foundation has blocked a group of network validators for their involvement in so-called sandwich attacks on Solana blockchain users.

A validator sees all unconfirmed transactions and determines their order. Special bots track user transactions for token purchases, the size of which can trigger a price increase. Such a bot automatically buys the same token, offering a higher fee to ensure its purchase precedes the victim’s purchase. When the user’s purchase transaction goes through, the bot automatically sells the token at the inflated price.

All of this happens within a few seconds in a single block of transactions. This activity yields a profit for the attackers even after accounting for higher gas fees. Their income, in this case, comes at the expense of the user, who ends up paying an inflated price for the tokens.

Reportedly, the blocked validators had their own pool of unconfirmed user transactions, through which their bots tracked those that were profitable for attacks.

The Solana Foundation emphasized that sandwich attacks are part of a technique known as Maximal Extractable Value (MEV). Last week, in the Ethereum network, a single MEV bot was responsible for 1.5% of all network fees, paying over $800,000 daily in inflated fees for thousands of sandwich attacks on various tokens.