A Solana blockchain validator who performed sandwich attacks and generated $60 million so far has reportedly raised serious concerns about the reputation of the Solana crypto ecosystem.
Solana is a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Blockchain network that is popular for its unique Proof of History (PoH) protocol, which allows the Solana network to process up to 70,000 transactions per second (TPS). Between 2021 and 2023, this crypto network faced a significant downturn due to errors, which stopped network activity for several hours several times.
On December 10, 2024, Ben, the lead developer of Temporal, shared his findings related to a very large sandwich attack, in which a Solana network validator was directly involved.
Ben noted that three accounts linked to Arsc have been actively used to carry out attacks and make profits. Arsc is a network validator for Solana and produces blocks and profits through a sandwich attack bot, aiming to increase its revenue from maximum extractable value (MEV) tactics.
Ben proposed an idea to prepare a list to distinguish between whitelisted and blacklisted network validators; For this suggestion, Ben faced criticism.
Viktor Bunin, protocol specialist at Coinbase, said such ideas can lead to censorship, centralization and secret agreements.
Sandwich attacks can only be performed by validators or those with access to private mempools. With this attack, they ensure that traders get the worst price during trading on any Defi protocol, while the attacker reaps the benefits.
Solana Price Action
The current trading price of Sol, the native currency of the Solana network, is $226. This price level is 6.3% and is high over the last 24-hour period.
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