Marinade Finance Unleashes New Arsenal Against Rogue Solana Validators!

Hang onto your hats, crypto fans! Solana's own Marinade Finance just dropped a bombshell with new tools designed to knock those sneaky validators down a peg!

It's no secret that bad actors in the Solana validator scene have been a thorn in the side of honest traders. But guess what? The native protocols are fighting back! On Tuesday, June 24, Marinade Finance didn't just sit back; they launched a full-on assault with a suite of tools to sniff out and shut down validators pulling off those dirty sandwich attacks on unsuspecting users.

Marinade's Statement on SAM Delegation to Negative MEV Validators (Sandwichers):

1/ We've reviewed the research shared by the @0xGhostLogs and @0x7cf teams, which highlighted the importance of strengthening our blacklisting efforts. pic.twitter.com/gMsw4LmjDp

So, what's a sandwich attack? Picture this: validators slyly slipping their own transactions around your trade, both before and after. They're playing with the sequence like it's their personal chessboard, all to squeeze out profit at your expense. Not cool, right?

Marinade spotted this shady behavior in SOL delegated through their Stake Auction Marketplace. But did they just sit back? No way! They beefed up their blacklisting game and rolled out slashing tools that hit those malicious validators where it hurts: their rewards.

Solana's Anatoly Yakovenko Cheers On the Crackdown

But wait, there's more! To keep the good vibes going, Marinade unveiled Marinade Select, a handpicked list of validators you can trust. And it's not just any endorsement; Solana's co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko is all over this, especially when it comes to liquid staking.

This is an awesome outcome and was my dream for stake pools.

We need LSTs to be used as collateral in DeFi, and for those DeFi apps to give feedback to the LSTs on what kind of validators are best for DeFi.

If this loop works I have no worries about long term ecosystem…

Yakovenko's all in, saying that liquid staking protocols like Marinade, Jito, and Lido need to be the eyes and ears, feeding back on how validators are performing. This feedback loop? It's the shield the ecosystem needs against those bad apples.

And the Solana Foundation? They've been on this mission for a while now. Back in April, they started trimming the fat, cutting small validators from their delegation program. That's right, they're handing out some of their SOL tokens to validators to give them a boost.

But let's keep it real; it's not all smooth sailing for Solana's validator scene. Running a node costs big bucks, and many validators are barely scraping by. It's a tough gig, and that's why some of them are turning to shady moves like sandwich attacks.