The crypto market has been hit by a series of bloodbaths recently. Not only did Solana’s price not rise after the meme coin craze subsided, but users also took to social media to complain that they were “squeezed.”
X user @btc_ 798 said that after buying $GANG tokens on the Solana chain, the token price soared 100 times, and then sold the position. However, because the routing service chose the Raydium trading pool with extremely low liquidity (only 100 SOL) instead of the better Orca pool (4000 SOL), the selling price was much lower than the current market price, causing the trader to lose about 1000 SOL. SOLs anti-pinch nodes have started to do evil themselves. @PinkPunkBotCN also mentioned that it is suspected that the recent pinching phenomenon is that the nodes are deliberately cutting users.
GMGN co-founder @haze0x also posted a special message to remind everyone: There is a problem with the MEV facility on the SOL chain, and the clamps are starting to run rampant.
In response to these phenomena, crypto analyst @PepeBoost 888 pointed out that some Jito validators have recently leaked data to the clamp, resulting in the data of anti-clamp transactions being obtained in advance by the clamp. According to @solstatz statistics, on March 15 alone, Raydium reported 10,633 attacks, with a total loss of 916.63 SOL; Pump Fun reported 1,770 attacks, with a total loss of 314.85 SOL.
Whats the problem?
In fact, being sandwiched is not the first time that Solana has appeared. Being sandwiched is a sandwich attack, which is a common MEV (maximum extractable value) strategy and a common problem in the AMM market. In this attack, the robot detects the transaction before it is bundled into the block, and then executes a buy order before the transaction, pushing up the price; then after the transaction is completed, it immediately places a sell order to earn the difference. This forces users to buy tokens at a higher price, while the robot easily profits. Although MEV is not worthless in essence, it can prevent spam attacks (Scam Attack) through mechanisms such as priority fees, which helps maintain the stability of the blockchain network. However, Solana seems to have left a loophole for sandwich attacks due to mechanism problems.
MEV on Solana was not very prominent until Jito launched the MEV reward protocol. Today, more than 66% of validators have adopted the Jito-Solana client, which allows users to pay tips to allow validators to pack first. At the same time, Jito also runs a memory pool (Mempool), which allows sandwich attackers to monitor user transactions. Although Jito closed Mempool in March 2024 to try to reduce such attacks, MEV robots can still continue to monitor transactions by running RPC nodes, and the attack has not stopped.
In June 2024, Tim Garcia, head of validator relations at the Solana Foundation, announced on Discord that he had decided to take strong measures to remove more than 30 validator nodes involved in sandwich attacks in an attempt to curb the problem, but this action did not completely solve the frequent attacks. Take the infamous arsc robot as an example. It once made a profit of more than 30 million US dollars in 2 months. The MEV robot continued to make considerable profits through sandwich attacks after the Foundations actions. The attacker quickly adapted to the changes in the network and may have bypassed the restrictions by running his own RPC node to continue to monitor and preempt user transactions.
Related reading: Solana made $30 million in 2 months, why the sandwich attack on Solana continues to occur despite repeated bans
Today, sandwich attacks are still a persistent problem on Solana. Users generally report that even if they pay Tips, they cannot completely avoid being sandwiched by sandwich attacks. This is highly similar to past situations, where attackers took advantage of Solanas high transaction processing speed and relatively predictable transaction ordering to continue to target transactions.
How is it different from being “squeezed” on Ethereum?
In fact, being “sandwiched” is not uncommon in the blockchain world. Ethereum has also suffered from sandwich attacks. The reason why sandwich attacks on Solana have become a chronic disease is closely related to its network design and operating mechanism, which are very different from Ethereum.
On Ethereum, the source of MEV is mainly related to the visibility of unprocessed transactions. Due to the existence of a shared Mempool, anyone can get a glimpse of the transaction information waiting to be put on the chain. This is like knowing in advance which goods are about to be snapped up in an open market. As a result, savvy traders can use this foresight to profit by arbitrage or reordering transactions, and attackers can spend more gas fees to preempt the transaction order and use fee competition to carry out attacks.
In contrast, Solana does not have a Mempool, which means that the information of unprocessed transactions is not publicly available like Ethereum, and the difficulty of obtaining this information has increased dramatically. But for validators, opportunities still exist. Validators are responsible for processing a certain round of transactions. In this process, they can clearly see which transactions have not yet been packaged on the chain. At this time, the validator has a secret trump card: like the players on Ethereum, they can quietly carry out sandwich attacks and profit from them. But this advantage is private, and only the evil validator knows it, and other validators have no way of knowing it.
In terms of dealing with sandwich attacks, the effectiveness of the measures taken by Ethereum and Solana are significantly different. Ethereum outsources transaction sorting to professional builders through the MEV-Boost system, limiting the ability of validators to manipulate the order of transactions and effectively reducing the incidence of attacks. In contrast, although Solanas Jito system attempts a similar mechanism, attackers can still find loopholes and use private nodes to bypass restrictions. It can be said that Ethereums MEV-Boost successfully constrained the behavior of validators, while Solanas Jito system seemed a bit powerless in curbing attacks.
In addition, the network structures of Solana and Ethereum also determine the difficulty of prevention. Solana has only about 2,000 validators, and the power is relatively concentrated. A few malicious nodes may affect the transaction order, providing an opportunity for attackers. Ethereum has more than 500,000 validators, and the network is highly decentralized. It is difficult for attackers to control enough nodes to carry out attacks, which becomes a natural protective barrier.
Related reading: Dialogue with Solana Node: Who is making a fortune in silence with memecoin?
In short, Solana is fast but centralized, and attackers can exploit loopholes using private nodes, and the Jito system cannot stop them. Ethereum relies on fee competition and MEV-Boost, plus a decentralized structure, to provide better prevention. If Solana wants to solve the problem, it must optimize the mechanism and decentralize power.
How to avoid being stuck?
Before the Solana mechanism is changed, it is crucial for users to understand how to effectively prevent sandwich attacks in transactions.
Crypto analyst @PepeBoost 888 suggests that to determine whether your transaction has been packaged by a malicious validator and has been subjected to a sandwich attack, you can check in the following ways: first, click the block number of the corresponding transaction in the Solscan blockchain browser, enter the block details page, find the Leader field, and check the information of the validator node responsible for packaging the block. At present, some malicious validators have been reported by the community and marked with risk warnings on the Solscan platform. Users can also cross-check the validator address with the public malicious node list maintained by @0x sucxub to confirm the risk.
For P players, the first principle when charging on-chain is to avoid setting too high slippage. It is recommended to rationally set a reasonable slippage range of 0.5%-1% according to market fluctuations. If using AMM for trading, the anti-MEV protection function should be actively enabled. This mechanism can significantly reduce the possibility of transactions being monitored by malicious nodes and implemented by pincer attacks through technical means such as confusing transaction paths and delaying broadcasts.
Related reading: GMGN Lianchuang teaches you how to become a qualified P player
The sandwich phenomenon has once again sounded the alarm for the Solana ecosystem. This is not a problem unique to Solana, but a pain that all public chains will probably encounter in their growth. However, if sandwich becomes the norm, Solanas reputation may be affected. After all, it has been hailed as the Ethereum killer because of its high-speed performance and user experience. If users feel that this highway is full of tolls, packaging fees, and protection fees, who would be willing to take it? Especially in key areas such as DeFi, trust is the highest cost.
