Unmasking Solana Validators: A Deep Dive into Malicious Behavior with SolBlaze
I’ve always been curious about how Solana’s validator ecosystem works, so I decided to dig deeper. Validators are the backbone of the network, ensuring security and consensus, but some might act in ways that harm decentralization.
My goal was to analyze validators in SolBlaze’s stake pool, a protocol focused on balancing staking rewards with network decentralization, and uncover any suspicious behavior that could pose risks.
Solana Validators,the Backbone of the Network
Validators on Solana confirm transactions, produce blocks, and vote on the network’s state to maintain consensus.
According to Helius, running a validator requires significant resources: hardware, at least 300-350 SOL in consensus voting, and technical knowledge.
They earn staking rewards and transaction fees, but some also extract MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) through arbitrage or liquidations, which can lead to centralization if a few validators dominate profits.
SolBlaze’s Delegation Strategy: Balancing Rewards and Decentralization
SolBlaze selects validators to support high performers, high scorers and smaller validators to enhance decentralization.
They use a stake coefficient system: for example, a top 10 validator by APY gets a 2000 point boost, while a smaller validator with a skip rate under 5% and commission under 3% gets 130 points.
Over time, SolBlaze plans to let BLZE token holders vote on stake distribution through gauges, further decentralizing their strategy.
With 1,724 validators in their pool, ensuring none act maliciously is key. That’s where my analysis comes in.
Uncovering Suspicious Behavior
I built a dashboard on Dune to analyze SolBlaze’s validators, focusing on three risk factors: high MEV earnings, voting inactivity, and potential vote parroting. I created a suspicion score (0 to 100) to quantify these risks:
High MEV Risk: Top 10% by MEV earnings get +50 points.
No Voting Activity: Zero votes in the last 7 days get +30 points.
Potential Vote Parroting: Unique slot to vote ratio under 0.9 gets +20 points.
A validator with multiple risk factors could score up to 80. Here’s what I found.
The Top 20 Validators by MEV Earnings chart (High vs. Standard Risk) showed High MEV Risk validators earning 300 to 800 SOL, while Standard Risk validators earn just 0 to 30 SOL. This gap highlights how a small group dominates MEV profits, which could centralize stake over time.
The Distribution of Validator Voting Behavior chart revealed 58% of validators vote normally, but 34% haven’t voted in the last 7 days, and 7.1% might be parroting votes, a sign of potential coordination.
The Suspicion Scores of Top 20 Validators scatter plot showed the riskiest validators scoring between 50 and 70, with most at 50 (High MEV Risk only) and only 3 at 70 (High MEV Risk plus Potential Vote Parroting). This indicates that while most high risk validators are active and voting normally, the 3 at 70 might be coordinating with others, posing a greater threat to decentralization.
The Distribution of MEV Risk Levels chart confirmed 6.2% (109 validators) are High MEV Risk, while 93.8% are Standard. The average suspicion score across all validators is 14.86, suggesting moderate risk overall.
What This Means for SolBlaze and Solana
My findings support SolBlaze’s mission to balance rewards and decentralization.
The 109 High MEV Risk validators I flagged are earning significant MEV profits, which could centralize stake over time.
SolBlaze might consider reducing stake to these validators if they also show inactivity or parroting behavior.
The 34% of validators with no voting activity and 7.1% potentially parroting votes should be investigated further, using SolBlaze’s monitoring and review process.
Solana’s validator ecosystem relies on decentralization, but concentrated stake can harm the network.
SolBlaze’s future gauge based governance, where BLZE holders vote on stake distribution, could help prioritize decentralization. My dashboard offers a tool to monitor these risks, helping SolBlaze make data driven decisions.
Why This Matters to Me
This project felt meaningful because I believe in Solana’s potential to build a truly decentralized future. Validators are the stewards of trust in this system, and seeing risks through my dashboard felt like contributing to a healthier network. I hope SolBlaze can use this to refine their strategy and support smaller validators.
Check Out the Dashboard
Explore the full dashboard on Dune here. It includes the table of validators, charts on MEV earnings, voting behavior, suspicion scores, MEV risk levels, and summary metrics.
References
https://stake-docs.solblaze.org
https://www.helius.dev/blog/solana-validator-economics-a-primer
https://www.helius.dev/blog/solana-foundation-delegation-program-sfdp