Jito Labs, a developer of Solana clients, has decided to eliminate the mempool feature provided by the Jito Block Engine following a series of intensified ‘sandwich attacks’ targeting Solana users.
Sandwich or MEV (Maximum Extractable Value) attacks involve a sophisticated bot identifying specific pending transactions and executing its own trades to exploit this information, thereby profiting at the expense of regular traders. While MEV attacks are prevalent on Ethereum, which has an inherent mempool, Solana lacks its own mempool infrastructure. However, the introduction of the Jito Block Engine by Jito Labs included a Solana mempool, inadvertently enabling such attacks, although they violated Jito’s terms of service.
In January, an MEV bot operating on Solana earned $1.8 million within seconds by back-running a trader attempting to acquire the memecoin “dogwifhat” (WIF).
Explaining the decision in a thread on X, Jito Labs emphasized that the action was taken “after thorough discussions with the Jito Labs team and key Solana ecosystem stakeholders.” They reiterated their commitment to the long-term success of the Solana network, including its applications, users, validators, and stakers.
Jito Labs has decided to suspend the mempool offered through the Jito Block Engine due to negative externalities impacting users on Solana.
The decision has been made after deliberate conversations with the Jito Labs team and key Solana ecosystem stakeholders.
— Jito Labs (@jito_labs) March 8, 2024
Jito Labs introduced its governance token in December, which experienced $1.1 billion in trading volume on its launch day. Currently, the token is trading at $2.86, reflecting a 5.5% increase in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.
