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Solana Network Struggles with Chain Congestion and DeFi Attacks
A surge in user activity on the Solana blockchain network has led to significant challenges, notably chain congestion and malicious exploitation by actors seeking to take advantage of the network’s low fees. This has prompted discussions among stakeholders within the blockchain ecosystem regarding potential major changes to the network’s operations.
Jito Labs Addresses Security Concerns
Jito Labs, the Solana infrastructure developer, recently announced the suspension of its mempool service after it was repeatedly manipulated to facilitate bot attacks on Solana users during periods of heightened network activity. While Solana itself does not have a mempool, Jito Labs’ Block Engine created one to allow users to maximize extractable value (MEV). This enabled traders to prioritize transactions by paying additional fees to the network, a common practice in decentralized finance. However, negative MEV, such as sandwich attacks, has become prevalent on Solana due to its low fees compared to Ethereum.
Impact on Solana Users
The decision to suspend the mempool functionality is aimed at improving the user experience on Solana, which is currently grappling with network congestion caused by the influx of meme coins and NFTs. This congestion has made operations challenging for projects like Drip, which generates hundreds of thousands of NFTs daily for its users.
Solana Considers Network Expansion
Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko recently polled his Twitter followers on the possibility of increasing block space on the network, even at the risk of potential outages. This discussion comes after an outage that occurred last month, highlighting the importance of network stability for Solana traders.
Despite the growing popularity of NFTs and meme coins on Solana, meme coins are identified as the primary cause of network congestion. The rapid creation of new meme tokens on a daily basis, inspired by successful projects like Dogwifhat and Bonk, has contributed to the overwhelming traffic on the blockchain.
According to analytics from Solscan, over 8,600 new tokens were created using the SPL token standard in a single day, setting a new record for the network. This number surged to more than 9,600 new SPL tokens the following day, reinforcing the ongoing challenges faced by Solana due to increased user activity.
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