Solana validators face trade-offs between yield and efficiency: latency block strategy sparks controversy

Recently, the Solana network has seen a striking trend: the median block time has significantly increased, resulting in slower transaction processing speeds. This phenomenon is due to some validators adopting new strategies, namely generating blocks with latency to increase their profits.

In Solana's block generation mechanism, each block is led by a validator who is responsible for it. The leader collects transaction fees by creating blocks, so handling more transactions means higher profit opportunities. Some validators seem to choose to wait longer to pack more transactions into a block, thereby maximizing profits.

This practice has led to an increase in the cycle length of Solana, which contradicts its goal of pursuing high-speed transaction processing. At the same time, a reduction in cycles also means a decrease in the compounding opportunities for staking rewards.

Solana provides a "graceful tick" mechanism that allows leaders to submit Blocks within a certain latency period. While this mechanism is designed to protect remote validators, it also creates conditions for intentional delays in Block submission.

Recently, some validators running specific clients have been found to package blocks at a slower speed. Although there is an opinion that this latency is relatively small, it has still raised concerns within the community.

Data shows that in the 802nd cycle in mid-June, the median block time of certain large validators exceeded 570 milliseconds, far above Solana's nominal target of 400 milliseconds. Some validators admitted to having adopted latency strategies but stated that they have stopped this practice.

The Solana community has reacted strongly to this trend. Some major staking pool providers are considering taking measures such as blacklisting slow validators or submitting governance proposals to discuss related penalties.

At the same time, protocol-level solutions are also being advanced. There are proposals suggesting to shorten the grace tick period of Solana, and the upcoming consensus mechanism reform Alpenglow is expected to address this issue by enabling the skip voting feature.

This controversy highlights the trade-off between efficiency and profitability in blockchain networks. With ongoing discussions and improvements from the community and development teams, the Solana network is expected to find a better balance in the future to maintain its high performance characteristics.