Marinade Finance, one of Solana’s original staking providers, has found itself in hot water with validator operators.
Validators argue that Marinade’s new Stake Auction Marketplace (SAM) harms the staking landscape, allowing malicious actors to thrive at the expense of honest validators.
Beyond losing stake in the network, chagrined validators suggest that, left unchecked, the SAM model is a threat to decentralization and Solana’s scalability moving forward.
Marinade has dismissed these accusations. Countering claims of apathetic negligence, Marinade argues those who criticize the new system do so out of spite.
Is this a case of willful blindness, or are validators looking for a scapegoat to blame for their own shortcomings?
WHY ARE VALIDATORS UPSET?
Once heralded as a powerful new model that would push staking APY to new heights, the SAM has drawn scorn and skepticism from certain validators. Marinade’s SAM enables validators to bid on network stake, with winners securing stake and passing on elevated rewards to delegators.
To win auctions, validators competitively bid on network stake. However, surging demand for stake has driven validators to bid at potentially unsustainable levels. In previous epochs, winning validators needed to yield over 10% APY to win auctions, a rate considered impossible to achieve through native staking alone.
This has led certain operators to speculate on how these validators can afford such high bids. Suggesting that such yield can only be achieved through malicious activities, like sandwich attacks, private mempools, and off-chain deals, some validators argue that Marinade is turning a blind eye to dishonest validators.
Distressed validators have created analytics dashboards to express their frustrations and support their claims. Hanabi’s ‘Marinade Stake Selling’ dashboard highlights that a number of validators flagged for malicious activity have won stake through the SAM.
Responding to accusations levied by third-party dashboard creators, Marinade CEO Michael Repetny argues “Hanabi lacks any methodology, they only copy labels from other Stakewiz dashboard to call it a day.”
Adding further context to the claims of disgruntled operators, Repetny affirms “Hanabi lost 1M SOL from Marinade so it’s understandable he fights the new system.”
Concerned validators have taken to Marinade’s Discord server to air their grievances. Operators have claimed that, through the SAM, over 2.7M SOL has been staked to questionable validators, including sybils and sandwiches. Disgruntled operators even suggested “Marinade wants you to have side deals, ethical or not.”
Additionally, validators have argued that if “most of the mSOL pool is delegated to unethical validators it’s a really bad look for the Solana ecosystem.”
In an exclusive statement with SolanaFloor, Max Kaplan, Head of Engineering at Edgevana, credits Marinade for trying something inventive that “had never been done before”.
However, Kaplan admits that Marinade “went full capitalist… basically, the highest bidder wins. Marinade doesn’t really care if a validator bids for stake and is just gonna lose money on that stake, that’s not their problem… They’re happy to take the money and give that to mSOL holders.”
Experts argue that in current conditions, staking yield over 10% simply isn’t sustainable. Kaplan contends “10% APY is higher than the native staking yield that is paid out on chain. The money has to come from somewhere.”
Without making any accusations, Kaplan theorizes that additional yield could potentially come from a validator’s own “marketing/growth budget” or other sources like “SWQoS / private mempool deals”.
Responding to any accusations, Repetny reinforces Marinade's stance that “SAM provides the best yield on the market for delegators. It is not an active policy maker or opinionated strategy to tweak the network.”
Validators argue that Marinade’s new Stake Auction Marketplace (SAM) harms the staking landscape, allowing malicious actors to thrive at the expense of honest validators.
Beyond losing stake in the network, chagrined validators suggest that, left unchecked, the SAM model is a threat to decentralization and Solana’s scalability moving forward.
Marinade has dismissed these accusations. Countering claims of apathetic negligence, Marinade argues those who criticize the new system do so out of spite.
Is this a case of willful blindness, or are validators looking for a scapegoat to blame for their own shortcomings?
WHY ARE VALIDATORS UPSET?
Once heralded as a powerful new model that would push staking APY to new heights, the SAM has drawn scorn and skepticism from certain validators. Marinade’s SAM enables validators to bid on network stake, with winners securing stake and passing on elevated rewards to delegators.
To win auctions, validators competitively bid on network stake. However, surging demand for stake has driven validators to bid at potentially unsustainable levels. In previous epochs, winning validators needed to yield over 10% APY to win auctions, a rate considered impossible to achieve through native staking alone.
This has led certain operators to speculate on how these validators can afford such high bids. Suggesting that such yield can only be achieved through malicious activities, like sandwich attacks, private mempools, and off-chain deals, some validators argue that Marinade is turning a blind eye to dishonest validators.
Distressed validators have created analytics dashboards to express their frustrations and support their claims. Hanabi’s ‘Marinade Stake Selling’ dashboard highlights that a number of validators flagged for malicious activity have won stake through the SAM.
Responding to accusations levied by third-party dashboard creators, Marinade CEO Michael Repetny argues “Hanabi lacks any methodology, they only copy labels from other Stakewiz dashboard to call it a day.”
Adding further context to the claims of disgruntled operators, Repetny affirms “Hanabi lost 1M SOL from Marinade so it’s understandable he fights the new system.”
Concerned validators have taken to Marinade’s Discord server to air their grievances. Operators have claimed that, through the SAM, over 2.7M SOL has been staked to questionable validators, including sybils and sandwiches. Disgruntled operators even suggested “Marinade wants you to have side deals, ethical or not.”
Additionally, validators have argued that if “most of the mSOL pool is delegated to unethical validators it’s a really bad look for the Solana ecosystem.”
In an exclusive statement with SolanaFloor, Max Kaplan, Head of Engineering at Edgevana, credits Marinade for trying something inventive that “had never been done before”.
However, Kaplan admits that Marinade “went full capitalist… basically, the highest bidder wins. Marinade doesn’t really care if a validator bids for stake and is just gonna lose money on that stake, that’s not their problem… They’re happy to take the money and give that to mSOL holders.”
Experts argue that in current conditions, staking yield over 10% simply isn’t sustainable. Kaplan contends “10% APY is higher than the native staking yield that is paid out on chain. The money has to come from somewhere.”
Without making any accusations, Kaplan theorizes that additional yield could potentially come from a validator’s own “marketing/growth budget” or other sources like “SWQoS / private mempool deals”.
Responding to any accusations, Repetny reinforces Marinade's stance that “SAM provides the best yield on the market for delegators. It is not an active policy maker or opinionated strategy to tweak the network.”
15 days ago
