MEV, Priority Fees, and the Role of Validators in Solana: Can You Really Compete?

Preamble

Hey there!

The last couple of articles I wrote were all about Web3:

And before that, I wrote more on product management and IT in general:

Today, let’s switch gears a bit and talk about MEV.

If you’ve ever dug into arbitrage, frontrunning, or sniping, you know how critical things like Priority Fees, Jito Tips, and validator connections really are.

Btw, on my Telegram channel I post more often, but those posts are usually shorter and less in-depth than what I share here. If product topics are your thing, you might want to check it out — it’s a good place to catch content in real time.

What I’ve Tested — and What I Haven’t Yet

In my experiments, I’ve played around with different combinations of Priority Fees and Jito Tips — the two key levers that let users influence how quickly their transactions get picked up on Solana. And when it comes to arbitrage, sniping, or similar strategies, priority is everything.

I tested various settings, tracked how these fees push a transaction deeper into the block faster, and how they shift its position in the queue.

But there’s one thing I haven’t tried yet: sending transactions directly through a validator — whether my own or someone else’s. That’s a whole different game.

Why? Because a validator isn’t just a neutral node packaging transactions in the order they arrive. Validators can reorder transactions inside a block, move their own to the top, delay others, or insert new ones to maximize their own profit. Even if you set a high Priority Fee or Jito Tip, the validator can still reshuffle things at will.

This is exactly what’s known as MEV — Maximum Extractable Value: the validator’s ability to profit by controlling transaction ordering.

I haven’t tested running trades through a validator yet, because it requires deeper infrastructure knowledge — and owning or renting validator access is expensive and complex. But it’s also where the real power lies. Validators decide who gets confirmed first, who gets pushed down, and who gets front-run.

On Solana, even with Proof of History giving high throughput and fast confirmation, validators still have this flexibility inside blocks. It’s both exciting and problematic: exciting because it creates new profit opportunities, but problematic because regular users can’t really defend themselves against order manipulation.

That’s why understanding this mechanic is crucial — either to build fairer tools, or to explore protocols like Paladin, which aim to curb validator dominance and give users a more level playing field.

Paladin: A New Approach to MEV and Transaction Prioritization on Solana

Paladin is an innovative protocol in the Solana ecosystem designed to fundamentally change how MEV (Maximum Extractable Value) and transaction ordering manipulations work inside blocks.

What Problems Does Paladin Solve?

1. Limiting Validator Power

One of the key challenges in Solana — and many other blockchains — is that validators hold almost absolute control over how transactions are ordered within a block. This opens the door to manipulation: validators can push their own transactions to the front, reorder trades, or deprioritize others to maximize profits at the expense of regular users. Paladin aims to restrict or at least control this power to reduce abuse.

2. Creating a Fair and Transparent Transaction Order

Paladin introduces additional mechanisms that make block formation more open and predictable. Both users and developers can see how ordering is determined, ensuring their transactions aren’t arbitrarily delayed, replaced, or blocked.

3. Reducing MEV’s Impact on Users

MEV often forces users to pay extra fees or lose money due to frontrunning and similar tactics. Paladin helps minimize these risks, making the ecosystem fairer and more user-friendly.

Who Benefits from Paladin?

Traders and arbitrageurs — their business depends on fair and fast execution, without validators front-running or queue-shuffling. Paladin gives them a more predictable playing field.
Decentralized applications (dApps) — especially financial protocols, NFT markets, or governance tools, where transaction integrity and transparency are critical.
Investors and end-users — no one wants to lose money because a validator decided to reorder or delay their transaction. Paladin helps protect against such risks.

Impact on Validators vs. Users

Validators — would lose the ability to freely reorder transactions for profit. This reduces MEV-driven earnings but incentivizes more ethical behavior and strengthens network trust.
Users & developers — gain a more transparent and reliable environment where transactions execute fairly, boosting both usability and security — key factors for mass adoption of Solana.

Outlook

The concept is promising — if widely adopted by validators. For now, adoption is limited because Paladin reduces validator revenue. The real test will be whether the protocol can gain traction in the coming months and prove itself in real-world use.

Paladin: Installation and Role for Validators

How Paladin Is Installed

Paladin is a fork of the Solana validator client. Validators run their nodes on Paladin instead of the standard client or Jito-Solana.

Key features:

Priority port for prioritized transaction handling,
Transaction filtering (e.g., blocking sandwich attacks),
Tokenized access via PAL tokens.

Why Validators Would Use Paladin

Pros: fairer transaction ordering, reduced manipulation, stronger trust and better UX for users and dApps.
Cons: compared to Jito-Solana, validators earn lower fees and fewer MEV tips.

Is Paladin Mandatory?

No, it’s optional. Validators can choose to:

Run the standard Solana client,
Run Jito-Solana (optimized for MEV extraction),
Run Paladin (focused on fairness and limiting MEV).

Why Regular Users Struggle to Outpace Validators

In Solana, validators are the ones who assemble blocks and decide the exact order in which transactions land on-chain. They hold near-unlimited power: they can move their own transactions to the front, push yours back, or even delay them entirely.

When you send a transaction, it first enters the mempool — a queue of unconfirmed transactions. Validators can see this queue and not only include your transaction, but also change its priority and placement.

Here’s what a validator can do with your transaction:

Lower its priority, so your trade is executed later.
Reorder transactions inside the block, pushing their own profitable trades ahead.
Insert their own transaction before yours to profit from your intent — a practice known as front-running.

For a regular user, it’s nearly impossible to bypass this because:

You don’t have access to validators or the infrastructure to influence ordering.
All pending transactions are visible to validators — you can’t hide yours or skip the line.
Solana’s high speed means validators instantly react to new transactions.
There’s no built-in mechanism forcing validators to act “fairly” and keep the original order.

This isn’t unique to Solana — many blockchains face the same issue. But Solana’s architecture and speed make the effect more visible. That’s why new projects are emerging to curb validator power and make transaction ordering more fair and transparent.

Personal curiosity: what does it actually cost to run your own validator?

Here’s a ballpark breakdown of the hardware costs for a Solana validator in 2025 (all prices in USD, approximate).

Core hardware

CPU: AMD EPYC 9254 (24 cores / 48 threads, ~3.1 GHz). Solid choice for validators thanks to its high throughput and efficiency. Market price: $3,500–4,000.
RAM: 384 GB ECC Registered DDR4/DDR5.

12 × 32 GB ECC DDR4 modules = $1,440–1,800.
DDR5 would be ~20–30% higher: $1,700–2,300.

Storage: 2 × 4TB NVMe SSDs (Samsung 970 EVO Plus / 980 Pro). Great for splitting ledger and snapshots. About $400 each, $800 total.
GPU: Not needed for Solana validators.

Subtotal (DDR4 build): ~$5,740–6,140

With DDR5: ~$6,000+

Supporting components

Server motherboard (EPYC, 384+ GB ECC RAM support): $1,000–1,500
Power supply units (1–2, redundant): $300–500
Server chassis (rack or tower): $300–600
Cooling (air or liquid): $200–400
Networking (10GbE NIC, cables): $200–400

Subtotal: ~$2,450–3,200

Total setup cost

All in, you’re looking at roughly $8,500–9,000 for a complete validator rig (before rack space, hosting, or ongoing ops costs).

How Much SOL Do You Need to Stake to Validate a Block?

To figure out how much SOL you’d need to have even a chance of validating a block, you’ve got to look at three things: Solana’s inflation model, the total amount staked, and how epochs are structured.

Inflation Model

Solana started with a maximum annual inflation of 8%, which gradually tapers down to 1.5% over 10 years. That inflation funds validator and delegator rewards.

Right now (2025), inflation sits around 6–7% annually. Roughly 70–80% of it goes directly to validators and delegators, while the rest supports the ecosystem development fund.

Total Stake

Currently, about 343 million SOL is staked — roughly 65% of the circulating supply, which is massive by industry standards.

Epochs and Blocks

One Solana epoch lasts ~2 days, or about 432,000 blocks.

Each block is produced by a validator, with the odds weighted by that validator’s stake (including delegated stake).

So How Much Do You Need?

The math is simple:

Chance of validating a block = Your stake / Total staked SOL
Minimum stake to hit ~1 block per epoch =
Total staked SOL / Blocks per epoch

Plugging in the numbers:

Total staked: ~343,000,000 SOL
Blocks per epoch: ~432,000

343,000,000 / 432,000 ≈ 793 SOL

So with about 793 SOL (~$130K) staked, you’d have a statistical shot at validating just one block per epoch.

One. Block. Per. Epoch. (~2 days).

What That Means in Practice

That’s the absolute floor — barely enough to get picked once every two days.
To validate consistently and actually earn meaningful rewards, you’d need a lot more.
Small validators rely on delegated stake; otherwise, their chance of producing blocks is negligible.
For MEV? Forget it. With one block every two days, you get almost no control over transaction ordering. To make MEV even remotely worthwhile, you’d need 100–1000x that stake — i.e. tens or hundreds of thousands of SOL.

Bottom Line

Technically, you could “get in the game” with ~800 SOL. But to actually play — especially if you want to compete in MEV — you’d need a war chest of tens of thousands of SOL, not hundreds.

How Much Are the Top Players Staking?

There’s a great dashboard where you can track:

The top validators by stake
Exactly how much SOL they’re holding
In real time, who’s producing blocks
Even where validators are located geographically (super handy when you’re picking your own server location)
…and a bunch of other nerdy details.

Right now, the top 5 validators are sitting on stakes ranging from about 8 to 13 million SOL each.

At that level, these guys aren’t just validating blocks — they’re in prime position to farm MEV day in, day out.

Take a look at this dashboard yourself: Solana Beach — Validators. It gives you a live snapshot of:

Top validators by stake amount
Exact stake sizes each holds
Who’s producing blocks, in real time
Geographical locations of validator nodes (super useful if you’re picking a nearby server)…and plenty of other details.

Conclusion

Running your own validator on Solana is a serious technical and financial commitment that requires both significant capital and a rock-solid infrastructure. To even have a minimal chance of producing a single block per epoch, you’d need to stake around 800 SOL—a barrier that makes it clear why validators and delegators play such a critical role in the ecosystem.

Validators ultimately control transaction ordering, which introduces risks of manipulation and highlights the importance of initiatives like Paladin, aimed at curbing validator power and improving network transparency. The challenge, however, is that Paladin hasn’t gained broad adoption—largely because it reduces validator profit potential, underscoring the ongoing tension between fairness and incentives in decentralized systems.

At the same time, tools such as Priority Fees and Jito Tips offer users some influence over transaction priority. Not every validator engages in manipulative behavior, and not every transaction is subject to extraction, so reliable execution is still possible—especially when working directly with validators.

For now, participants have to navigate within the current setup while keeping a close eye on projects like Paladin and other upcoming efforts that could reshape the playing field. Solana remains a high-performance, innovative platform with huge potential, but its long-term health depends on refining prioritization mechanisms and ensuring a level playing field for all participants.

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