Solana's Fair Trade Proposal Hits Roadblock Over Leader Discretion

Solana's proposal to improve trade fairness on its network has stalled. The proposed rule would let validators reject blocks if transactions within a batch are recorded out of fee-priority order.

The current system allows block producers, known as leaders, to choose which transactions to include and how to divide them into batches. The new rule would make the order of transactions within each completed batch inspectable and enforceable, but not establish one priority queue for an entire slot.

A key aspect of the proposal is that it does not decide which transactions make the block. Instead, it aims to give traders a predictable answer to whether two competing transactions were ordered correctly.

However, critics argue that leaders would still have discretion to select transactions and defer them to later batches. This could lead to inconsistent ordering, even if the proposed rule is implemented.