Notorious 2.6m SOL validator, Melea accused of misleading stakers

Melea is being accused by Stakewiz, a validator monitoring service, of unethical practices. According to a tweet from Solana validator Stakewiz, “MEV rewards now account for ~4% of the 11-12% APY stakers on Solana can earn.”

The tweet explained that Solana stakers attached to validators with an MEV commission of 100% are being cheated out of almost 40% of the total rewards they should have earned.

The drama goes back to the end of 2024 when Melea faced accusations from the Atlas staking team who accused them of misleading advertising by claiming a 0% commission rate, which is technically impossible as it contradicts the Cosmos Hub’s minimum commission requirement of 5%.

There have been several tries to verify Melea’s claims. However, no concrete evidence of the 0% commission structure was found. 

An urgent message to Melea stakers 

Another tweet from Stakewiz contained an urgent message for the validator’s stakers. “Are you aware you’re not earning any MEV rewards despite Melea’s promise a few weeks ago to charge no MEV commission?” The post began. “He’s deleted that tweet now but how do you feel about a validator promising a 0% fee then yanking it up almost immediately to 100%?” 

The post urged readers to verify for themselves that 400+ SOL per epoch could be going to stakers by checking Jito’s reporting . Interested stakers can search for Melea’s vote account “GvZEwtCHZ7YtCkQCaLRVEXsyVvQkRDhJhQgB6akPme1e” and sort by epoch descending to see the change in MEV commission.

“Stakers are often not checking on their validators daily, but if they knew, would they be happy?” The Stakewiz post continued. “How do we raise awareness of these behaviors?”

“FWIW if you want to charge 100% MEV commission, that’s fine, you won’t be competitive on APY but you’re 100% entitled to do so, but don’t advertise a 0% fee then change it to 100% on-chain without further announcement!” the post concluded . 

Melea may have a history of misleading stakers

In a separate tweet in the thread posted by Stakewiz, there was a link to a forum post on Cosmos addressing another instance of Melea falsely advertising commissions. 

In the post, Melea was accused of “actively promoting itself as a 0% commission validator,  which is technically impossible on the Cosmos Hub.” The various attempts to verify Melea’s claims failed, and there is no on-chain data showing a rebate of any kind or funds sent to delegators from the validator wallet.

The report added that if Melea was indeed charging the minimum 5% commission while advertising 0%, delegators were being misled and cheated without their knowledge or consent. 

Several problems with Melea’s website also contributed to their potential deceptive practices. 

Included in the report was also a mention of Melea’s previously questionable practices on other networks, including accusations on Solana of advertising false APY rates and making misleading claims about returns. It also has a history of advertising 0% commission while delivering suboptimal validator performance.

They called on Melea to “provide clear, verifiable proof of their 0% commission claim on the Cosmos Hub since the v15 software upgrade that hard-coded 5% as minimum validator commission.” 

If unable to do so, they urged the accused validator to immediately correct all advertising and communications to reflect the actual commission rate and offer a public explanation to the community regarding the discrepancy.

The report was from October 2024. An update followed in November 2024 that saw the community propose penalties for Melea’s actions. 

Some of the recommended penalties included:

• Temporary suspension from voting on network proposals 
• Financial penalty: 100% tax on staking rewards:

• Public apology and rectification
• Possible tombstoning for failure to comply with the above

Community actions were also suggested to prevent future misconduct. They included: 

• Banning of all advertising and promotional content from on-chain monikers. 
• Developing a community-maintained index that ranks validators based on their transparency, honesty, and performance. 
• Launching educational campaigns to help delegators learn how to compare and select validators when choosing where to stake their tokens.
• Enlisting the wallet providers and their teams to implement strategies to improve decentralization.

The accused validator is unapologetic despite being outed 

The initial Cosmos Hub report and response from the validator community were from 2024. However, Melea’s alleged dubious practices have continued into the new year, which is why Stakewiz, a company that constantly tracks all on-chain data relating to validators and logs this, is once again calling attention to the matter. 

Additional tweets from Stakewiz’s X account contained image proof that Melea has continued advertising 0% MEV commission even though it is impossible. 

Screenshots of Melea’s tweets advertising unsustainable rewards to stakers. Source: @laine_sa_ (X/Twitter)

There is even one ad from January 19,  just two weeks ago, according to Stakewiz. Melea reportedly first raised its MEV commission to 50% in epoch 731, starting January 23, four days later. 

When they called the validator out on Discord, they did not seem apologetic or remorseful but instead urged those complaining to “gfy,” short for “go f**k yourself.”

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