[Solana Co-Founder Calls for Punishment of Validators Deliberately Delaying Block Slots, Stealing Rewards, and Slowing Down the Network] According to a report by Golden Finance, Solana co-founder Anatoly "Toly" Yakovenko has called for penalties against Solana validators who delay slots, steal rewards, and cause the network to slow down. Yakovenko's call for punishment stems from his frustration with validators using complex delay strategies to extract additional fees and high-value transactions. The deliberate delay of slot times has become so problematic that one validator even created a dashboard to showcase the issue. Since August 5th—Solana Epoch 829—the average slot time has increased by 2.5%. Complaints have arisen, with some saying, "The price of SOL should be rising, not the block time." One observer questioned whether these delays might trigger a scenario similar to the "Intentional Leader Reward Boost (ILRB)" version 2.0. ILRB is a timing strategy used by some validators who intentionally delay block production. Extending slot times beyond Solana's expected 400 milliseconds deliberately increases latency, allowing them to unfairly pack more transactions into their own blocks and thereby earn higher fees or rewards. Yakovenko suggested "defaulting to discarding these blocks for 10 slots" as a punishment for slow but influential validators. He has also repeatedly called for economic penalties for misbehaving validators. Currently, Solana developer platform Anza has proposed a series of measures to consider implementing a slashing mechanism in the network, which would penalize validators by deducting their stake. However, this approach also poses risks to SOL stakers.