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Searcher Connection

Solana validators receive transactions on their TPU before sequencing them into a slot. That stream of pending transactions is valuable orderflow — searchers will pay for visibility into it for arbitrage signal extraction, JIT detection, and trading-strategy inputs.

Searcher Connection is the validator-side counterpart to the searcher-facing Relayer/TPU product. You publish your TPU traffic to the Blockspace network; searchers' Block Engines consume it; you share in the value.

What you do​

  • Run an unmodified Solana validator.
  • Enable a small connector that mirrors a copy of your inbound TPU traffic to the Blockspace mempool network.
  • The connector is read-only with respect to your validator — it only observes; it does not modify, delay, or filter incoming transactions.

Revenue model​

Relayer/TPU publishing is consumption-based:

  • Per-consumer share. Every searcher subscription that consumes your stream contributes a share of their seat fee back to publishing validators.
  • Weighted by signal quality — your share scales with the unique-tx fraction of your stream (transactions you saw before any other connected validator), with geographic position and connection profile both factoring in.
  • Technically routed monthly, in SOL, to your payout address.

You don't set prices on this product — the searcher market does. Your contribution determines your share.

What you don't lose​

  • Vote credits. The connector is fully passive, so there's zero impact on the vote pipeline.
  • Skip rate — mirroring happens asynchronously; even if the mirror channel stalls, your validator's normal flow keeps running uninterrupted.
  • Privacy holds too: only inbound TPU traffic is mirrored, and your vote signing, internal RPC, identity-protection setup, and outbound communication are never touched.

Setup​

  1. Verify identity. Confirm your validator vote pubkey in the dashboard.
  2. Install the connector — a single binary alongside your validator, outbound-only with no inbound port required.
  3. Configure a mirror filter (optional) to exclude specific programs or addresses, e.g. internal-tooling traffic you don't want exposed.
  4. Validator protection (optional) — filtering applied to the published stream to help prevent sandwiching, front-running, and other harmful MEV activity from being surfaced to searchers. You can layer additional protection mechanisms of your own on top if needed.
  5. Set a payout address — the wallet for your monthly payout.
  6. Enable it by flipping the switch in the dashboard.

Typically 15–30 minutes once you have access.

What the dashboard shows​

  • Relayer/TPU TPS published — how much traffic you're contributing.
  • Unique-tx fraction. The fraction of your published txs that no other connected validator saw first; this is what drives your share.
  • Active consumers — how many searcher subscriptions are pulling from the mempool stream that includes you.
  • Estimated revenue share: a rolling monthly estimate based on current consumption.

Eligibility​

  • Solana mainnet validators on any major client.
  • Identity verification.
  • Stable operator history (>1 epoch).

No application or contract — self-serve.

Get started​

  1. Open the dashboard → Validator → Searcher Connection.
  2. Follow the install guide.
  3. Revenue accrues from the moment your first published tx is consumed.