Institutional validators on Solana have a new problem that raw throughput and low fees can’t solve: how to process transactions at network speed while staying on the right side of sanctions law. Seoul-based Flowra, the infrastructure startup building an open orderflow auction layer for Solana, is partnering with compliance intelligence provider Honeypot to embed sanctions screening directly into the block construction process itself.
The integration doesn’t add a compliance check after the fact. It happens before a transaction ever lands on-chain.
Solana’s validator economics have shifted dramatically. Jito’s block engine sits under more than 95% of active stake, and priority fees can spike up to 100x during volatile sessions. As institutional capital flows into the network, regulated operators face a specific tension: they want validator revenue, but they can’t afford to include sanctioned transactions in blocks they produce.
OFAC sanctions compliance isn’t optional for regulated entities. The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control requires financial institutions and virtual asset service providers to screen and block transactions involving sanctioned parties. That obligation extends to wallet addresses, but also to network-level signals. OFAC guidance specifically recommends screening IP addresses against known VPN pools and flagging improbable login patterns.
The problem on Solana until now: there was no clean way to apply those rules at the validator level during block construction. Compliance happened either at the application layer (exchanges, DeFi front-ends) or not at all.
Flowra’s infrastructure includes what it calls Programmable Block Policies (PBP), a system that lets validators define custom rules governing which transactions and bundles get included during block building. The Honeypot integration feeds compliance intelligence into that policy layer.
Honeypot specializes in detecting network obfuscation. The company processes over 14 billion events annually and flags traffic arriving through VPNs, residential proxies, Tor exit nodes and other evasion techniques. According to Honeypot’s data, an estimated 31-61% of traffic reaching blockchain platforms arrives through some form of network obfuscation.
When combined, the system screens transactions against sanctions-related criteria: wallet addresses tied to sanctioned entities, and network-level indicators that suggest a user is masking their jurisdiction. Each validator sets its own policy. The framework doesn’t impose a universal compliance standard across the network. It gives individual operators the tools to define and enforce their own rules.
“Public blockchains have become increasingly attractive to institutional participants, but the infrastructure hasn’t evolved to give validators the compliance controls many regulated operators expect,” Harry Hwang, CEO of Flowra, said. “We’re working with Honeypot to bring compliance into the block-building process itself, allowing validators to define and enforce their own policies before transactions are included on-chain. The goal isn’t to make the network less open, it’s to give individual validators the flexibility to operate in a way that reflects their own requirements.”
Flowra has positioned itself as the open-architecture alternative to Jito’s dominant position on Solana. The company is building an Open Orderflow Auction (OOA) designed to expose transaction flow to competitive, transparent auctions rather than routing it through private channels. Approximately 60 million SOL has been committed to migrate to Flowra’s infrastructure, according to a recent HackerNoon profile of the company.
The compliance integration fits into that institutional pitch. Validators considering Flowra aren’t just looking for better MEV economics. They need infrastructure that lets them participate in Solana’s transaction economy without regulatory exposure. Sanctions screening at the block-building layer addresses a gap that application-level compliance can’t fully cover.
The framework is also designed to support additional enterprise compliance providers over time, meaning Honeypot won’t be the only data source available to validators through the PBP system.
The collaboration launches with sanctions screening, wallet screening and auditability for regulated institutions. Additional technical details will follow as implementation progresses. No specific timeline has been announced for when the integration goes live in production.
The broader signal is clear: as Solana attracts more institutional stake, the infrastructure layer is being retrofitted to handle the regulatory requirements that come with that capital. Whether compliance at the block-building level becomes standard practice across the network depends on how many validators decide the regulatory risk of not screening outweighs the friction of implementing it.