Related papers: Optimistic MEV in Ethereum Layer 2s: Why Blockspac…
The MEV-Boost block auction contributes approximately 90% of all Ethereum blocks. Between October 2023 and March 2024, only three builders produced 80% of them, highlighting the concentration of power within the block builder market. To…
This paper provides a comprehensive empirical analysis of the economics and dynamics behind arbitrages between centralized and decentralized exchanges (CEX-DEX) on Ethereum. We refine heuristics to identify arbitrage transactions from…
We provide an economic model of Execution Tickets and use it to study the ability of the Ethereum protocol to capture MEV from block construction. We demonstrate that Execution Tickets extract all MEV when all buyers are homogeneous, risk…
The multi-chain future is upon us. Modular architectures are coming to maturity across the ecosystem to scale bandwidth and throughput of cryptocurrency. One example of such is the Ethereum modular architecture, with its beacon chain, its…
Block space on the blockchain is scarce and must be allocated efficiently through block building. However, Ethereum's current block-building ecosystem, MEV-Boost, has become highly centralized due to integration, which distorts competition,…
The evolution of blockchain technology, from its origins as a decentralized ledger for cryptocurrencies to its broader applications in areas like decentralized finance (DeFi), has significantly transformed financial ecosystems while…
With the emergence of Miner Extractable Value (MEV), block construction markets on blockchains have evolved into a competitive arena. Following Ethereum's transition from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS), the Proposer Builder…
This study explores the intricacies of waiting games, a novel dynamic that emerged with Ethereum's transition to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS)-based block proposer selection protocol. Within this PoS framework, validators acquire a distinct…
Blockchains protect an ecosystem worth more than $500bn with strong security properties derived from the principle of decentralization. Is today's blockchain decentralized? In this paper, we empirically studied one of the least…
Financial speculators often seek to increase their potential gains with leverage. Debt is a popular form of leverage, and with over 39.88B USD of total value locked (TVL), the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) lending markets are thriving.…
We propose a model suggesting that honest-but-rational consensus participants may play timing games, and strategically delay their block proposal to optimize MEV capture, while still ensuring the proposal's timely inclusion in the canonical…
A growing number of products use layer 2 solutions to expand the capabilities of primary blockchains like Ethereum, where computation is off-loaded from the root chain, and the results are published to it in bulk. Those include optimistic…
Currently, over 90% of Ethereum blocks are built using MEV-Boost, an auction that allows validators to sell their block-building power to builders who compete in an open English auction in each slot. Shortly after the merge, when MEV-Boost…
Blockchains, and specifically smart contracts, have promised to create fair and transparent trading ecosystems. Unfortunately, we show that this promise has not been met. We document and quantify the widespread and rising deployment of…
Smart contracts led to the emergence of the decentralized finance (DeFi) marketplace within blockchain ecosystems, where diverse participants engage in financial activities. In traditional finance, there are possibilities to create values,…
This study analyzes proposer-builder data and MEV-Boost payment data following the Ethereum merge in September 2022 to identify patterns of multi-block MEV. Our findings reveal fewer multi-slot sequences of builders than predicted by a…
The asset trading volume on blockchain-based exchanges (DEX) increased substantially since the advent of Automated Market Makers (AMM). Yet, AMMs and their forks compete on the same blockchain, incurring unnecessary network and block-space…
Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) refers to a class of attacks to decentralized applications where the adversary profits by manipulating the ordering, inclusion, or exclusion of transactions in a blockchain. Decentralized Finance (DeFi)…
Decentralized Exchanges (DEXes) enable users to create markets for exchanging any pair of cryptocurrencies. The direct exchange rate of two tokens may not match the cross-exchange rate in the market, and such price discrepancies open up…
Ethereum's transaction pool (mempool) dynamics and fee market efficiency critically affect transaction inclusion, validator workload, and overall network performance. This research empirically analyzes gas price variations, mempool…