Ep9 Are We Heading Towards the MEV Dystopia? A Deep Dive into the Complexities in MEV Supply Chain & Available Mitigations
Wen Building
Shownotes Transcript
After the Merge, the MEV landscape is grappling with an unexpected development— the integration of CeFi and DeFi searchers and builders.. A few powerful entities act like mafia getting access to each layer down the stack, posing substantial risks to Ethereum and users' funds. The question looming is whether we are inexorably progressing towards a MEV dystopia.
In this episode, Stephanie (@stephaniiee_ho) achieves a milestone in her journey of MEV exploration with Danning (@sui414), a data scientist from Flashbots, who works at the forefront of MEV observation and analysis. They have a deep dive into the most crucial topics in MEV, commencing with an introduction to the components of the MEV supply chain. The conversation unravels the intricate dynamics between the two sophisticated roles, searchers and builders. Danning sheds light on Order Flow Auctions (OFAs), elucidating the distinction in efficiency and privacy setting between the two most significant OFAs. The discourse also touches on the increasing trend of transactions traversing private mempools.
The conversation further delves into a pressing concern—the emergence of CeFi-DeFi searcher-builder integration as a potent centralizing force within Ethereum, making the MEV dystopia so tangible. Danning provides a comprehensive list of available tools and a user-friendly guide on how to navigate and mitigate the risks of MEV attacks.
You can find the mentioned websites in the Resources.
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Wen Building is supported by Antalpa Labs. Antalpha Labs is a Web3 developer community dedicated to push the boundaries of crypto space by supporting the innovation and success of open-source projects.(https://labs.antalpha.com/hackerhouse/))
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Timestamp
01:02 Introduction of Danning and Flashbots
03:40 What is MEV supply chain?
09:00 Complexities between searchers and builders
13:10 What is Order Flow Auction and its landscape
16:09 MEV Share vs. MEV Blocker
23:54 OFAs have a high adoption rate in dapps
25:51 Public mempools are going to dry up?
26:42 The break down of MEV of order flows in private mempool
28:00 CeFi-DeFi searcher builder integration
33:30 We are heading towards the MEV Dystopia?
37:03: Why observabiltiy and transparency so hard in MEV mitigation?
38:40 Tools to observe MEV extraction
44:00 Dark corners missing data
46:11 Best practices for users to avoid MEV attacks
48:14 Flashbots' upcoming releases
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Disclaimer: Any projects or tokens mentioned in Wen building don't construe any financial advice. This podcast is just for informational purposes.
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Resources:
You can observe MEV activities through:
libmev.com/dashboard
EigenTx: tx.eigenphi.io)
EF researcher Toni Wahrstätter@nero_eth made the DotPics series：
mevboost.pics (market share of builders, relays, and validators)
censorship.pics
tornado.pics
mempool.pics （proportioan of txs in private pools）
searcherbuilder.pics (searcher builder integration)
Flashbots's data tool that aggregates five data sources from different node providers:
mempool-dumpster.flashbots.net)
other resources:
Flashbots Docs：docs.flashbots.net)
SUAVE：writings.flashbots.net)
EigenPhi Twitter space：x.com)
The MEV Supply Chain: a peek into the future of this industry：