MEV (Maximal Extractable Value)

The Marginal Effects of Ethereum Network MEV Transaction Re-Ordering ArXiv ID: 2508.04003 “View on arXiv” Authors: Bruce Mizrach, Nathaniel Yoshida Abstract Two MEV builders now produce nearly 80% of Ethereum blocks. Block builders have the ability to reorder transactions on the blockchain in a way that can be harmful to participants. We estimate they would pay in the aggregate nearly $14 million per month to ensure that they remained in the first quartile of the block. Sandwich attacks, in which a transaction is front-run, are frequent, averaging more than one per block. Gas fees on these transactions pay for nearly 15% of the MEV payments to the validator. These attacks have especially large marginal effects and skew the distribution. Reforms such as gas fee priority or private transaction pools might be helpful. ...

Measuring CEX-DEX Extracted Value and Searcher Profitability: The Darkest of the MEV Dark Forest ArXiv ID: 2507.13023 “View on arXiv” Authors: Fei Wu, Danning Sui, Thomas Thiery, Mallesh Pai Abstract 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 on-chain data and introduce a robust empirical framework to estimate arbitrage revenue without knowing traders’ actual behaviors on CEX. Leveraging an extensive dataset spanning 19 months from August 2023 to March 2025, we estimate a total of 233.8M USD extracted by 19 major CEX-DEX searchers from 7,203,560 identified CEX-DEX arbitrages. Our analysis reveals increasing centralization trends as three searchers captured three-quarters of both volume and extracted value. We also demonstrate that searchers’ profitability is tied to their integration level with block builders and uncover exclusive searcher-builder relationships and their market impact. Finally, we correct the previously underestimated profitability of block builders who vertically integrate with a searcher. These insights illuminate the darkest corner of the MEV landscape and highlight the critical implications of CEX-DEX arbitrages for Ethereum’s decentralization. ...

MEV Capture and Decentralization in Execution Tickets ArXiv ID: 2408.11255 “View on arXiv” Authors: Unknown Abstract 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 neutral and face no capital costs. We also show that MEV capture decreases with risk aversion and capital costs. Moreover, when buyers are heterogeneous, MEV capture can be especially low and a single dominant buyer can extract much of the MEV. This adverse effect can be partially mitigated by the presence of a Proposer Builder Separation (PBS) mechanism, which gives ET buyers access to a market of specialized builders, but in practice centralization vectors still persist. With PBS, ETs are concentrated among those with the highest ex-ante MEV extraction ability and lowest cost of capital. We show how it is possible that large investors that are not builders but have substantial advantage in capital cost can come to dominate the ET market. ...