Why Is Ethereum Trying to Maximize Value From Users? Two Sides Debate

Stephane Gosselin, cofounder and chief architect of Flashbots, and Uri Klarman, CEO of bloXrouteLabs, joined Unchained to discuss everything about MEV, an especially important topic now with the Merge coming. 

Show highlights:

• what MEV is, how it works under Proof of Work
• some examples of MEV, like frontrunning and arbitrage
• how MEV is a rabbit hole full of monsters
• the role of Flashbots in the MEV industry and how Flashbots enabled a reduction of gas fees for users
• how MEV-geth functions and how it relates to auctions systems
• how bloXroute, Uri’s company, is working with MEV
• where Stephane and Uri disagree on MEV, despite agreeing on many fundamental things
• how MEV changes with the implementation of Proof of Stake
• what MEV-Boost is and the problems it solves
• what proposer-builder separation is and the motivation behind this idea
• whether DeFi would flourish more if there wasn’t frontrunning and why MEV-Boost doesn’t prevent it
• what externalities MEV-Boost or proposer-builder separation (PBS) would solve for users
• how MEV exists in other industries and in traditional finance
• why Flashbots’ own investors would rather trade on a fair-sequenced rollup than on Flashbots
• how the number of MEV extractors has been decreasing and whether this would end up centralizing MEV
• whether exploiting certain types of MEV is illegal
• how other chains are trying to solve frontrunning, like Osmosis with threshold encryption
• what are the levers that can be pulled to solve MEV, according to Uri
• how eradicating MEV can positively affect the price of ETH, and by how much
• whether validators can potentially share MEV profits with users
• how to determine if a network has a good MEV supply chain

Thank you to our sponsors!

Ava Labs: https://www.avax.network/

a16z: https://link.chtbl.com/HObAJQDL?sid=unchained

Show Links

Uri: 

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/uriklarman

Stephane: 

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/thegostep

Previous coverage of MEV on Unchained:

• The Debate Over Ethereum MEV: Should It Be Minimized or Boosted?: https://laurashin.bulletin.com/the-debate-over-ethereum-mev-should-it-be-minimized-or-boosted
• The Other Side(s) of Ethereum’s MEV Argument: https://laurashin.bulletin.com/the-other-side-s-of-ethereum-s-mev-argument

MEV

• What is MEV: https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/mev/#:~:text=Maximal%20extractable%20value%20(MEV)%20refers,of%20transactions%20in%20a%20block
• Proposer-Builder separation: https://www.alchemy.com/overviews/proposer-builder-separation
• Uri’s blog post: https://medium.com/@uri_61495/flipping-the-table-on-the-mev-game-dc31df8baaf7
• MEV Profit sharing validators: https://www.recvc.com/mev-2-0-the-rise-of-mpsvs/
• Panel conversation mentioned in the episode (39:53): https://youtu.be/UKfBFV1TuEM?t=2393
• Sealed auction design: https://ethresear.ch/t/mev-sgx-a-sealed-bid-mev-auction-design/9677 
• Priority Gas Auction (PGA): https://www.mev.wiki/terms-and-concepts/priority-gas-auctions#:~:text=What%20is%20a%20priority%20gas,up%20fees%20for%20other%20users.
• Dune’s dashboard – amount of MEV extractors: https://dune.com/queries/1171509 
• The MEV Game of the Crypto Economy: Osmosis’ Threshold Encryption vs. SGX of Flashbot?: https://mirror.xyz/infinet.eth/SFjR1H1-RMnKoIoPjqkxpauVPrLYGqLHQP1dY9FHvx4
• Bank of International Settlements report on MEV: https://www.bis.org/publ/bisbull58.pdf

Flashbots

• Flash Boys 2.0 paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1904.05234.pdf
• Flashbots Dashboard: https://dashboard.flashbots.net/
• Flashbots auctions: https://docs.flashbots.net/flashbots-auction/overview
• Flashbots relay open source: https://twitter.com/hasufl/status/1559908331145265156?s=20&t=gtHe5sVetxQXVKfZL2VMYg
• MEV Boost: https://www.alchemy.com/overviews/mev-boost
• MEV in ETH PoS: https://writings.flashbots.net/writings/mev-boost-call-for-testing