Optimism-Flashbots| writings.flashbots.net
Today, we introduce a new thesis MEV has become the dominant limit to scaling blockchains.| writings.flashbots.net
Oblivious Labs + Flashbots| writings.flashbots.net
We are excited to announce Unichain is the first L2 to release Rollup-Boost and deploy TEE block building on mainnet!| writings.flashbots.net
Builder Playground| writings.flashbots.net
Block building must be made decentralized, uncensorable, and neutral. To accelerate decentralization in block building, Flashbots has deprecated our centralized block builders and migrated our orderflow and refunds to BuilderNet.| writings.flashbots.net
Every distributed cryptographic protocol, key management system or wallet runs on opaque hardware. In almost all cases, we do not know with any certainty that our hardware is executing the expected program and that it is not actually acting against us. Many cases of exactly this kind of betrayal have been uncovered. The latest proved deadly. This precedent suggests the likely existence of undetected malicious hardware in use today.| Flashbots Writings Blog
We introduce a new approach to block building called parallel block building. Instead of treating all transactions as potentially conflicting - as traditional sequential building algorithms do - parallel block building recognizes that most transactions in a block are actually independent. When a user swaps ETH for USDC, it doesn't affect someone minting an NFT - so why process them sequentially?| Flashbots Writings Blog
Flashbots Protect is the longest running and most used private RPC in crypto. Since 2021, Protect has been used by 2.1 million Ethereum accounts to protect $43 billion in DEX volume and earn 313 ETH in refunds. Today, on its third anniversary, we look back on Protect’s journey and where it’s going next.| writings.flashbots.net
Recent months have seen an awakening of several large use cases of TEEs, from OpenAI calling for new and improved TEEs and Apple announcing a hardware-based private cloud, to Ethereum transactions being privately processed in TDX and other blockchains leveraging SGX for integrity. Having worked quite closely with several use cases that are at the center of this excitement, we are aware of both the promise which secure hardware holds, and of the current insufficiency of today’s hardware to s...| Flashbots Writings Blog
We’ve developed a platform for performance, programmability, and decentralization extensions for Rollups. It is powering the upcoming Unichain.| writings.flashbots.net
Wallets are the gateway to Web3, serving as essential portals for users to send and receive messages, manage funds, and interact with blockchain applications. As a critical piece of blockchain infrastructure, wallets significantly shape users' Web3 experiences.| Flashbots Writings Blog
This article examines the application of Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) in the Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) space. Our approach allows searchers to blindly backrun user transactions using FHE. This prototype demonstrates how a searcher can compute the future price of a UniswapV2 pool over a user transaction, keeping it encrypted throughout the process. Although this method is not currently practical for deployment, it serves as a foundation for future improvement and expansion, which w...| writings.flashbots.net
An open and efficient block building ecosystem is essential to Ethereum. In order to catalyze further innovation and collaboration in block building, Flashbots has open sourced rbuilder, our latest and most performant block builder written in Rust, and designed to work with Reth.| writings.flashbots.net
In this post we detail the engineering effort preparing for the Dencun hard fork| writings.flashbots.net
Get in losers, we are attaching a TEE to a blockchain. All in under 2k lines of code, mostly Solidity| writings.flashbots.net
In this post, we cast light on the state of defi order and transaction flow today. We will show how defi has distinguished itself from the traditional order flow market, and discuss the challenges to achieving our shared dream of systems that remain decentralized while maximally benefiting the user.| writings.flashbots.net
In this post we preview the upcoming SUAVE Centauri release and introduce the MEVM.| writings.flashbots.net
MEV-Share is a new paradigm for searchers. It unlocks new orderflow, features, and searching strategies. This short guide will get you up to speed on new ways of searching and explain how to upgrade your strategies to leverage MEV-Share.| writings.flashbots.net
The good, the bad, and the ugly of MEV.| Flashbots Blog
Sandwiching, Fairness, and EIP-1559| Flashbots Blog
We took the first deep look at MEV and released our findings through MEV-Explore, a public dashboard and live MEV transactions explorer.| Flashbots Blog
The first Flashbots bundle was mined in block 11550019 on Dec-29–2020 0422 PM UTC, kicking off what is poised to be the year of MEV.| Flashbots Blog
Flashbots is a research and development organization formed to mitigate the negative externalities and existential risks posed by miner-extractable value (MEV) to smart-contract blockchains. We propose a permissionless, transparent, and fair ecosystem for MEV extraction to reinforce the Ethereum ideals.| writings.flashbots.net
Users should be able to see and control how their transactions are processed in the MEV supply chain. In order to bring more transparency to orderflow auctions, Flashbots has open sourced our implementation of a MEV-Share Node.| writings.flashbots.net
Flashbots Research Proposals (FRP) is a grants program that Flashbots uses to fund community research, work with collaborators, and ensure that researchers beyond our internal team have the resources they need to illuminate the dark forest. Read on for some highlighted FRPs, which have been completed in the last year.| writings.flashbots.net
We are excited to announce that Flashbots is running a block builder inside an SGX enclave, and open-sourcing all the components.| writings.flashbots.net
This article examines the use of secure multi-party computation in allowing searchers to backrun users’ transactions while preserving transaction and search strategy confidentiality.| writings.flashbots.net
We are happy to publish our efforts and a number of key learnings about running Geth inside SGX, for others to reuse, experiment with, and build upon.| writings.flashbots.net
After successfully isolating the centralizing effects of MEV to the block builder role, we turn ourselves toward a new challenge - to decentralize block building itself.| writings.flashbots.net
A new mev-boost feature allows validators to maximize Ethereum’s censorship resistance by building low-MEV blocks locally while still outsourcing the building of high-MEV blocks.| writings.flashbots.net
A competitive, geographically diverse, and transparent builder ecosystem is critical for the health of Ethereum. Flashbots has open sourced our leading builder in order to help this ecosystem grow further.| writings.flashbots.net
This post is adapted from Phil Daian’s talk on Oct 14, 2022 at Devcon VI in Bogota, Colombia. A transcript of the talk is available here.| writings.flashbots.net
Tl;dr The first article of this series outlined the threat that exclusive order flow (EOF) poses to the builder market. This article argues that order flow auctions can address part of the EOF problem and explores meaningful differences between two auction design types, while identifying similarities that point to a more fundamental problem.| writings.flashbots.net
Tl;dr This post explores the alarming potential for exclusive order flow to render the builder market uncompetitive. A lack of competition in the builder market threatens to cause rent extraction, poor user experience, and entrenchment of builders with undue influence over network incentives. While cause for concern, the negative externalities of exclusive order flow can be mitigated or wholly avoided as presented in a series of articles, of which this article is the first.| writings.flashbots.net
Recently, consensus protocols have been proposed that aim to include transactions on a First Come First Served (FCFS) basis. In this article, we explore whether such FCFS-based ordering of transactions in consensus protocols can prevent front-running in permissionless blockchains.| writings.flashbots.net
If you're a searcher on Proof of Work (PoW) Ethereum and you're wondering how your experience will change as Ethereum switches to Proof of Stake (PoS), then this post is for you.| writings.flashbots.net
TL;DR: It has been a great year for Flashbots Protect! Post-merge, all transactions sent to Protect will have frontrunning and revert protection. But due to how mev-boost will be launched at the merge, Flashbots Protect will be down for at least 1 hour after the merge. If you rely on Flashbots Protect as a user or application developer then please plan accordingly.| writings.flashbots.net
In response to recent developments around legal requirements for relay providers in their home jurisdictions, we have decided to accelerate the release of our relay code as open source.| writings.flashbots.net
Over the last few days, mev-boost has been a hot discussion topic in the community. We want to take this opportunity to highlight and educate the design and trust assumptions that make mev-boost possible as a merge-ready PBS solution.| writings.flashbots.net
Calling all validators to test mev-boost.| writings.flashbots.net
Understanding mev-boost as an iteration on the original Flashbots auction, and how it paves the way for full in-protocol PBS| writings.flashbots.net
This article explains the benefits of mev-boost to the network and to validators, node operators, and staking pools.| writings.flashbots.net
At mev.day in Amsterdam, I opened the day by introducing a new framework for thinking about the fast moving MEV industry and how it will evolve in the future. I call this framework the MEV Supply Chain. You can find a recording of this presentation here.| writings.flashbots.net
Thanks to Alejo Salles, Hongbo Zhang, Alex Obadia, and Kushal Babel for feedback and review of this post.| writings.flashbots.net
Hi everyone, it's been a while! Here is a double-edition of our latest transparency report. As you can imagine, we've been busy.| writings.flashbots.net
A step-by-step walkthrough of how to add a new MEV inspector using a recently added cryptopunk snipers inspector as an example.| writings.flashbots.net
Central to the security of Ethereum is that every miner, and soon validator, can produce the most profitable block possible. Why is this? Why has Flashbots made it a goal to democratize access to the most profitable blocks? How are we doing so? This blog post answers these questions and more.| writings.flashbots.net
Thanks to Phil Daian, Alex Obadia, and Mahimna Kelkar for plenty of discussions on the topic.| writings.flashbots.net
The multi-chain future is upon us. Modular architectures are coming to maturity across the ecosystem| writings.flashbots.net
Flashbots has been critical to leveling the MEV playing field on Proof-of-Work (PoW) Ethereum (eth1), and aims to bring the same benefits to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Ethereum (eth2). The adoption of Flashbots involves two distinct parties, block producers, and MEV searchers. In Ethereum, over 90% of miners have adopted Flashbots; however, as we approach eth2 and the transition to PoS, adoption will reset to 0. As such, for the health of the Ethereum ecosystem, it is imperative that validators als...| writings.flashbots.net
Like many others, when I learned that Ken Griffith beat out 17k crypto frens at purchasing the copy of the constitution, I couldn't help but laugh.| writings.flashbots.net
This document outlines the design for a marketplace for block construction (often referred to as block proposer / block builder separation or PBS) compatible with the upcoming Ethereum merge fork. This trust based solution closely resembles the current Flashbots auction design with modifications to enable solo staker participation without introducing changes to Ethereum consensus. This solution aims to bridge the gap to a permissionless PBS design which should be strongly considered for the c...| writings.flashbots.net
Today Flashbots and our community are excited to launch a public beta of Flashbots Protect, a new product line focused on allowing everyday users and developers to easily submit transactions to Flashbots.| writings.flashbots.net
Flashbots’ last two months have been packed.| writings.flashbots.net
The beating heart of every blockchain is how space is allocated within a block. In less than 24 hours, Ethereum will undergo a historic change to how blockspace is allocated as transaction inclusion rules drastically change with the activation of EIP-1559. However, EIP-1559 does not affect miners’ ability to reorder, insert, or censor transactions, and as such it largely does not have an impact on MEV (Maximal Extractable Value).| writings.flashbots.net
The incorporation of EIP-1559 in the London hardfork brings a major restructuring of the Ethereum fee mechanism, aiming to allow for easier fee estimation by users and consolidate ETH as the base currency of the network by burning part of the transaction fees. This post analyzes some of the consequences of this EIP under the light of the MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) phenomenon, that is, the permissionless extraction of value by the reordering, addition, or censoring of transactions.| writings.flashbots.net
There has been a lot of discussion in the Ethereum community recently about chain-reorgs-as-a-service, and how it relates to MEV, the ETH2 merge, and other important ecosystem developments.| writings.flashbots.net
In May and June 2021 Flashbots strengthened and moved forward our network, successfully releasing v0.2 and with it improved auction pricing as well as bundle merging.| writings.flashbots.net
Ethereum will soon transition from a Proof of Work (PoW) to a Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus protocol. This transition has been worked on for years and is happening in multiple steps. The first step in December 2020 consisted in launching the beacon chain. It is now live, and, at the time of writing, has more than 160k validators or an equivalent of ~5m ETH staked on it.| writings.flashbots.net
While Flashbots Alpha has been and continues to be successful it offers incomplete trust guarantees. It is not permissionless because miners who adopt it have to be whitelisted by MEV-Relay in order to be forwarded bundles. It is not completely private because bundles can be seen by miners prior to inclusion on-chain. Lastly, Flashbots Alpha offers no finality protection against chain reorgs. While finality is important, we are focusing first on permissionless and complete privacy as the next...| writings.flashbots.net
Maximal (formerly Miner) Extractable Value ($\textrm$) is the value that can be extracted from a blockchain by any agent without special permissions. Considering this permissionless nature, any agent with transaction ordering rights will be in a privileged position to perform the extraction. In Proof of Work blockchains, it is miners who determine transaction ordering within a block, hence the former "miner" term. In practice, bot operators seek to extract $\textrm{MEV}$ by either paying high...| writings.flashbots.net
April 2021 was a month of tremendous adoption, experimentation and learning from the community for Flashbots.| writings.flashbots.net
Flashbots is a research and development organization formed to mitigate the negative externalities and existential risks posed by miner-extractable value (MEV) to smart-contract blockchains. We propose a permissionless, transparent, and fair ecosystem for MEV extraction to preserve the ideals of Ethereum.| writings.flashbots.net