The Future of MEV Capture is Sub-Block

Traditional PBS builders see a static snapshot. They cannot react to state changes within their own block, leaving cross-domain arbitrage and JIT liquidity opportunities on the table.\n- Latency Penalty: ~12s window for atomic arbitrage is too slow.\n- Inefficient Bundles: Builders overpay for inclusion without real-time price updates.

Protocols like Uniswap V4 with hook architectures and Morpho Blue's isolated markets enable liquidity to be summoned and vanished within a single block. This creates a new MEV surface for liquidity provision arbitrage.\n- Micro-Duration Risk: LPs commit capital for <1 second.\n- Hook-Based MEV: Execution logic embedded in pools becomes a new extractable resource.

Infrastructure like EigenLayer's fast finality and L2 pre-confirmations (e.g., Espresso, Astria) provide sub-second economic finality. This allows searchers to act on intent flows with near-zero counterparty risk, collapsing the MEV supply chain.\n- Intent Execution: Projects like UniswapX and Across can settle in ~500ms.\n- Chain Abstraction: Fast finality enables atomic cross-rollup arbitrage as a single operation.

The entities controlling the fast finality layer, shared sequencers, and JIT liquidity vaults become the primary MEV extractors. This centralizes economic power in the infrastructure layer, not the application layer.\n- Vertical Integration: Builders like Flashbots SUAVE aim to own the entire flow.\n- New Rent Extraction: Infrastructure fees capture value previously earned by independent searchers.

The Problem: Centralized block builders dominate MEV, creating opaque markets and systemic risk. The Solution: A decentralized, specialized mempool and block builder network that separates execution from consensus.

• Universal preference expression for users and searchers.
• Cross-chain intent settlement via a decentralized block builder network.
• Privacy-preserving transaction flow from mempool to execution.

The Problem: Missed MEV opportunities and network instability from arbitrage bots spamming transactions. The Solution: A Just-in-Time (JIT) auction for inserting bundles into empty block space after a block leader is known.

• ~500ms latency for auction execution.
• Revenue sharing with validators via the JitoSOL stake pool.
• Proven model with >$1B+ in MEV rewards extracted to date.

The Problem: New sub-block systems (like SUAVE) need decentralized, cryptoeconomically secure operators. The Solution: Restaking Ethereum security to bootstrap trust for decentralized sequencers, provers, and attestation networks.

• $15B+ TVL securing the ecosystem.
• Shared security model reduces capital fragmentation.
• Enables rapid deployment of sovereign execution layers like EigenDA.

The Problem: Rollups fragment liquidity and MEV, forcing users to trust centralized sequencers. The Solution: A decentralized, shared sequencer network that provides fast pre-confirmations and enables cross-rollup MEV capture.

• Sub-second pre-confirmations for users.
• Interoperable MEV markets across rollups like Arbitrum and Optimism.
• Timeboost auction for ordering rights within the sequencing process.

The Problem: Monolithic shared sequencers (like Espresso) may not optimize for individual rollup state transitions. The Solution: A decentralized sequencer that focuses on raw block production, allowing rollups to run their own execution and settlement.

• Rollup sovereignty maintained over execution logic.
• Composable block space from a shared, decentralized network of sequencers.
• Direct competitor to centralized RaaS providers like Caldera and Conduit.

The Problem: Users express what they want, not how to do it, creating complex routing and MEV leakage. The Solution: Intent-based architectures (like UniswapX, CowSwap) that outsource transaction routing to a competitive solver network.

• Better prices via competition among solvers like Across.
• MEV protection by design, moving risk from user to solver.
• Natural fit for sub-block systems like SUAVE to act as the settlement layer.

The Problem: Users transact on-chain, but MEV searchers and solvers capture the value of their preferences.\nThe Solution: Architect for intents. Let users declare what they want (e.g., best price for 100 ETH) and let a competitive solver network handle the how. This shifts the MEV auction upstream.\n- Key Benefit: User experience becomes gasless, atomic, and optimal.\n- Key Benefit: Protocol captures value via solver competition (see: UniswapX, CowSwap).

The Problem: Finality latency (12s on Ethereum) is a UX and arbitrage killer. Value leaks in the mempool.\nThe Solution: Implement a pre-confirmation layer. Use cryptographic commits (like SGX or MPC) or stake-based guarantees from builders/sequencers to provide sub-second economic finality.\n- Key Benefit: Enables real-time DeFi and CEX-like UX.\n- Key Benefit: Captures latency-sensitive arbitrage MEV that currently goes to private mempools.

The Problem: The PBS (Proposer-Builder Separation) model isolates block building from user intent, creating inefficiency.\nThe Solution: Fuse the roles. The future dominant entity is the Solver-Builder that wins intent auctions and directly constructs optimal blocks for maximal extractable value (MEV).\n- Key Benefit: Eliminates latency and information loss between solver competition and block production.\n- Key Benefit: Creates a ~$1B+ annual market for cross-domain MEV aggregation (see: Across, LayerZero).

The Problem: The public mempool is a toxic waste dump of frontrun-able transactions. Honest users subsidize bots.\nThe Solution: Architect for encrypted mempools or direct-to-builder order flow. Use technologies like threshold encryption (e.g., Shutter Network) to hide intent until inclusion.\n- Key Benefit: Neutralizes frontrunning and sandwich attacks at the source.\n- Key Benefit: Transforms MEV from a predatory tax into a competitive auction for bundle space.