PEV redefines the MEV stack. Traditional MEV extraction occurs at the transaction ordering layer. PEV shifts the economic attack surface to the zero-knowledge proof generation layer, creating new arbitrage and manipulation vectors within proving networks like zkSync, Polygon zkEVM, and Scroll.
zk-rollups-the-endgame-for-scaling
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Prover Extractable Value (PEV): The Next Frontier in MEV
As ZK-Rollups scale Ethereum, a new attack vector emerges. Provers controlling proof ordering and latency can extract value, creating a centralized, rent-seeking layer analogous to L1 block builders. This is Prover Extractable Value (PEV).
introduction
THE NEXT LAYER
Introduction
Prover Extractable Value (PEV) is the systematic extraction of value from the cryptographic proving process, emerging as the next major frontier after Miner/Validator Extractable Value (MEV).
Provers are the new validators. A prover's ability to sequence proof tasks, censor transactions, or manipulate proof timing mirrors a validator's block-building power. This creates a prover marketplace with economic dynamics similar to those seen in Flashbots' MEV-Boost.
The value is in latency and ordering. Fast, reliable provers capture value by winning proof generation races, while strategic provers can extract value by manipulating the state differential between the source chain and the proven chain.
Evidence: The Ethereum L2 ecosystem now secures over $40B in TVL, with zkRollups processing billions in daily volume, making their proving layers a high-value target for extraction.
thesis-statement
THE ARCHITECTURAL SHIFT
The Core Thesis: PEV is Inevitable
Prover Extractable Value is the structural consequence of modular blockchains and ZK-rollups, creating a new, unavoidable extraction layer.
Prover Extractable Value (PEV) emerges from the fundamental separation of execution and proving in ZK-rollups. The prover's role as a centralized, computationally intensive bottleneck creates a natural point for value extraction, mirroring the miner/validator role in MEV.
PEV is not speculative; it is a direct economic byproduct of proving latency and sequencing. Faster proofs win blockspace, creating a latency arbitrage market identical to the high-frequency trading arms race in traditional finance.
The comparison to MEV is flawed. Traditional MEV extraction is adversarial and often user-hostile. PEV extraction is structural and permissioned; it is the fee paid by rollups to the proving market for liveness and finality guarantees.
Evidence: The proving market is already forming. Risc Zero, Succinct, and =nil; Foundation are building specialized provers. The economic model for EigenLayer AVSs and Espresso Systems' shared sequencer explicitly accounts for prover incentives and extractable value.
key-trends
THE ARCHITECTURAL SHIFT
The Three Pillars of PEV Emergence
Prover Extractable Value (PEV) is not just a new MEV variant; it's a structural consequence of modular, proof-based systems like EigenDA, Celestia, and zkRollups.
01
The Problem: Opaque Prover Markets
In modular stacks, the sequencer-prover relationship is a black box. Provers (e.g., for zkEVMs) face unpredictable costs and latency, creating a volatile, inefficient market ripe for exploitation.
- Hidden Costs: Prover compute costs can spike 10-100x during congestion.
- Centralization Risk: High capital/coordination barriers lead to few dominant prover pools.
10-100x
Cost Volatility
~5
Major Prover Pools
02
The Solution: Intent-Based Proving
Decouple proof generation from sequencing. Users/sequencers express intents (e.g., "prove this batch for <$X within Y seconds"), creating a competitive, transparent marketplace.
- Efficiency Gains: Drives cost discovery, reducing fees by ~30-50%.
- Composability: Enables cross-rollup proof aggregation, similar to UniswapX or CowSwap for intents.
30-50%
Fee Reduction
<2s
Proof Latency SLA
03
The Vector: Prover-Attestation MEV
The real PEV emerges when provers can reorder or selectively attest to state transitions before finalization, extracting value from L2s and data availability layers.
- New Attack Surface: Manipulating proof ordering for DeFi arbitrage or oracle updates.
- Systemic Risk: Threatens the liveness guarantees of optimistic and zk-rollups alike, requiring new cryptographic countermeasures.
$100M+
Annual PEV Potential
L1-L2
Attack Surface
PROVER-LEVEL THREATS
PEV Attack Vectors: A Comparative Matrix
A technical breakdown of how malicious provers can extract value, comparing the primary attack vectors by exploit mechanism, extraction target, and mitigation complexity.
| Attack Vector | Proof-of-Stake Sequencer | ZK-Rollup Prover | Optimistic Rollup Prover |
|---|---|---|---|
Primary Mechanism | Block Reordering & Censorship | Proof Withholding & Frontrunning | Fault Proof Suppression |
Value Extraction Target | User Transactions (DEX arb, liquidations) | Prover Fees & L2 State Updates | Disputed Bond (e.g., 10,000 ETH on Arbitrum) |
Time Window for Attack | Per Block (~12 sec) | Proof Submission Window (~1-4 hours) | Challenge Period (~7 days) |
Capital Requirement | Validator Stake (e.g., 32 ETH) | Proving Hardware & Operational Cost | Dispute Bond (e.g., >1M USD equivalent) |
Mitigation Difficulty | Medium (Requires PBS, MEV-Boost) | High (Requires decentralized prover networks) | Very High (Requires honest watchers with capital) |
Real-World Analogy | Traditional PBS MEV | Solana's Jito-like extractable proving | Optimism's original 'fault prover hijack' |
Active Mitigations | Ethereum PBS, MEV-Boost, SUAVE | Espresso, Lagrange, =nil; Foundation | Cannon Fraud Proof System, Watchtower Incentives |
deep-dive
THE INFRASTRUCTURE BOTTLENECK
The Prover's Dilemma: Hardware, Latency, and Centralization
Prover Extractable Value (PEV) transforms the prover role from a public good into a high-stakes, resource-intensive competition.
Prover Extractable Value (PEV) is the MEV of proving. Provers in ZK-rollups like zkSync and StarkNet sequence and prove transactions, creating a new extractable resource. The entity controlling the prover dictates transaction ordering and fee capture.
Hardware is the new ASIC. Efficient ZK-proof generation requires specialized hardware like GPUs and FPGAs. This creates a capital barrier, centralizing proving power with well-funded entities like Polygon's zkEVM team or dedicated proving services.
Latency dictates profitability. The fastest prover wins the block. This incentivizes colocation near sequencers and validators, replicating the geographic centralization seen in traditional MEV with Flashbots relays.
Evidence: A single prover for Polygon zkEVM, run by Polygon Labs, processes all proofs. This is the baseline centralization model PEV will either exacerbate or decentralize.
protocol-spotlight
THE NEXT FRONTIER IN MEV
Protocol Vulnerabilities: A PEV Risk Assessment
Prover Extractable Value (PEV) is the systemic risk of validators/provers manipulating the state transition of L2s, ZK-Rollups, and other proving systems for profit, threatening protocol integrity.
01
The State Root Time Bomb
L2 sequencers submit state roots to L1. A malicious prover can withhold a valid proof, forcing a faulty root, then profit by frontrunning the inevitable correction. This exploits the trusted bridge assumption between L1 and L2.
- Attack Vector: Withhold valid proofs to create arbitrage opportunities.
- Systemic Risk: Undermines finality guarantees for all bridge users.
7 Days
Challenge Window
$100M+
Bridge TVL at Risk
02
Prover-Collator Cartels
In networks like Polygon zkEVM or zkSync Era, the prover role can centralize. A cartel controlling sequencing and proving can censor and reorder transactions before proof generation, extracting maximal value.
- Centralization Pressure: High hardware costs for ZK provers create oligopolies.
- Extraction Method: Reorder L2 blocks before generating the SNARK proof for L1.
<10
Dominant Provers
100%
Censorship Power
03
The Oracle Manipulation Play
Proofs often rely on external data (e.g., price oracles). A prover can delay proof submission until oracle conditions are favorable, manipulating DeFi settlement across chains. This is a cross-chain variant of Time-Bandit attacks.
- Cross-Chain Contagion: L1 DeFi protocols inherit corrupted L2 state.
- Amplified Impact: Affects all applications using the compromised state root.
~12s
Oracle Latency Exploit
Protocol-Wide
Impact Scope
04
Solution: Proof Auction Markets
Decouple proving from sequencing via a competitive proof marketplace (e.g., Espresso Systems, RiscZero). Sequencers post proof-generation jobs; a decentralized network of provers bids, breaking cartel control.
- Economic Security: Provers are slashed for misbehavior.
- Key Benefit: Separates transaction ordering from state validation.
10x+
More Provers
-90%
Cartel Profit
05
Solution: Multi-Prover & Fraud Proof Hybrids
Mitigate single-point failure with multi-prover systems (e.g., Optimism's multi-proof fault proof) or hybrid ZK/Optimistic models. Different proof systems must collude to attack, raising the economic bar exponentially.
- Defense in Depth: Combines ZK finality with fraud-proof disputability.
- Entity Example: Arbitrum BOLD introduces permissionless validation for rollups.
2-of-N
Trust Assumption
$1B+
Collateral Required
06
Solution: Enshrined Prover Networks
The nuclear option: build proving directly into the L1 consensus, like EigenLayer's shared security for ZK provers or Celestia's Blobstream for data attestation. This uses the L1 validator set's economic security to punish malicious provers.
- Ultimate Guarantee: Leverages $50B+ of Ethereum stake.
- Trade-off: Increases protocol complexity and L1 consensus burden.
L1 Native
Security Source
Slashable
Prover Stake
counter-argument
THE REALITY CHECK
The Bull Case: Why PEV Might Be Overstated
Prover Extractable Value is a theoretical risk, but its practical impact is constrained by economic incentives and protocol design.
PEV is economically bounded. The cost to corrupt a proof system is astronomically high. A malicious prover must outbid honest actors for the right to propose a fraudulent block, a cost that far exceeds any potential MEV gain from reordering transactions.
Decentralized proving networks mitigate risk. Protocols like EigenLayer and Espresso Systems distribute proving work. This creates a competitive market where collusion requires controlling a supermajority of provers, making attacks prohibitively expensive and detectable.
Sequencer-prover separation is a firewall. In rollups like Arbitrum and Optimism, the sequencer orders transactions, but the prover only attests to correctness. A prover cannot extract value; it can only attest to a valid or invalid state, limiting its attack surface.
Evidence: The Ethereum consensus layer has not seen a successful 51% attack despite billions in potential MEV, proving that cryptoeconomic security works when stake is sufficiently decentralized and slashing is severe.
risk-analysis
THE PROVER'S DILEMMA
The Bear Case: Systemic Risks of Unchecked PEV
Prover Extractable Value (PEV) is the natural evolution of MEV into the proving layer, creating new, opaque vectors for centralization and systemic risk.
01
The Centralization Bomb in ZK-Rollups
The capital-intensive nature of ZK proving creates a winner-take-all market. The entity controlling the dominant prover can extract value by front-running, censoring, or delaying state updates, directly undermining the L2's decentralization promise.
- Risk: Single prover controls >$1B+ in sequencer/prover fees.
- Example: A prover could delay a proof for a large DEX trade to execute their own arbitrage.
>1B+
Fee Control
1
Critical Point
02
Opaque Cartels: Prover-Builder-Separation (PBS) Fails
Ethereum's PBS mitigates MEV by separating block building from proposing. In ZK systems, the prover is the ultimate builder, creating a black box. Provers can form cartels with sequencers (like those from Arbitrum, zkSync) to capture value, with no public mempool for oversight.
- Result: Value extraction shifts from transparent auctions to off-chain deals.
- Analogy: Recreating the miner-extractable value (MEV) problem with higher barriers to entry.
0
Public Mempool
Cartel
Risk Model
03
Liveness Attacks and Protocol Extortion
PEV enables new liveness attack vectors. A malicious or profit-driven prover can hold the chain hostage by refusing to generate validity proofs for state updates, freezing billions in TVL until their economic demands are met.
- Threat: Extortion via proof withholding.
- Impact: Halts withdrawals and cross-chain messaging (e.g., LayerZero, Wormhole).
- Mitigation: Requires decentralized prover networks with slashing, a largely unsolved problem.
Billions
TVL Frozen
Critical
Liveness Risk
04
The Data Availability (DA) End-Run
Provers using alternative DA layers (e.g., Celestia, EigenDA) can exploit informational asymmetries. By seeing data before the rest of the network, they gain a time advantage to extract PEV on other chains, creating a cross-chain MEV contagion.
- Vector: Pre-confirmation advantage from fast DA.
- Systemic Risk: Weakest DA link determines the security of interconnected rollups.
~Seconds
Advantage Window
Cross-Chain
Contagion
05
Economic Distortion and Staking Imbalances
Massive PEV yields will distort staking economics in proof-of-stake L2s. Validators will be incentivized to delegate to the highest-PEV prover, not the most secure or decentralized, leading to staking centralization and reduced censorship resistance.
- Outcome: Security budget corrupted by extractive yields.
- Parallel: Echoes the Lido dominance problem on Ethereum, but at the proving layer.
Yield-Driven
Delegation
Security
Budget Distorted
06
Solution Space: Mandatory Decentralized Proving
The only mitigation is architectural: baking decentralization into the protocol. This requires economically viable decentralized prover networks (e.g., Espresso, Georli) with forced randomization, proof auctions, and slashing for liveness failures.
- Requirement: No single point of failure in the proving pipeline.
- Trade-off: Accept higher latency (~10-30% slower) and cost for credible neutrality.
0
Single Point
+10-30%
Cost/Speed
future-outlook
THE ARCHITECTURAL SHIFT
The Mitigation Frontier: Proposer-Builder-Separation for L2
Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS) is the primary defense against Prover Extractable Value (PEV), requiring a fundamental redesign of L2 sequencing.
PBS decouples block construction from block proposing. This prevents the sequencer, as the block proposer, from viewing and frontrunning transactions within its own block. The sequencer only sees a commitment to a complete block from a competitive builder market.
PEV mitigation requires a credible builder market. A single, trusted builder recreates centralization. L2s need systems like SUAVE or a decentralized sequencer set to ensure builders compete on block quality and inclusion, not collusion.
The PBS model exports complexity. Builders handle the computationally intensive task of optimistic or ZK proof generation and MEV extraction. The proposer's role simplifies to selecting the highest-value block, similar to Ethereum's post-merge model.
Evidence: Without PBS, a single sequencer on Arbitrum or Optimism captures all PEV. PBS frameworks, as researched by Espresso Systems and implemented in Fuel, demonstrate the path to neutralizing this extractive risk.
takeaways
PROVER EXTRACTABLE VALUE (PEV)
TL;DR: Key Takeaways for Builders and Investors
MEV is migrating up the stack. Prover Extractable Value (PEV) is the new frontier, where the economic incentives of ZK proof generation threaten the security and decentralization of L2s.
01
The Problem: Centralized Provers Create a New Attack Vector
ZK-Rollup security depends on a single, often centralized, prover. PEV creates a multi-million dollar incentive to manipulate, delay, or censor proof generation, directly threatening finality.
- Single Point of Failure: A malicious or extractive prover can hold the chain hostage.
- Liveness Risk: Proofs can be strategically delayed to extract value from pending transactions.
- Regulatory Capture: High-value prover roles become targets for compliance enforcement.
1
Critical Prover
>99%
Uptime Required
02
The Solution: Decentralized Prover Networks & PBS
Mitigating PEV requires architectural shifts inspired by Ethereum's Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS). The goal is to separate proof generation from proof ordering.
- Prover Auctions: Implement a marketplace (e.g., Espresso, Astria) where sequencers auction proof-generation rights.
- Proof Aggregation: Use schemes like Plonky2 or Nova to allow distributed proving, reducing individual prover power.
- Economic Bonding: High-stake slashing conditions for provers who delay or withhold proofs.
~10s
Auction Window
Nova
Key Tech
03
The Opportunity: PEV Will Redefine L2 Staking
PEV transforms the prover role from a cost center into a revenue-generating, stake-secured service. This creates a new primitive for L2 tokenomics.
- Staked Proving: Tokens like STRK, ARB, OP must secure prover networks, not just governance.
- Yield Source: Prover fees and extracted PEV become a sustainable yield for stakers.
- Infrastructure Plays: New projects like Succinct, Ingonyama, and Ulvetanna are building hardware/software for competitive proving.
$B+
New Staking TVL
FPGA/ASIC
Hardware Race
04
The Builders: Who's Solving This Now?
A new stack is emerging to combat PEV, focusing on decentralized sequencing, shared security, and efficient proving.
- Shared Sequencers: Espresso Systems and Astria provide neutral sequencing layers to separate ordering from proving.
- ZK Coprocessors: Risc Zero and Succinct enable general-purpose proving, diversifying the prover set.
- Intent-Based Solvers: Architectures from UniswapX and CowSwap that settle on L2s must now account for prover-level manipulation.
Espresso
Key Entity
Risc Zero
Key Entity
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