Why On-Chain Fairness Requires Off-Chain Coordination

Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) is not a bug but a structural feature of public mempools. Bots front-run, back-run, and sandwich trades, extracting ~$1B+ annually from users. This creates a toxic, adversarial environment where the protocol's economic security is gamed for private profit.

• Result: Retail users get worse prices on every swap.
• Result: Network congestion and fee spikes during arbitrage wars.

Projects like Flashbots SUAVE and Shutter Network encrypt transactions until they are included in a block. This moves the coordination and ordering game from the public domain to a sealed-bid, off-chain auction.

• Key Benefit: Eliminates front-running and sandwich attacks at the source.
• Key Benefit: Preserves composability while enabling fair price discovery.

Instead of submitting a precise transaction, users submit a goal (an intent). Off-chain solvers compete in a sealed-bid auction to fulfill it optimally. This inverts the power dynamic from searchers to solvers serving users.

• Key Benefit: Users get better prices via solver competition and cross-chain liquidity.
• Key Benefit: Gas costs and execution risk are abstracted away from the user.

Rollups and app-chains often rely on a single, centralized sequencer for transaction ordering. This reintroduces censorship, MEV capture, and downtime risks—the very issues decentralization aimed to solve.

• Result: The chain's liveness depends on one entity.
• Result: Sequencer can extract maximum value, creating a new rent-seeking layer.

Decentralized networks that provide neutral, off-chain sequencing for multiple rollups. They enable cross-rollup atomic composability and fair, auction-based block building.

• Key Benefit: Censorship resistance and liveness through validator sets.
• Key Benefit: Unlocks native cross-rollup MEV capture and redistribution.

Protocols that formalize the rules for off-chain coordination and value redistribution. Flashbots' MEV-Share allows users to selectively disclose order flow to searchers, enabling pro-MEV where benefits are shared back with users and builders.

• Key Benefit: Transforms MEV from a tax into a rebate.
• Key Benefit: Creates a sustainable, aligned economic layer for builders and users.

The time between transaction broadcast and block inclusion is a free-for-all. Front-running and back-running bots exploit this to extract value from users, turning network latency into a tax.\n- ~500ms window for exploitation\n- Creates a negative-sum game for end-users\n- Centralizes block-building power to those with the best infrastructure

Hide transaction content until it's too late to exploit. Protocols like Shutter Network and EigenLayer's MEV Blocker use a distributed key ceremony to encrypt intents.\n- Prevents front-running on DEX swaps\n- Enables fair ordering by sequencers (e.g., Espresso Systems)\n- Shifts advantage from speed to commitment

Selling your transaction's position is the current "solution," but it merely redistributes, not eliminates, rent extraction. Users get a rebate, but the system still optimizes for searcher profit, not fair outcomes.\n- Centralizes around Flashbots SUAVE and a few builders\n- ~$1B+ in MEV extracted annually\n- Does not solve time-bandit attacks or censorship

Move from transactions (how) to intents (what). Let a decentralized network, like Astria or Espresso, solve for optimal fulfillment. This is the architecture behind UniswapX and CowSwap.\n- User gets best outcome, not just best price\n- Cross-domain atomicity via solvers (e.g., Across, Socket)\n- Decouples execution from block production

Each rollup has its own sequencer, creating fragmented liquidity and sovereign MEV pools. Atomic cross-rollup arbitrage is impossible without a trusted third party, recreating the very problems L1 sought to solve.\n- No native cross-L2 fairness\n- Forces users into centralized bridging hubs\n- Increases systemic risk from reorgs

A shared sequencer network that orders transactions across multiple L2s. This enables atomic cross-rollup composability and global fair ordering. Think LayerZero's Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) standard with enforceable sequencing.\n- Eliminates bridging MEV\n- Unlocks native cross-chain DeFi\n- Creates a unified liquidity layer