Two MEV builders now produce nearly 80\% of Ethereum blocks. Block builders have the ability to reorder transactions on the blockchain in a way that can be harmful to participants. We estimate participants would pay in the aggregate nearly \$7.2 million per month to guarantee that they remained in the first quartile of the block. Sandwich attacks, in which a transaction is front run, are frequent, averaging more than one every two blocks. Gas fees on these transactions pay for nearly 9.6\% of the MEV payments to the validator. Reforms such as gas fee priority or private transaction pools might be helpful.

Last revision: Sep 21, 2026. Read the paper and version history ↗