The MEV Letter is a weekly collection of papers, articles and resources related to MEV. The intention of this letter is to provide a comprehensive summary of the latest research, discussions, and developments in the space, with links for further reading.
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Papers & Articles
- Unpacking Maximum Extractable Value on Polygon: A Study on Atomic Arbitrage by Daniil Vostrikov, Yash Madhwal, Andrey Seoev, Anastasiia Smirnova, Yury Yanovich, Alexey Smirnov, and Vladimir Gorgadze examines the evolution of MEV strategies on Polygon by analyzing atomic arbitrage patterns, searcher behavior, and market trends over 22 months.
- Post by MEV-X
- Forum post by @seoeva
- P2P Flashblocks Propagation by Eric Woosley outlines a protocol for P2P Flashblocks Propagation to enable rapid-fire distribution of partial blocks with seamless failovers.
- Post by Eric Woosley
- Post by World Chain
- Post by Optimism
- Post by @bert
- Protocol Update 003 — Improve UX by Barnabé Monnot and Joshua Rudolf shares updates from the Protocol track focused on Improving UX, highlighting work on intents, interoperability, privacy, and more.
- Thread by Barnabé Monnot
- Post by Joshua Rudolf
- Post by Alex Stokes
- Payload Chunking by Toni Wahrstätter proposes splitting blocks into fixed gas “chunks” which can be propagated and validated in parallel, reducing latency and enabling stateless execution.
- FOCIL on Ethereum and legally credible neutrality by Mikołaj Barczentewicz analyzes the legal implications of FOCIL, arguing that constraining validators through protocol-enforced inclusion lists strengthens their legal neutrality.
- Ethereum’s Leaky Gas Tank: Unveiling 13 Costly Gas Model Inconsistencies by Zihao Li describes inconsistencies in Ethereum’s gas fee model and details cases where gas costs are misapplied.
- Generalized base fee update fraction by Anders Elowsson introduces a generalized formula for computing the blob base fee to unify the update logic of EIP-4844 and EIP-7691.
Posts & Threads
- OP Labs published a thread announcing that OP Sepolia has integrated Flashblocks, reducing effective block times from 2 seconds to 250 milliseconds.
- donnoh.eth published a post raising concerns that some top builders are deciding not to include blobs due to the added latency overhead.
- Thread by @dataalways
- Thread by @bert
- Thomas Thiery published a post describing how FOCIL strengthens Ethereum’s permissionless- and censorship-resistant properties by enabling multiple proposers to participate in block construction.
- Akaki Mamageishvili published a thread arguing that FCFS and Timeboost offer a practical advantage over PGA by allowing the sequencer to filter transactions in real time.
- danceratopz published a thread detailing the responsibilities of the Ethereum Foundation STEEL Team to produce EL specifications and adequate testing of EL clients before forks.
- Toni Wahrstätter published a post presenting Ethereum’s daily gas usage over time, visualizing the increase from genesis to today.
Talks & Discussions
- All Core Devs - Execution (ACDE) #219 hosted by Tim Beiko discussed next steps for Fusaka devnets, Holešky deprecation, gas limit testing, and Glamsterdam.
- All Core Devs - Testing (ACDT) #51 hosted by Mario Vega covered Fusaka devnet updates, Glamsterdam testing, and more.
- Agenda by Mario Vega
- Block-level Access Lists (EIP-7928) Breakout #1 hosted by Toni Wahrstätter discussed the specification, implementation, and roadmap of BALs.
- ePBS (EIP-7732) Breakout Room call #22 hosted by Will Corcoran covered the specification and implementation details of ePBS, as well as the next steps towards epbs-devnet-0.
- FOCIL Breakout #18 hosted by Jihoon Song discussed updates related to the implementation, testing, and tooling for FOCIL.
- From Whiteboard to Mainnet: Optimal Rollup Design with Fahad Saleh, Shyam Sridhar, Ciamac C. Moallemi, Davide Crapis, and Maria InĂŞs Silva discuss optimal rollup design and resource pricing for L2s.
Other
- Enabling TEE searching for Protect fast mode by @yiz announces the launch of TEE-based searching in Flashbots Protect Fast mode to deliver improved refunds for users.
- BuilderNet Community Call #2 by @shea announces an upcoming BuilderNet Community Call on Sept 10th focused on refunds.
- Simplified contender API by @brock details recent updates to the Contender library API with reduced complexity while maintaining full configurability of spam behaviour.
- Engineering Sync Readout - 2025-08-26 by @metachris summarizes a recent BuilderNet Engineering Sync with discussions on Azure migration, top-bid scraper, mempool tx optimizations, and more.
- [AMA] We are EF Protocol (Pt. 14: 29 August, 2025) hosted by Protocol at Ethereum Foundation answered questions related to current and future Ethereum research.
- eth-seher by Toni Wahrstätter is a transaction simulation and analysis tool with comprehensive call trace visualization and state change tracking.
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