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
- Geographical Centralization Resilience in Ethereum’s Block-Building Paradigms by @syang, @boz1, Fei Wu, and Fan Zhang has been updated with an agent-based simulation model, showing that Ethereum’s block-building architecture is not geographically neutral, and outlines potential mitigation directions.
- Semantic Non-Fungibility and Violations of the Law of One Price in Prediction Markets by Jonas Gebele and Florian Matthes analyzes over 100 000 prediction market events across major venues, showing that semantically equivalent markets exhibit persistent arbitrage opportunities averaging 2-4%.
- Combining preconfirmations with based rollups for synchronous composability by Vitalik Buterin presents a hybrid rollup architecture that combines the low latency of sequenced rollups with the synchronous composability of based rollups.
- Native DVT for Ethereum staking by Vitalik Buterin outlines a design to enshrine Distributed Validator Technology (DVT) into the Ethereum protocol to reduce reliance on staking providers and improve decentralization.
- Worst-Case Block Size and Calldata Repricing for Glamsterdam by Toni Wahrstätter explains how Ethereum’s block size constraints persist despite EIP-7623, and proposed fixes via EIP-7976 and EIP-7981 in Glamsterdam.
- Two-resource metered-gas equations for EIP-8037 by Anders Elowsson analyze how the EIP-1559 base fee should be updated when two separate resources, regular gas and state creation gas, are used.
- Blob Analysis after Fusaka and BPO Updates by Leo presents an empirical analysis of Ethereum’s blob throughput and network stability following Fusaka and subsequent BPO updates, finding both underutilized capacity and elevated rates of missed slots.
- Fusaka: More Blobs, Less Votes, Broken Hearts? by Sam Calder-Mason investigates how increased blob count affects attestation head votes, and finds that drops in votes are primarily driven by proposer timing games, not blob count itself.
- everyone is quietly switching to intents by dude documents the shift toward solver-driven infrastructure in DeFi, with trading platforms, interoperability layers, and lending protocols increasingly adopting intents for improved execution and scalability.
- Repricings for block proving (Part 2: The tools and process) by Ignacio Hagopian details the benchmarking tools, methodologies, and dashboards used to evaluate zkVM execution and proving performance for Ethereum gas repricing analysis.
- zkEVM Security Overview by Cody Gunton examines the security implications of Ethereum transitioning to zkEVM-based validation, emphasizing attack surfaces in circuit construction, witness generation, software dependencies, and more.
- Trust minimized transaction simulation using state proofs by marc presents a decentralized system for transaction simulation that aims to address the risks of blind signing in today’s wallets.
Posts & Threads
- @dataalways published a thread highlighting the divergence in how Geth and Nethermind handle low-fee spam transactions, with ~40% of Nethermind-included transactions in the past week paying almost nothing to the proposer.
- Vitalik Buterin published a post emphasizing the need for protocol simplicity to preserve the trustlessness, self-sovereignty, and long-term sustainability of Ethereum.
- Reply by donnoh.eth
- Vitalik Buterin published a post outlining how Ethereum’s original vision for a decentralized tech stack is being realized through advancements in PoS, ZK-EVMs, Waku, and IPFS, enabling applications like Fileverse to operate independently of centralized control.
- Vitalik Buterin published a post outlining a vision for 2026 to restore self-sovereignty and trustlessness through advances in node accessibility, privacy-preserving technologies, decentralized frontends, and secure wallet design.
Talks & Discussions
- CBER Forum: Unichain by Joshua Gutow provides an overview of OP Stack, Rollup Boost, Flashblocks, and Unichain.
- Smart Economy Podcast: Inside Ethereum’s Next Chapter: Tomasz Stańczak on the EF, L2s, & Institutional Adoption invites Tomasz K. Stańczak for a conversation on L2 interoperability, institutional adoption, the role of the Ethereum Foundation, and more.
- Indexed Podcast: Did Ethereum Really Solve the Trilemma? discuss Vitalik Buterin recent post on how Ethereum is evolving to a fundamentally new network with PeerDAS and zkEVM to solve the blockchain trilemma.
- All Core Devs - Execution (ACDE) #228 hosted by Ansgar Dietrichs discussed the scope of Glamsterdam, and deferred a few EL EIPs to later updates in favor of client readiness, stability, and structured upgrade governance.
- All Core Devs - Testing (ACDT) #66 hosted by parithosh covered BPO forks, devnets for BALs and ePBS, gas limit increases, and more.
- Agenda by parithosh
- Thread by Pooja Ranjan
- FCR breakout room #2 hosted by Will Corcoran provided an overview of the Fast Confirmation Rule (FCR) initiative and its current specification.
Other
- Checkpoint #8: Jan 2026 by nixo.eth gives a high-level summary from recent All Core Developer calls, focusing on the Fusaka upgrade, BPO forks, Glamsterdam, and Hegotá.
- Developer Sentiment Toward Individual EIPs Proposed for Glamsterdam by Christine D. Kim presents an overview of the EIPs relevant for Glamsterdam according to discussions from All Core Devs - Testing (ACDT) #66.
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