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
- Boost+: Equitable, Incentive-Compatible Block Building by Mengqian Zhang, Sen Yang, Kartik Nayak, Fan Zhang presents a two-staged block-building architecture that decouples the process of collecting and ordering transactions, with builder algorithms running in TEEs.
- LUCID: Encrypted mempool with distributed payload propagation by Anders Elowsson introduces an encrypted mempool design that bridges the gap between includer and proposer while adhering to existing Ethereum mechanisms such as ePBS, BALs, and ABBs.
- Hegota Headliner: LUCID encrypted mempool by Anders Elowsson, Julian Ma, and Justin Florentine proposes pursuing a minimum viable EIP of the LUCID encrypted mempool to enable forced inclusion of sealed transactions.
- The Case for Quick Slots in Hegota by Carl Beekhuizen proposes adding variable slot timing as a non-headliner alongside FOCIL in Hegotá, though a three-phased approach.
- Post by Carl Beekhuizen
- Post by Potuz
- Hyper-scaling state by creating new forms of state by Vitalik Buterin details how Ethereum can likely get 1000x scale for execution and data via zkEVMs and PeerDAS, but scaling state is fundamentally harder and proposes adding cheaper and more restrictive forms of state alongside the existing Ethereum state.
- Analysis of different aggregation functions for EIP-8037 under different elasticity regimes by Maria Inês Silva examines the performance of different aggregation functions for EIP-8037’s multidimensional metering system across various demand elasticity regimes.
- Solving Spam, State Bloat, and Fee Volatility with a Single Parameter by lavender proposed adding a new parameter to EIP-1559 to establish a lower bound for the base fee to make address poisoning spam uneconomical, and reduce unnecessary state bloat.
- Trillion Dollar Security - February Update by Josh Stark details the progress of Ethereum Foundation’s Trillion Dollar Security Initiative (1TS), including new tooling, dashboards, and benchmarking to strengthen protocol- and application-layer security.
- Ethereum’s Next Big Shift: From Re-Executing Every Transaction to Verifying ZK Proofs by ladislaus0x outlines how EIP-8025 allow nodes to verify ZK-proofs for block validation rather than re-executing transactions, reducing node resource requirements and improving scalability.
- ERC-7683 Redux: Programmable Fillers by Francisco Giordano identifies shortcomings in the current draft spec for ERC-7683 and outlines a resolver-driven redesign aimed at standardizing fillers across intent protocols.
- Ethereum Foundation Protocol Security Team x Sherlock: A Final Stress Test Before Mainnet by Sherlock summarizes the large-scale audit contest that was hosted ahead of the Fusaka upgrade, with participation from hundreds of researchers, and the discovery of 4 high-severity issues that were fixed before launch.
- Why Institutional DeFi Is a Systems Problem: 6 Insights From My PhD That Surprised Me Most by Krzysztof Gogol discusses whether DeFi can scale to institutional-grade finance by analyzing composability, execution environments, MEV dynamics, and risk management.
Posts & Threads
- Blockspace Forum published a thread announcing its mission to improve the Ethereum transaction journey and block construction process.
- EF Protocol Support published a thread detailing the progress of validator consolidation since MaxEB was introduced in Pectra, noting that 16% of staked ETH has now been consolidated to 0.86% of validators.
- Vitalik Buterin published a post arguing against replicating EVM chains via generic optimistic bridges and calls for innovative L2s that offer differentiated functionalities.
- Vitalik Buterin published a post sharing perspectives on the intersection of Ethereum and AI to enhance privacy, decentralization, and scalable governance systems.
Talks & Discussions
- Indexed Podcast: Demystifying Prediction Markets Beyond Volume Charts explores the history, and current state of prediction markets.
- All Core Devs - Consensus (ACDC) #174, Feb 5, 2026 hosted by Alex Stokes discussed Cell Level Deltas, ePBS devnet-0, and Hegotá Headliner discussion and finalization.
- All Core Devs - Testing (ACDT) #69, February 9, 2026 hosted by Mario Vega covered bal-devnet-2, epbs-devnet-0, and gas limit testing.
- Agenda by Mario Vega
- EIP-7928 Breakout #12, Feb 9, 2026 hosted by Toni Wahrstätter discussed client optimizations, specification clarification, and testing related to BALs.
- CBER Forum: Pectra by Caspar Schwarz-Schilling presents an overview of the EIPs included in Pectra.
- CBER Forum: Fusaka and Beyond by Ansgar Dietrichs details how PeerDAS enables increased blob throughput while preserving data availability guarantees through probabilistic sampling.
Other
- What I Learned at L2 School by @tesa outlines a shift in L2 development from crypto-native priorities to institutionally driven concerns including compliant privacy, trusted execution, and regulated asset settlement.
- MEV Edge Series — 02: Speed is a strategy by dom presents a set of techniques to achieve lower latency and increased throughput for MEV bots.
- AMM Challenge by Benedict Brady and Dan Robinson is an AMM mechanism design challenge where participants compete to design fee strategies that maximize profitability.
- Paradigm Prediction Markets is an interactive dashboard for browsing, filtering, and analyzing prediction market data.
- Introducing the EF Academic Secretariat 2026 PhD Fellowship by EF Academic Secretariat announces the launch of an PhD Fellowship Program aimed at empowering and expanding the frontiers of Ethereum-related academic research.
- EVM Gas Profiling: New Execution Trace Data by Matty Evans and Andrew Davis announces that the Xatu dataset now includes full EVM execution trace data: per-opcode gas consumption, call frame hierarchies, and pre-aggregated analytics starting from Dec 29 2025.
- Protecting Ethereum Users with the EF by samczsun announces a collaboration between Security Alliance and the Ethereum Foundation to combat phishing scams and wallet drainers that target Ethereum users.
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