MEV

Crypto & Blockchain

Miner/Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) is the profit validators or sophisticated bots can extract from transaction ordering — reordering, inserting, or censoring transactions for profit. Common MEV: sandwich attacks (buy before a victim's swap, sell after), arbitrage (cross-DEX or cross-chain), liquidations. MEV extracts hundreds of millions annually from Ethereum users, primarily through automated bots. MEV solutions: Flashbots (transaction bundling), MEV-Boost (validator infrastructure), MEV-resistant designs (CowSwap), private mempools. MEV is a tax on naive users — protect yourself with MEV-resistant DEXs and tight slippage settings. The MEV ecosystem is sophisticated and continuously evolving.