Searcher Competition in Block Building

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Mamageishvili, Akaki, Schlegel, Christoph, Sudakov, Benny, Sui, Danning
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Mamageishvili, Akaki
Schlegel, Christoph
Sudakov, Benny
Sui, Danning
author_facet Mamageishvili, Akaki
Schlegel, Christoph
Sudakov, Benny
Sui, Danning
contents We study the amount of maximal extractable value (MEV) captured by validators, as a function of searcher competition, in blockchains with competitive block building markets such as Ethereum. We argue that the core is a suitable solution concept in this context that makes robust predictions that are independent of implementation details or specific mechanisms chosen. We characterize how much value validators extract in the core and quantify the surplus share of validators as a function of searcher competition. Searchers can obtain at most the marginal value increase of the winning block relative to the best block that can be built without their bundles. Dually this gives a lower bound on the value extracted by the validator. If arbitrages are easy to find and many searchers find similar bundles, the validator gets paid all value almost surely, while searchers can capture most value if there is little searcher competition per arbitrage. For the case of passive block-proposers we study, moreover, mechanisms that implement core allocations in dominant strategies and find that for submodular value, there is a unique dominant-strategy incentive compatible core-selecting mechanism that gives each searcher exactly their marginal value contribution to the winning block. We validate our theoretical prediction empirically with aggregate bundle data and find a significant positive relation between the number of submitted backruns for the same opportunity and the median value captured by the proposer from the opportunity.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_07474
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Searcher Competition in Block Building
Mamageishvili, Akaki
Schlegel, Christoph
Sudakov, Benny
Sui, Danning
Computer Science and Game Theory
We study the amount of maximal extractable value (MEV) captured by validators, as a function of searcher competition, in blockchains with competitive block building markets such as Ethereum. We argue that the core is a suitable solution concept in this context that makes robust predictions that are independent of implementation details or specific mechanisms chosen. We characterize how much value validators extract in the core and quantify the surplus share of validators as a function of searcher competition. Searchers can obtain at most the marginal value increase of the winning block relative to the best block that can be built without their bundles. Dually this gives a lower bound on the value extracted by the validator. If arbitrages are easy to find and many searchers find similar bundles, the validator gets paid all value almost surely, while searchers can capture most value if there is little searcher competition per arbitrage. For the case of passive block-proposers we study, moreover, mechanisms that implement core allocations in dominant strategies and find that for submodular value, there is a unique dominant-strategy incentive compatible core-selecting mechanism that gives each searcher exactly their marginal value contribution to the winning block. We validate our theoretical prediction empirically with aggregate bundle data and find a significant positive relation between the number of submitted backruns for the same opportunity and the median value captured by the proposer from the opportunity.
title Searcher Competition in Block Building
topic Computer Science and Game Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.07474