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Main Authors: Landis, Daji, Schwartzbach, Nikolaj I.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.13624
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author Landis, Daji
Schwartzbach, Nikolaj I.
author_facet Landis, Daji
Schwartzbach, Nikolaj I.
contents We propose a new, more potent attack on decentralized exchanges. This attack leverages absolute commitments, which are commitments that can condition on the strategies made by other agents. This attack allows an adversary to charge monopoly prices by committing to undercut those other miners that refuse to charge an even higher fee. This allows the miner to extract the maximum possible price from the user, potentially through side channels that evade the inefficiencies and fees usually incurred. This is considerably more efficient than the prevailing strategy of `sandwich attacks', wherein the adversary induces and profits from fluctuations in the market price to the detriment of users. The attack we propose can, in principle, be realized by the irrevocable and self-executing nature of smart contracts, which are readily available on many major blockchains. Thus, the attack could potentially be used against a decentralized exchange and could drastically reduce the utility of the affected exchange.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_13624
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Optimal MEV Extraction Using Absolute Commitments
Landis, Daji
Schwartzbach, Nikolaj I.
Computer Science and Game Theory
We propose a new, more potent attack on decentralized exchanges. This attack leverages absolute commitments, which are commitments that can condition on the strategies made by other agents. This attack allows an adversary to charge monopoly prices by committing to undercut those other miners that refuse to charge an even higher fee. This allows the miner to extract the maximum possible price from the user, potentially through side channels that evade the inefficiencies and fees usually incurred. This is considerably more efficient than the prevailing strategy of `sandwich attacks', wherein the adversary induces and profits from fluctuations in the market price to the detriment of users. The attack we propose can, in principle, be realized by the irrevocable and self-executing nature of smart contracts, which are readily available on many major blockchains. Thus, the attack could potentially be used against a decentralized exchange and could drastically reduce the utility of the affected exchange.
title Optimal MEV Extraction Using Absolute Commitments
topic Computer Science and Game Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.13624