MEV: The First Five Years

Five years ago, I wrote a blog post called <a href="https://blog.keep.network/miners-arent-your-friends-cde9b6e0e9ac" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Miners Aren’t Your Friends</a>, introducing MEV to Ethereum dialogue. Back then, we didn’t call it MEV. Phil Daian & his co-publishers named “Miner Extractable Value” a year and a bit later in their seminal paper: <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.05234" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Flash Boys 2.0</a>. Back then we planned a followup post with python snippets for generating frontrunning transactions on EtherDelta and other mainnet dexes. I got pretty involved in building HTLCs and other cross-chain instruments, and the follow-up post got delayed and then delayed and then back-burnered permanently. Sitting down to write about MEV today, five years later, is a little surreal. It feels exactly the same as last time. Once again, we’re at the start of a long bear market, in the wreckage of another speculative frenzy. The familiar hangover is creeping back in. And just like last time, I’m filled with conviction that next time will be different. By next time we’ll have learned from our mistakes and next time we’ll build something better. Probably. <h1>Author’s notes:</h1> This is not an MEV primer. Many of those have been written, and most are better than I could produce. I assume you’re familiar with MEV. If you’re not familiar, this is a good time to go <a href="https://www.flashbots.net/#ec162c79202f4983a80a29b221970ec1" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">read</a> a <a href="https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/mev/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">few</a> blog <a href="https://www.alchemy.com/overviews/what-is-mev" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">posts</a> and then come back. This is a narrative history of MEV. It is not unbiased. It’s meandering and a little self-indulgent. I’m a supporting cast member (at best) in this story, but this is my blog so I get to tell it from my perspective. <a href="https://medium.com/@Prestwich/mev-c417d9a5eb3d">Click Here</a>