MEV – good or bad for blockchain ecosystems and why

The Ethereum blockchain is written by consensus, but the content of each block is chosen by just one miner. Miners can profit from users by front-running, back-running, sandwiching and generally exploiting transactions in their block however they choose. The Flash Boys 2.0 paper, written by researchers at Cornell Tech, coined the term MEV to describe such exploits.” Frontrunners scan the Mempool in order find transactions attempting to score arbitrage on Ethereum. Then, they pay miners a little bit more for the same transaction to pocket the arbitrage themselves. The talk describes this and tries to go in depth on some of the mechanics