Make MEV, Not (Latency) War
Bundle together with fellow (re)searchers, block builders, and validators for an evening of rethinking on-chain physics, with cocktail and games.
This event is curated by Flashbots, brought to you by Blocknative, with special thanks to BloXroute Labs, DBA, Gauntlet, Rook, Figment Capital & Fenbushi Capital.
Agenda
20:00 Latency Wars | by Chris Meisl @Blocknative
Tackling latency requires understanding the critical role of infrastructure. The faster you receive data, the faster you can act... and the better your edge. From the early days of Wall Street to other historical examples, we can learn from the past.
20:20 Latency Incentives & Transaction Ordering | by Davide Crapis @EF
There is a justified attention on designing the market for blockspace in a way that it does not replicate traditional financial markets distortions. In particular, the now well-known latency arms race in which hundred millions of dollars have already been spent on network infrastructure to gain smaller and smaller advantages.
Will the blockspace market suffer from a similar trap? One where lots of wealth accrues to infrastructure & operations that have low/zero real utility, and that concentrates the market around a few big players that have capital & technology to compete in the arms race?
The answer is, it depends. On the market design and in particular on transaction ordering mechanisms. We provide two example designs, one time-based like traditional finance and the other bid-based like Ethereum L1. We show that the resulting incentives to invest in latency advantage are very different. We also present related open problems and a plug to what we're currently working on at the Robust Incentives Group at EF.
20:40 Latency Considerations for Traders Post Merge | by Eyal Markovich @bloXroute
To stay competitive post-merge with the introduction of MEV-Boost and block building, traders need to pay attention to differnt areas in trading lifecycle. We will look at block building in ETH 2.0 and how does it affects trading. Discuss if every ms still count and what traders should pay attention to in order to win?
21:00 Roast: the Tyranny of Location | by Michael Jordan @DBA (Moderator), Robert Miller @Flashbots, Tarun Chitra @Gauntlet, and more…
Suggested reading: MJ’s Arc Board on Latency Roast