66 - Crypto’s Existential Threat | MEV Panel: Phil Daian, Georgios Konstanopolus, Charlie Noyes
Bankless
Bankless
4.7 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 24 May 2021
⏱️ 111 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Phil Daian is a researcher and software engineer and is leading the charge into mapping MEV with the Flashbots Project. Georgios Konstantopoulos and Charlie Noyes are both partners at Paradigm.
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Bankless Podcast #66: MEV Panel
Guests: Charlie Noyes, Phil Daian, & Georgios Konstantopolous
In this State of the Nation, we bring on big-brain experts behind projects like Paradigm and Flashbots to explain the complex but critical topic of MEV - commonly known as Miner Extractable Value, but as discussed in this episode, Maximum Extractable Value is a more appropriate descriptor. MEV is arguably the single most important unsolved problem in the crypto space.
In the context of incentives and network security, MEV generally refers to the ability of miners & validators to take advantage of their position as securers of the network. Blocks are verified by single entities, and these block producers have tremendous power when they are the ones adding a particular block to the blockchain. We refer to this instance as ‘God-Mode,’ in which a node has the power to assemble & order transactions at will. The threat here is the potential gaps between what is best for the network and what is best for the node.
As an internal and unbounded threat to blockchains, solving the problems that MEV presents is critical to maintaining proper consensus and ensuring decentralization and permissionless access. We take a deep dive into potential solutions, and the impact of EIP-1559 and Proof-of-Stake on MEV. Dive in to learn why despite the challenges ahead, Charlie says:
“In the absence of certainty, I’m willing to take the optimistic perspective.”
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Resources:
Phil on Twitter
https://twitter.com/phildaian?s=20
Georgios on Twitter
https://twitter.com/gakonst?s=20
Charlie on Twitter
https://twitter.com/_charlienoyes?s=20
Exploring Ethereum’s Dark Forest with Dan Robinson
https://youtu.be/MtpRDqrCfbc
Investing in DeFi Paradigms with Charlie Noyes
https://youtu.be/dQOhbb5HmLA
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Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.
Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here:
https://newsletter.banklesshq.com/p/bankless-disclosures
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Bankless for weeks for the Frontier Internet Money and Internet Finance. |
| 0:19.2 | This is how to get started, how to get better, and how to frontrun the opportunity. |
| 0:23.8 | I'm Ryan Sean Adams, I'm here with David Hoffman, and we're here to help you become |
| 0:28.7 | more Bankless. |
| 0:30.3 | David, this was one of those mind-blowing episodes on Bankless. |
| 0:35.5 | I think a canonical episode, who did we have on? |
| 0:39.3 | What did we talk about today? |
| 0:40.8 | Yeah, a panel of three MEV experts. |
| 0:44.6 | We had Phil Diane, Charlie Noise, and Georgios Constantinopolis, who are really tackling, |
| 0:51.2 | I think, probably the biggest problem in crypto head-on. |
| 0:55.7 | The problem of MEV or maximally extractable value, also known as minor extractable value, |
| 1:02.0 | is the one single existential problem that could end this whole entire crypto experiment. |
| 1:07.7 | It could just really either just completely just knee-cap why we find crypto-so-valuable |
| 1:13.5 | or also make the whole thing just not work at all. |
| 1:17.2 | Those are some pretty dire characterizations of what the MEV problem is, and that's what |
| 1:23.4 | these MEV experts really illustrate this problem as, and really the TLDR of what MEV is, is |
| 1:29.9 | that Bitcoin, Ethereum, these are leaderless systems, but the way that they are leaderless |
| 1:34.6 | systems is that they just allow people to take turns being the one single leader, and |
| 1:39.3 | that leader is the person that proposes the block, right? |
| 1:42.4 | At some point, while there's a bajillion Bitcoin miners in Ethereum, there's a bajillion |
| 1:48.1 | staking validators, only one person at a time proposes a block. |
| 1:52.8 | So at that moment in time, that one person is, or entity is separate from the rest of |
... |
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