Analysts from the company Flashbots stated that MEV bots have become the main obstacle to scaling blockchains. MEV bots (Maximum Extractable Value) are automated programs that seek profit in trading on the network, especially on decentralized exchanges. Experts from Flashbots discovered that these bots regularly consume more than 50% of gas in leading blockchains, while paying less than 10% of the total commission fees. This increases the base cost of transactions for regular users. Bots often send hundreds of transactions for a single low-margin arbitrage. And although this is beneficial for the bots, it is detrimental to the network, overloads nodes and users, as stated in the report. The problem is especially relevant for networks like Base, where two bots account for over 80% of spam transactions. From November 2024 to February 2025, Base increased its throughput capacity by 11 million gas/s, and almost all of it was consumed by spam bots, Flashbots reported. In the Solana blockchain, MEV bots currently occupy about 40% of the network space. To address the issue related to MEV bots, the company Flashbots proposed to replace trades based on gas with a two-step process. This will help free up a larger portion of overloaded capacities, reduce tariffs, and make room for new applications.
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