MEV, the extra profit miners or bots can extract by reordering transactions, has long been controversial. But Flashbots’ latest deep dive shows that the problem has escalated from an ethical debate to a measurable drag on blockchain performance.

Analyzing data from OP-Stack rollups like Base and Optimism mainnet, alongside findings from Solana, the Flashbots survey showed how high-frequency arbitrage bots flood networks with countless speculative transactions in search of quick profits.