Industry News5 min read
MEV Explained: What Every DeFi Trader Should Know
Learn about Maximum Extractable Value, how it affects your trades, and strategies to protect yourself.
What Is MEV?
Maximum Extractable Value (MEV) refers to the profit that block producers and searchers can extract by reordering, including, or excluding transactions within a block. It is a fundamental feature of blockchain architecture that affects every DeFi user.
How MEV Affects You
- Sandwich attacks: A bot places trades before and after yours, profiting from the price impact
- Front-running: Bots copy your transaction with higher gas to execute first
- Back-running: Bots execute immediately after your trade to capture arbitrage
MEV by the Numbers
Billions of dollars have been extracted through MEV on Ethereum alone. Every DeFi trade is potentially subject to MEV extraction.
Protection Strategies
- Use private mempools: Flashbots Protect, MEV Blocker hide your transactions
- Set tight slippage: Reduces the profit available to sandwich attackers
- Use intent-based systems: Relay's solver network provides inherent MEV protection
- Small transactions: MEV is less profitable on small trades
Alkizen's MEV Protection
By routing through Relay's solver network, Alkizen provides natural MEV protection — solvers compete to give you the best execution without exposing your trade to the public mempool.