Episode 168: Flashbots with Phil Daian and Stephane Gosselin

In this week’s episode, Anna (https://twitter.com/annarrose) and James Prestwich (https://twitter.com/_Prestwich) chat with Phil Daian (https://twitter.com/phildaian) and Stephane Gosselin (https://twitter.com/thegostep) from the Flashbots (https://github.com/flashbots/) project. Flashbots is a research and development organization formed to mitigate the negative externalities and existential risks posed by miner-extractable value (MEV) to smart-contract blockchains
They talk about the Flashbots organization and mission as well as the evolving opportunities and dangers lurking in the mempool.
Miner extractable value (MEV) (https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.05234) is a measure devised to study consensus security by modeling the profit a miner (or validator, sequencer, or other privileged protocol actor) can make through their ability to arbitrarily include, exclude, or re-order transactions from the blocks they produce.
Here are some links to previous episodes, the project & MEV:
* Discussing Plasma and Storage Rent with Karl Floersch and Phil Daian (https://www.zeroknowledge.fm/17)
* Storage rent with Phil Daian (https://www.zeroknowledge.fm/25)
* Monsters in the Mempool with Dan Robinson from Paradigm (https://www.zeroknowledge.fm/153) on Zero Knowledge Podcast
* Flash Boys 2.0: Frontrunning, Transaction Reordering, and Consensus Instability in Decentralized Exchanges (https://pdaian.com/flashboys2.pdf)
* Flashbots: Frontrunning the MEV crisis (https://medium.com/flashbots/frontrunning-the-mev-crisis-40629a613752) on the Flashbots blog
* Flashbots post on Ethresear.ch (https://ethresear.ch/t/flashbots-frontrunning-the-mev-crisis/8251)
* Flashbots (https://github.com/flashbots/pm#flashbots)
* Flashbots Alpha (https://github.com/flashbots/pm#flashbots-alpha)
* MEV research roadmap (https://github.com/flashbots/mev-research/blob/main/research_roadmap.md)
* Flashbots MEV Fellowship - collective research process (https://github.com/flashbots/mev-research#mev-research)
* MEV Roast Calendar (https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/[email protected])
In case you missed the announcement - zkSessions: DeFi+Privacy (https://hopin.com/events/zksessions-defi-and-privacy) has been postponed until Feb 22. Grab your free spot here -> https://hopin.com/events/zksessions-defi-and-privacy
Thank you to this week’s sponsor Optimism PBC (https://optimism.io/).
Optimism PBC is a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) building the Optimistic Ethereum Network and the Optimistic Virtual Machine to keep Ethereum half-full.
They are calling all curious hackers and seasoned engineers to Come work on the cutting edge of the most interesting problems to push the limits of blockchains, VMs and compilers. No blockchain experience required!
You'll work alongside global teams that are defining completely novel businesses and games that need our software to scale. If you're a developer who loves to see your code getting used by innovators around the world, then Optimism is your gateway to paradise.
Please reach out to [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) if you're interested in becoming part of this compassionate, hard-working team! People of all backgrounds are encouraged to apply.
*If you like what we do: *
Follow us on Twitter - @zeroknowledgefm (https://twitter.com/zeroknowledgefm)
Join us on Telegram (https://t.me/joinchat/B_81tQ57-ThZg8yOSx5gjA)
Catch us on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYWsYz5cKw4wZ9Mpe4kuM_g)
Read up on the r/ZKPodcast subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/zkpodcast)
Give us feedback! -https://forms.gle/iKMSrVtcAn6BByH6A
Support our Gitcoin Grant (https://gitcoin.co/grants/329/zero-knowledge-podcast-2)
Support us on the ZKPatreon (https://www.patreon.com/zeroknowledge)
Donate through coinbase.commerce (https://commerce.coinbase.com/checkout/f1e56274-c92b-4a99-802f-50727d651b38)
*Or directly here: *
ETH: 0xC0FFEE1B5083230a5154F55f253B6b6ae8F29B1a
BTC: 1233mRsCJ9XK6XmCGozaZ49exxvzXLt3PA
ZEC: t1R2bujRF3Hzte9ALHpMJvY8t5kb9ut9SpQ

In this week’s episode, Anna and James Prestwich chat with Phil Daian and Stephane Gosselin from the Flashbots project. Flashbots is a research and development organization formed to mitigate the negative externalities and existential risks posed by miner-extractable value (MEV) to smart-contract blockchains

They talk about the Flashbots organization and mission as well as the evolving opportunities and dangers lurking in the mempool.

Miner extractable value (MEV) is a measure devised to study consensus security by modeling the profit a miner (or validator, sequencer, or other privileged protocol actor) can make through their ability to arbitrarily include, exclude, or re-order transactions from the blocks they produce.

Here are some links to previous episodes, the project & MEV:

Discussing Plasma and Storage Rent with Karl Floersch and Phil Daian
Storage rent with Phil Daian
Monsters in the Mempool with Dan Robinson from Paradigm on Zero Knowledge Podcast
Flash Boys 2.0: Frontrunning, Transaction Reordering, and Consensus Instability in Decentralized Exchanges
Flashbots: Frontrunning the MEV crisis on the Flashbots blog
Flashbots post on Ethresear.ch
Flashbots
Flashbots Alpha
MEV research roadmap
Flashbots MEV Fellowship - collective research process
MEV Roast Calendar

In case you missed the announcement - zkSessions: DeFi+Privacy has been postponed until Feb 22. Grab your free spot here -> https://hopin.com/events/zksessions-defi-and-privacy

Thank you to this week’s sponsor Optimism PBC.

Optimism PBC is a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) building the Optimistic Ethereum Network and the Optimistic Virtual Machine to keep Ethereum half-full.

They are calling all curious hackers and seasoned engineers to Come work on the cutting edge of the most interesting problems to push the limits of blockchains, VMs and compilers. No blockchain experience required!

You'll work alongside global teams that are defining completely novel businesses and games that need our software to scale. If you're a developer who loves to see your code getting used by innovators around the world, then Optimism is your gateway to paradise.

Please reach out to [email protected] if you're interested in becoming part of this compassionate, hard-working team! People of all backgrounds are encouraged to apply.

*If you like what we do: *

Follow us on Twitter - @zeroknowledgefm

Join us on Telegram

Catch us on Youtube

Read up on the r/ZKPodcast subreddit

Give us feedback! -https://forms.gle/iKMSrVtcAn6BByH6A

Support our Gitcoin Grant

Support us on the ZKPatreon

Donate through coinbase.commerce

*Or directly here: *

ETH: 0xC0FFEE1B5083230a5154F55f253B6b6ae8F29B1a

BTC: 1233mRsCJ9XK6XmCGozaZ49exxvzXLt3PA

ZEC: t1R2bujRF3Hzte9ALHpMJvY8t5kb9ut9SpQ