# Who Wins Ethereum Block Building Auctions and Why?

Source: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2407.13931
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Who-Wins-Ethereum-Block-Building-Auctions-and-Why?index=0x669f5a6f90c76b256eb8a1106e78327bba18ea6f7271b8437a82f386987a597835fa654e
Submitted by 183aaros.eth on 2024-07-23 UTC, 1 upvote, 0 comments

## Summary

The paper argues that Ethereum's block builder market is concentrated because builders need differentiated order flow to earn profits, yet they only receive such flow once they already hold significant market share. The authors note that MEV-Boost auctions produce about 90% of Ethereum blocks and that only three builders produced 80% of them between October 2023 and March 2024. Based on a six-month empirical analysis of MEV-Boost auctions, they report that market share correlates positively with order flow diversity, while profitability correlates with access to order flow from Exclusive Providers, such as integrated searchers and external providers with exclusivity deals.

## Article

Who Wins Ethereum Block Building Auctions and Why?

Authors: Burak Öz, Danning Sui, Thomas Thiery, Florian Matthes

The MEV-Boost block auction contributes approximately 90% of all Ethereum blocks. Between October 2023 and March 2024, only three builders produced 80% of them, highlighting the concentration of power within the block builder market. To foster competition and preserve Ethereum's decentralized ethos and censorship-resistance properties, understanding the dominant players' competitive edges is essential.

In this paper, we identify features that play a significant role in builders' ability to win blocks and earn profits by conducting a comprehensive empirical analysis of MEV-Boost auctions over a six-month period. We reveal that block market share positively correlates with order flow diversity, while profitability correlates with access to order flow from Exclusive Providers, such as integrated searchers and external providers with exclusivity deals. Additionally, we show a positive correlation between market share and profit margin among the top ten builders, with features such as exclusive signal, non-atomic arbitrages, and Telegram bot flow strongly correlating with both metrics. This highlights a "chicken-and-egg" problem where builders need differentiated order flow to profit, but only receive such flow if they have a significant market share. Overall, this work provides an in-depth analysis of the key features driving the builder market towards centralization and offers valuable insights for designing further iterations of Ethereum block auctions, preserving Ethereum's censorship resistance properties.