A total of 27 Ethereum projects have teamed up to launch MEV Blocker, a solution that aims to tackle and minimize the amount of value extracted from their users, also known as Maximally Extractable Value (MEV), which is Ethereum’s invisible tax. MEV is a tax imposed on decentralized finance (DeFi) users on transactions. MEV bots can hijack transactions midway, such as Ether (ETH) trades, nonfungible token (NFT) purchases, and ENS registrations, and inflate prices for the users. MEV Blocker was developed by CoW Swap, Agnostic Relay, and Beaver Build as a free and censorship-resistant tool to counter this “$1.3 billion dollar problem” persistent across the Ethereum ecosystem. Balancer, Gnosis DAO, Shapeshift, and StakeDAO, among others, are the 27 launch partners who joined the initiative.
MEV Blocker and its Benefits
MEV Blocker can be added as a custom RPC endpoint to a crypto wallet, which, in turn, can protect users from frontrunning and sandwiching when using any Ethereum DApp. According to the official announcement, MEV Blocker sends at least 90% of the profits from winning bids back to users and 10% to validators as a reward, thus giving “power back to Ethereum users.” Explaining the intention behind launching MEV Blocker, Martin Köppelmann, CEO of Gnosis, stated that users can profit from the backrunning opportunities they create. Today, all of that money is taken by the searcher, but why shouldn’t it be split with the people who create the value?
Impact of MEV Blocker and Ethereum’s Excitement
MEV Blocker is a promising initiative that can benefit the Ethereum community, especially those who are concerned about the MEV taxation imposed on their transactions. Meanwhile, the excitement around the upcoming Shanghai and Capella upgrades has resulted in a bull sprint for ETH. On April 5, Ether breached $1,900 for the first time in over seven months. It is essential to note that the price of ETH dropped sharply following the execution of the Merge on September 15, 2022.
Conclusion
The launch of MEV Blocker is a positive development in the Ethereum ecosystem. MEV Blocker can potentially benefit the users by protecting them from the invisible MEV tax and providing them with a chance to profit from the backrunning opportunities they create. With 27 Ethereum projects joining hands to launch MEV Blocker, the initiative has a significant chance to succeed.