Separation is Good: A Faster Order-Fairness Byzantine Consensus

Ke Mu

Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium 2024 · Day 2 · Blockchain Security

This article delves into SpeedyFair, a novel high-performance Byzantine Fault-Tolerant (BFT) consensus protocol designed to address the pervasive problem of adversarial transaction order manipulation in decentralized finance (DeFi). Presented by Ke Mu at the NDSS Symposium, SpeedyFair tackles the critical vulnerability known as **Miner Extractable Value (MEV)** or **Blockchain Extractable Value (BEV)**, where malicious actors, such as miners or block leaders, exploit their control over transaction ordering to extract significant profits from ordinary users through tactics like front-running and sandwich attacks. Estimates suggest this phenomenon has cost users hundreds of millions of dollars on networks like Ethereum.