Innovative Approach to Combat Centralization and MEV in Ethereum

An Ethereum researcher known as malik672 has proposed a block formation mechanism aimed at combating centralization and MEV (Miner Extractable Value) issues within the second-largest cryptocurrency network.

The specialist pointed out that as of February 2025, approximately 80% of the blocks are produced by just two organizations. «This undermines the decentralized essence of Ethereum. MEV, the value derived from rearranging or censoring transactions, continues to pose a challenge as advanced players dominate the Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS) ecosystem,» he noted.

The researcher introduced the so-called Decentralized Random Block Proposal mechanism, which involves all clients participating in block formation, rather than just the validators and builders anticipated in PBS.

In his concept, client software like Geth and Nethermind utilizes a function similar to the Verifiable Delay Function (VDF) used by validators to randomly select transactions from the local mempool. Participants then simultaneously broadcast the assembled block to validators, who screen out invalid transactions and generate the hash.

The expert believes that by randomly selecting transactions, MEV manipulation at the block level would become impossible — as no one knows which transactions will be included in the set and cannot influence their order.

Additionally, this mechanism is more resilient against DDoS attacks since «spam» is evenly spread throughout the mempool, preventing individual nodes from being overwhelmed.

The researcher also noted that the proposed method is not as optimized for rollups as PBS but «prioritizes fairness and complete democratization»: «This is a trade-off between impartiality and Layer 2 accuracy. It is the best option for Ethereum, which values equality over efficiency. For those focused on scalability, PBS might be more suitable,» he remarked.

As a reminder, at the end of February, the nonprofit organization Ethereum Foundation established an independent group to safeguard the network’s values.