Mitigations of potential miner extractable value attacks in decentralized financial systems

Miner Extractable Value (MEV) poses a significant challenge to the integrity and fairness of blockchain ecosystems. This issue arises when block proposers exploit their authority to insert and reorder transactions before block finalization, extracting value from ordinary users. However, this can be effectively mitigated through the implementation of cryptographic primitives, specifically Multi-Party Computation (MPC) and Trusted Execution Environments (TEE). These solutions offer mitigation at a manageable cost, albeit with a nuanced shift in the trust model. For TEE, this shift entails a greater reliance on chip manufacturers, entrusting them to eschew backdoors and promptly address side-channel attacks. In the case of MPC, the trust is redistributed to trust an extra typically smaller committee of MPC nodes, with an understanding that some performance trade-offs may be necessary, but within acceptable limits. This thesis aims to explore the balance between enhanced MEV protection and the intricate dynamics of altered trust models alongside the performance trade-offs inherent in adopting these advanced cryptographic methods. Additionally, this thesis addresses potential silent system failures, such as undetected MEV attacks stemming from discrepancies between software implementations and theoretical protocols, proposing a last-resort methodology to demonstrate the existence of such failures.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical & Computer Engr

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Li, Yunqi

Contributors dc:contributor

• Miller, Andrew
• Levchenko, Kirill
• Ren, Ling
• Borisov, Nikita

• Miner Extractable Value (MEV)
• Multi-Party Computation (MPC)
• Trusted Execution Environments (TEE)

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Yunqi Li

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129500

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F129500