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Maximal Extractable Value (MEV)

Value that block producers can capture by reordering, inserting, or excluding transactions within the blocks they mint.

Cardano has no open gas-bidding fee market like account-based chains, so classic priority-gas auctions are absent. Some MEV still exists: the protocol does not enforce any transaction order within a block, and the stock node fills blocks in mempool arrival order, so back-running (adding your own transaction after one you see in the mempool) needs no modification to the node, and full reordering would require a modified block producer. What keeps MEV limited is that a transaction's inputs and outputs are fixed when it is built: a reordered transaction cannot be made to execute at a worse price, it either goes through as written or fails.

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