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Chapter 3 · § 3.4 · Recipe

MEV-Resistant Ordering

First-come-first-served, weighted by validator-attested timestamps.

By · Originally published April 2026 · Next review October 2026 · ~4 min

Problem

The threshold-encryption layer hides transaction content from the leader. Given that constraint, by what rule does the leader actually order transactions, and how is that rule policed?

Solution

First-come-first-served, weighted by validator-attested timestamps.

First-come-first-served ordering, weighted by a validator-attested timestamp at mempool entry. The leader proposes an ordering consistent with the timestamps. Non-conforming proposals are rejected by the rest of the validator set. There is no information advantage from being the leader because the leader cannot inspect transaction content before commitment.

Discussion

This is the simplest possible fair-ordering rule and the one easiest to specify in a hostile environment. More sophisticated ordering rules — Aequitas-style fairness, batch auctions, frequent batch auctions — are tracked as future research items and may be adopted if specific use cases justify the additional complexity.

ℹ Note Simple is the operative word. Fair ordering is hard to do well and very easy to do poorly. The cookbook prefers the simple rule with proven properties to the sophisticated rule whose security argument is still being written.

See Also

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