Alex Obadia, a co-founder of the Ethereum infrastructure service Flashbots formed to battle negative consequences of MEV extraction techniques on Ethereum, is departing the Paradigm-backed company. He’s also warning of serious challenges ahead.
“The system we committed to protect is still vulnerable to centralization from phenomena such as cross-domain MEV and exclusive orderflow,” he wrote in a letter posted to Twitter. “To top it off, as we’ve grown into an incumbent, we now also need to protect the system against ourselves, to avoid becoming the very Moloch we’re fighting against.”
Obadia said he was leaving the company for multiple reasons, “some more personal than others.”
Flashbots North Star
“What it boils down to is that I feel my vision and values will be better served somewhere else,” he added. “This is normal, and happens in every growing organization.”
Flashbots’ service proposes blocks for validators running the Ethereum blockchain, and the company earlier this year was looking to raise funds at a billion-dollar valuation. Its website says it was born out of the “the existential crisis of MEV.”
Maximal Extractable Value, which MEV refers to, is a technique that involves manipulating transaction sequencing to capitalize on certain types of trades.
“We founded Flashbots to confront a looming crisis we saw on the horizon, standing up for a technology we believe in, and protecting values dear to us,” Obadia said. “In an industry often caught in the short term, the decision to invest in fundamental research may seem counterintuitive, but this is precisely our edge.”
© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
Source: https://www.theblock.co/post/235717/flashbots-co-founder-warns-of-serious-challenges-beyond-mev-bots-in-departure-letter?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss