2025/09/19 by Vabuk Pahari, Andrea Canidio, Pahari, Vabuk +1 · 1 citation
Business, Management and Accounting · #Corporate Finance and Governance #Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) #Distributed #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Economics and business #General Economics (econ.GN) #Parallel #Private Equity and Venture Capital #and Cluster Computing (cs.DC)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2509.16052
openalex publication_date 2025/09/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We analyze 15,097 blocks proposed for inclusion in Ethereum's blockchain over an eight-minute window on December 3, 2024, during which 38 blocks were added to the chain. We classify transactions as exclusive -- appearing only in blocks from a single builder -- or private -- absent from the public mempool but included in blocks from multiple builders. We find that, depending on the methodology, exclusive transactions account for between 77.2% and 84% of the total fees paid by transactions in winning blocks. Moreover, we show that exclusivity cannot be fully attributed to persistent relationships between senders and builders: only between 7% and 8.4% of all on-chain exclusive transaction value originates from senders who route exclusively to one builder. Finally, we observe that transaction exclusivity is dynamic. Some transactions are exclusive at the start of a bidding cycle but later appear in blocks from multiple builders. Other transactions remain exclusive to a losing builder for two or three cycles before appearing in the public mempool. These transactions are therefore delayed and then exposed to potential attacks.