The term MEV no longer accurately describes the current situation, and the author proposes renaming it "Transaction Ordered Value (TOV)." Most ordering behavior is a normal market manifestation of block space pricing, and through technological innovations in chains like Solana, malicious MEVs have been significantly reduced. Current blockchain systems are comparable to traditional finance in terms of execution quality. We can examine the history of blockchain engineering from the perspective of antifragility or hormesis. Both terms describe a function where early constraints or setbacks actually improve the long-term performance of the system. This phenomenon succinctly summarizes the evolution of blockchain over 15 years: from a system designed by Satoshi Nakamoto that took 10 minutes to settle transactions, to fast, smart contract-enabled blockchains like Solana. Today, these systems can confidently claim to rival SWIFT, Nasdaq, ACH, and other systems that underpin modern financial life. As an engineer, my focus is on enabling systems like Solana to surpass traditional competitors while preserving the unique attributes of blockchain as a technology. The current excellence of blockchain networks is the result of years of effort to master its permissionless nature. This uniqueness brings concrete advantages such as deep liquidity, efficiency, and fast settlement. Despite its continued success, the evolution of blockchain is easily overlooked in some aspects. For example, at a recent digital asset summit in New York, some advocates of permissioned blockchains (consortium blockchains) made comments. In short, some speakers argued that decentralized blockchain networks like Ethereum and Solana are unsuitable for "traditional financial instruments" due to the widespread presence of malicious MEVs. From my perspective, which deals with these issues daily, this criticism seems outdated and out of touch—it's tantamount to arguing in 2026 that cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology will only be used by the black market and criminals. In fact, I believe it's time to raise awareness: "MEV" as a term is functionally ineffective. MEV is largely a solved problem, and engineers should focus on improving the utility of TOV (Transaction Ordering Value). The Evolution and Limitations of MEV To understand why the term "MEV" is outdated, it's worth revisiting its origins. MEV was initially defined in the Proof-of-Work (PoW) era as "Miner Extractable Value," referring to a miner's ability to reorder, include, or exclude transactions within a block for profit. As networks evolved to non-mining models, the abbreviation was redefined as "Maximal Extractable Value"—one of many examples of the term itself failing to keep pace with underlying technological advancements. Over time, "MEV" has become a broad term, often used imprecisely to describe everything from benign arbitrage to malicious attacks like sandwich attacks. This leads to a misclassification: not all transaction ordering is harmful; most is crucial for the operation of an efficient market. The value generated by transaction ordering should more accurately be understood as Transaction Order Value (TOV)—the economic outcome of allocating scarce block space in a competitive system. This redefinition is critical. Block space is a finite resource, and like any scarce commodity, it must be allocated through a pricing mechanism. Base fees, priority fees, and optional tips are not distortions, but rather the expected performance of the system, ensuring that time-sensitive transactions are processed quickly while preventing spam and compensating validators. From this perspective, many behaviors labeled "MEV" are simply the market's own clearing process. The Transparency and Marketization of Transaction Ordering The key point is that this dynamic is not unique to cryptocurrencies. Traditional financial markets are rife with similar practices: companies pay for faster data feeds, custodial services, and lower-latency execution to gain an advantage. The difference is that in permissionless systems, these dynamics are transparent and observable in real time, rather than hidden behind private infrastructure. This is not to say that unfavorable transaction ordering doesn't exist. Strategies like front-running, back-running, or sandwich attacks do incur costs for users. However, with the rapid maturation of mitigation technologies, their prevalence and impact are often exaggerated. Today, users can set slippage tolerances, route transactions through private paths, or benefit from bulk auctions and cryptographic ordering schemes, all of which significantly reduce the space for exploitation. Defense Mechanisms and Innovations on Solana Especially on Solana, an additional layer of defense has emerged at the market layer. The absence of a public mempool, more efficient applications (such as proprietary AMMs), transparent dashboards from teams like Jito and Ghost Logs, coupled with proactive anti-spam measures and evolving validator specifications, have significantly reduced the behaviors that once dominated the MEV discussion. Meanwhile, innovations such as private transaction routing, trusted execution environments (such as Jito's block assembly market), and multiple concurrent proposers ensure that transactions remain confidential before execution, making predatory strategies more difficult to implement. As a result, the landscape is vastly different now than it was a few years ago. Malicious extractions now account for only a small fraction of block space activity, while the majority of transaction ranking value reflects legitimate competition for inclusion rights and speed. Equally important, user protections on leading networks are increasingly similar to those in traditional finance, offering substantial guarantees in terms of execution quality and settlement reliability, while still retaining the decentralized and permissionless characteristics unique to blockchains. In other words, problems once considered fatal flaws are now better understood as a controllable and, in many cases, beneficial characteristic of open financial systems. Looking to the future: From MEV to TOV Traditional MEV is no longer an effective perspective for evaluating blockchain systems. The underlying challenges haven't disappeared, but they have been broken down, measured, and significantly mitigated through a combination of market design and technological innovation. What remains is Transaction Order Value (TOV): a neutral, economically based concept that reflects how scarce block space is allocated in a competitive environment. Like many challenges in blockchain history, MEV initially seemed like an inevitable consequence of on-chain markets. However, thanks to the efforts of many excellent teams in the industry, malicious behavior is increasingly being mitigated and replaced by transparent, efficient market-layer processes. Therefore, to those of you working on permissioned blockchain systems: I believe you will find it a relief that you now have to find a new angle or limitation to point out to users. And then, we will solve that problem.
Anais
Weatherly