Orca Crypto
Security term

MEV

Value extracted by reordering, inserting or censoring transactions in a block.

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Updated 2026-08-303 min readDefinition
Definition

Value extracted by reordering, inserting or censoring transactions in a block.

Maximal extractable value is the profit a block producer can make by choosing what goes into a block and in what order. Some of it is benign arbitrage that keeps prices aligned across venues.

Some of it is not. Sandwich attacks on retail swaps are the form most people encounter, and they are a real cost.

In practice

Using a private transaction relay or an aggregator with protection removes most sandwich risk on Ethereum.

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