MEV stands for Maximal Extractable Value. In proof-of-stake protocols such as Ethereum, pending transactions are held in the network’s publicly visible waiting area called the "mempool," where they will sit until a validator selects them, orders them, and creates a block. That block is then validated by nodes and added to the official chain.

While pending transactions sit in a mempool, validators have found ways to profit from them by including, excluding, or reordering transactions in a block.

An MEV relay is a trusted mediator between block producers and block builders. In essence, it’s a separate piece of open source software run by validators, which queries and outsources block-building to a network of builders.

This open-source middleware gives access to a competitive block-building market. The consensus layer client of a validator proposes the most profitable block received from the MEV relayer to the Ethereum network for attestation and block inclusion.

Relayers increase block rewards while also preventing arbitrage and bad actors from extracting and manipulating transactions, separating the role of proposers from block builders.

Allnodes supports MEV relayers developed to support the sustainable and democratized distribution of block rewards.

Running a relayer will increase your block rewards. MEV Boost can increase your rewards 3-4x over vanilla blocks.

Allnodes supports the following:

In order to evaluate which relayer to choose we recommend looking at the relayer diversity and block values on sites like:

It’s important to note that some services like BloXroute have different types of relayers such as Max Profit, Ethical, and Regulated which order blocks based on different rules.

No, all MEV-related rewards go to the end user.

After you spin up an Ethereum node or RocketPool minipool, you can choose directly in the interface using the "MEV-Boost" option.