MEV Batch Auctions

My thesis is that Solana doesn’t need another DEX — it needs better execution infrastructure. I want to build a batch auction system that eliminates MEV for retail traders. Think CowSwap but native to Solana’s architecture. Has anyone tried this?

​

Similar Projects

Note: These are hackathon submissions — demos and prototypes, not production products. Many may no longer be active. They’re included as inspiration and to show what’s been tried before, not as a competitive landscape.

• Archer Exchange (archer-exchange, Cypherpunk, 4th Place DeFi, C4 Accelerator) — The closest match to your thesis: an MEV-resistant exchange primitive using dual flow batch auctions (DFBA), the exact mechanism proposed by Jump Crypto. Built by a team of 3, Anchor/Rust on Solana. Now in the Colosseum accelerator.
• URANI (urani, Renaissance, 1st Place DeFi & Payments, C1 Accelerator) — Intent-based swap aggregator with batch auction MEV mitigation and a solver/searcher marketplace. Positive-sum design across traders, market makers, and searchers.
• DARKLAKE (blackpool, Radar, 2nd Place DeFi, C2 Accelerator) — ZK-proof-based MEV-resistant DEX on Solana using private order matching; different technical approach (encryption vs. batching) but same goal.
• Fair Swap (fair-swap, Cypherpunk) — MEV-resistant DEX on Solana using fair batch auctions with on-chain transparency; Rust/Anchor implementation.
• Fairswap (fairswap, Radar) — Sandwich-resistant AMM using slot-based state reset: no swap executes at a price more favorable than the pool state at start of slot.
• Stormbreaker (stormbreaker, Radar) — Sandwich-resistant AMM; AMM design approach to MEV resistance rather than auction mechanism.
• Mato (mato, Breakout, Honorable Mention DeFi) — DEX with a time-weighted order book for continuous streaming execution; MEV protection through temporal smoothing rather than discrete batches.

​

Archive Insights

• “Solana MEV Report: Trends, Insights, and Challenges” (Helius, Jan 2025) — The canonical Solana MEV reference. Confirms that Solana’s streaming block production and lack of global mempool create a structurally different MEV environment than Ethereum. The DeezNode sandwich bot alone extracted 65,880 SOL (~$13.4M) in 30 days. Validates the urgency of the problem.
• “MEV Explained” (a16z Crypto, May 2025) — Taxonomy of MEV mitigations: order flow auctions, batch auctions, threshold encryption, fair sequencing. Frames batch auctions as one of the most theoretically sound approaches because uniform clearing prices structurally remove the incentive to reorder transactions.
• “Orderbook & Matching” (Drift Docs, updated Feb 2026) — Drift’s live JIT (Just-in-Time) auction is the closest existing Solana-native analog: a 5-second window where market makers can fill taker orders before they hit the AMM. Evidence that auction mechanisms are already in production on Solana.
• “Gradual Dutch Auctions” (Paradigm, April 2022) — Foundational research on auction mechanisms for on-chain price discovery. Conceptual grounding for the uniform-price auction primitives that underpin both DFBA and CoW’s batch model.

​

Current Landscape

​

Angle 1: Batch Auction MEV Elimination (the CoW Swap analog)

• Key players: CoW Protocol (EVM-only, top-3 DEX aggregator in 2025, ~$10B/month volume); Archer Exchange (C4, Solana-native DFBA prototype); Ellipsis Labs/Plasma (Solana, application-layer sandwich-resistant AMM, $20M Series A from Paradigm)
• Recent developments: Jump Crypto published the DFBA paper in August 2025 — two independent Maker/Taker auctions every 100ms with a single clearing price. Ellipsis Labs raised $20M from Paradigm and shipped Plasma (audited, deployed on Solana mainnet). Archer Exchange entered C4 in 2025 building directly on the DFBA paper.
• Maturity: Growing — active research, first funded companies emerging, but no production batch auction execution layer on Solana exists yet

​

Angle 2: Intent / Solver Architecture as MEV Abstraction

• Key players: URANI (C1, intent aggregator); Jupiter (dominant aggregator, no explicit MEV protection); Pyth Express Relay (live on mainnet — priority auction for liquidations, not swaps); Mantis Protocol (SVM rollup with IBC, intent-based)
• Recent developments: Pyth Express Relay is live with searchers including Flow Traders, Wintermute, Auros. NEAR Intents grew from $3M to $6B cumulative volume in 2025. CoW Swap’s solver competition model now processes $10B/month.
• Maturity: Growing — solver/intents model is validated on EVM, not yet a first-class Solana-native primitive

​

Angle 3: Validator-Level MEV Mitigation (Protocol Infrastructure)

• Key players: Jito (Jito-Solana client, bundles, live); Paladin (modified validator client with anti-sandwich + priority port, early access); Multiple Concurrent Leaders (MCL, SIMD-level research, years away)
• Recent developments: Jito suspended public mempool March 2024, causing DeezNode-style private mempools to proliferate. 2025 coordinated validator action cut sandwich profitability 60-70% but problem persists.
• Maturity: Established (Jito) + Emerging (Paladin, MCL)

​

Key Insights

• The CowSwap gap on Solana is real but crowded at the DEX layer: Three accelerator companies (Archer C4, URANI C1, DARKLAKE C2) have built MEV-protective DEXs on Solana. The consumer-facing DEX version of your thesis is actively being executed.
• No one has built the infrastructure layer: Existing attempts are all single-protocol DEXs. Nobody has built the CoW Protocol equivalent — a solver/batch-settlement layer that Jupiter, Orca, and Raydium route through, capturing MEV protection across all Solana order flow.
• Jump Crypto’s DFBA paper is fresh theoretical firepower: Published August 2025, this is the first rigorous formalization of a batch auction mechanism tuned for Solana’s streaming block production.
• Solana’s architecture creates both a challenge and an opportunity: No global mempool means private mempools dominate sandwiching. Streaming block production means batch windows must be sub-second. These constraints mean EVM solutions can’t port over — the field is open.
• $370-500M extracted in 16 months is the lower-bound TAM proxy for value that a protective execution layer could recapture.

​

Opportunities & Gaps

• Infrastructure play (underexplored): A batch-settlement execution layer that aggregates order flow from existing Solana DEXs/AMMs — not a DEX itself, but a routing layer beneath Jupiter. Highest-leverage angle with no funded company building it.
• DFBA as a shared primitive: The Jump Crypto DFBA mechanism designed as an open protocol that DEXs can adopt, with solver economics that attract market makers.
• Retail-specific execution guarantee: A slippage-guarantee product for memecoin/retail traders who currently set dangerously high slippage tolerances.
• Well-covered at the DEX layer: Building another MEV-resistant DEX faces three funded accelerator companies. Differentiation needs to be architectural.

​

Deep Dive: Top Opportunity — Solana Batch Execution Infrastructure Layer

​

Market Landscape

• Key players: Ellipsis Labs ($20M from Paradigm — Phoenix DEX, Plasma AMM, Gavel); Archer Exchange (C4, DFBA prototype); URANI (C1, intent aggregator); Jupiter (dominant order routing, no native MEV protection); Jito (MEV infrastructure via bundles)
• Landscape classification: Differentiation opportunity — Integration. Existing players operate as standalone DEXs or validator clients. None compose as a routing/settlement layer beneath existing DEX aggregators.

Related Builder: Archer Exchange (archer-exchange, C4) is building DFBA on Solana. Study their GitHub (Archer-Exchange/toy-dfba). To differentiate: they’re building a vertical DEX product; the opportunity is building the horizontal infrastructure layer that Archer itself could eventually route through.

​

The Problem

• Concrete friction: A retail trader swapping a memecoin on Raydium with 5% slippage tolerance is guaranteed to lose ~$8-9 on average per trade to sandwich bots (DeezNode average: $8.67/attack). With 1.55M sandwich transactions in 30 days from one bot alone, this is routine.
• Who feels it: Memecoin retail traders are the primary victims. Helius confirms they are “relatively insensitive” to frontrunning awareness — they don’t know they’re being sandwiched.
• Quantified impact: $370-500M extracted from Solana users over 16 months. DeezNode alone annualizes to ~$160M/year from a single bot.

​

Revenue Model

• How it makes money: Protocol fee on order flow that routes through the batch settlement layer — e.g., 1-2 bps per trade. This is below the cost of MEV they’d otherwise pay.
• TAM math: Solana DEX volume ~$50-100B/month. If the infrastructure layer captures 10% of routing at 1 bps: $5-10M/month ($60-120M/year). CoW Protocol comparison: $10B/month volume on EVM.

​

Go-to-Market Friction

• Two-sided marketplace: Yes — order flow from DEXs/aggregators on one side, solvers/market makers on the other.
• Bootstrap strategies: Be the first solver yourself for 6-12 months. Start with one niche (memecoin trades, highest sandwich exposure). Anchor with existing market makers already participating in Pyth Express Relay (Flow Traders, Wintermute, Auros).

​

Founder-Market Fit

• Ideal background: Deep MEV knowledge (Jito bundles, private mempools, slot structure) + existing market maker relationships + Solana protocol-level experience (Anchor, Rust, SVM internals).
• Red flags: Don’t build this if you’ve only worked on EVM — Solana’s streaming architecture fundamentally changes batch window design.
• Team composition: Protocol engineer (Rust/SVM), MEV/markets specialist, one BD role with market maker relationships.

​

Why Crypto/Solana?

• What blockchain enables: A permissionless solver network, cryptographic batch settlement guarantees, composability across protocols.
• Why Solana specifically: Sub-second finality is a prerequisite for a batch layer that doesn’t destroy UX. On Ethereum, 30-second batch windows work (CoW). On Solana, users expect sub-second execution — your batch window must be 200-400ms. This constraint makes Solana-native design non-negotiable.

​

Risk Assessment

• Technical risk: High. Fitting a full batch auction inside Solana’s ~400ms slots is non-trivial. Drift’s JIT auction works because it’s embedded in their own protocol.
• Regulatory risk: Low-moderate. The batch layer doesn’t custody funds; it’s a routing/settlement protocol.
• Market risk: Painkiller, but the pain is invisible to retail traders. Risk that coordinated validator action reduces the problem before you ship.
• Execution risk: Convincing Jupiter or a mid-tier DEX to route through your batch layer before proven volume is the classic distribution moat problem.

​

Further Reading

• Archer Exchange GitHub (Archer-Exchange/toy-dfba) — The only open-source DFBA implementation on Solana.
• Jump Crypto DFBA Paper (August 2025) — The theoretical foundation for 100ms batch windows.
• Ellipsis Labs Plasma — Study their application-layer approach and where it leaves room for an infrastructure play.
• Helius MEV Report (Jan 2025) — Required reading for Solana MEV landscape.
• Pyth Express Relay docs — Study the solver/searcher architecture for an analogous bootstrap playbook.