# MEV

> Maximal extractable value — profit from reordering, inserting or censoring transactions in a block; the invisible tax on unprotected swaps.

Transactions sit in a public queue before they are confirmed, and whoever orders the block can profit from what they see coming: sandwich your swap between their buy and sell, front-run your liquidation, extract the arbitrage before you do. It is not a hack — it is the protocol working as designed, with the profits going to the fastest.

Mitigation exists at two levels: user-side (slippage limits, private transaction relays that hide your order until it lands) and protocol-side (fair ordering, MEV redistribution). Anyone building or trading on-chain should assume the mempool is being watched — because it is.

## Related terms

- https://dfieldsolutions.com/en/glossary/defi.md
- https://dfieldsolutions.com/en/glossary/on-chain.md
- https://dfieldsolutions.com/en/glossary/smart-contract.md

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Source: https://dfieldsolutions.com/en/glossary/mev
DField Solutions — Dunakeszi, Hungary — dezso@dfieldsolutions.com
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