Flashbots

In summer 2020 the MEV-Ship research collective formed; that November Flashbots was formally organized, publishing the MEV-auction architecture and open-sourcing MEV-geth so miners could accept searchers' profitable bundles via an off-chain sealed-bid auction.

Flashbots Alpha launched in January 2021 with the Relay; by April over 84% of Ethereum hashrate ran MEV-geth, and in October Flashbots released Protect RPC to shield ordinary users' transactions from frontrunning and reverts.

In November 2021, Flashbots published and open-sourced the MEV-Boost architecture for PoS Ethereum; 17 epochs after the September 2022 Merge, MEV-Boost activated, delivering out-of-protocol proposer-builder separation (PBS).

Co-founder Stephane Gosselin left in October 2022 over censorship disagreements, and Alex Obadia departed in June 2023, shifting the team's focus toward a decentralized builder ecosystem and censorship-resistance.

In November 2022, Flashbots issued its "The Future of MEV is SUAVE" pledge; in April 2023 it launched MEV-Share to rebate users' generated MEV, and in August open-sourced suave-geth with the first public SUAVE testnet, Toliman.

In July 2023 Flashbots raised a $60M Series B at a $1B valuation; in July 2024 it open-sourced rbuilder, a blazing-fast Rust block builder that lowered the barrier for new builders and catalyzed ecosystem innovation.

In November 2024, Flashbots released the decentralized BuilderNet with Beaver Build and Nethermind, and in December migrated all builders, order flow and refunds onto it, fully retiring its centralized block building.

Public data in 2026 showed BuilderNet, built by Flashbots with Beaverbuild and Nethermind, producing about 25.5% of Ethereum blocks in January, using collaborative TEE-based building and shared orderflow to counter exclusive orderflow deals. As of March, however, Beaverbuild and Titan still produced roughly 86% of blocks, little improved from the roughly 90% concentration before BuilderNet launched.

Flashbots has exited centralized block building and concentrated on neutral infrastructure including BuilderNet, MEV-Boost and MEV-Share, with refunds distributed by open-source rules in proportion to orderflow contribution. On research, it is advancing verifiable priority ordering, using TEE security properties so users can verify how transactions were ordered; rollup-boost is running on Unichain and other OP Stack chains, extending TEE building to Layer 2. SUAVE mainnet remains targeted for late 2026 and has not launched.

Flashbots is betting that block building becomes a public utility rather than another builder business: BuilderNet held roughly 11% of blocks in mid-October 2026, behind Titan at 51% and Quasar at 25%, yet earned the highest profit per block because it still carries Beaverbuild's historic flow. The structural shift is EIP-7732: once enshrined PBS ships with Glamsterdam in late 2026, trusted relays lose their role, and Flashbots Relay's 3.5% share stops mattering as competition moves up to order-flow origination and down to inventory and hedging. BuilderNet's published refund rule is the credibility behind that transition, but no market maker has publicly committed to running a node, so operator economics remain unproven.

Tina Zhen, Co-founder and core maintainer: studied at Princeton and Singularity University; she founded CarboClan and Yellow Hat DAO and ran the Pirate Ships salons, co-initiated Flashbots in 2020 and now leads its research culture. Phil Daian, Co-founder: a graduate of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and researcher at Cornell's IC3 and co-author of Flash Boys 2.0, he co-founded Flashbots in 2020 and focuses on MEV and block-building research. Hasu, Head of Strategy: a pseudonymous researcher who has led Flashbots strategy since 2021 while advising Lido, focusing on block-production market structure and auction design. Stephane Gosselin, Co-founder, departed: formerly an architect at Numerai, he co-founded Flashbots in 2020 and left in October 2022 over disagreements on censorship, later founding OneBalance. Alex Obadia, Co-founder, departed: formerly co-founder of Cambrial Capital, he helped found Flashbots in 2020 and left in June 2023. The organisation runs on open research collaboration, and publishing research openly is a long tradition.