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Priority Gas Auction Cadence and Searcher Competition: Evidence from Flashblocks on Base

Pranay Anchuri, Edward W. Felten, Akaki Mamageishvili · 2026 · arXiv (Cornell University)

DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2610.03922 · cited by 0 works (OpenAlex) · open-access PDF

French

Ces paramètres sont maintenant réduits de sorte que les enchères de gaz prioritaires d'un bloc sont divisées en enchères séquentielles plus courtes qui commettent des ordres de transaction avant que le bloc ne soit terminé. Nous demandons comment cette cadence d'enchères inférieure affecte les enchères et la concurrence parmi les arbitres ou les chercheurs automatisés. En juillet 2025, la base a remplacé une enchère de gaz prioritaire de 2 s par dix enchères de 200 ms. Nous utilisons ce changement pour estimer la réponse des chercheurs provenant des données de la chaîne uniquement. Sur un panneau d'adresse de 3 032 chercheurs et de 8 053 contrôles de frais correspondant à l'activité, un design de différence-en-différence d'information es

Machine translation (Meta M2M100); the English original follows.

Abstract

Flashblocks divide a block's priority gas auction into shorter sequential auctions that commit transaction order before the block is complete. We ask how this auction cadence affects bidding and competition among automated arbitrageurs, or searchers. In July 2025 Base replaced a single 2 s auction with ten 200 ms auctions. We use this change to estimate the searcher response from on-chain data alone. On an address-day panel of 3,032 searchers and 8,053 activity-matched controls, a difference-in-differences design estimates a 0.187 gwei fall in the effective priority fee (59% of the searcher pre-period mean). The share of searcher priority-fee value paid in the first tenth of block gas falls from 0.98 to 0.28. This fee compression is the identified effect. The revert-rate response is not (causally) identified and is reported descriptively. At the level of a single opportunity, the winning fee splits into an approximately invariant floor and a competitive premium. The premium scales about linearly with auction duration at high contention and less steeply at low contention. A first-price auction model with uncertain arrival and partial payments by losing searchers accounts for this pattern. We match attempts to the pool they contest. A higher-fee transaction reverts behind a lower-fee winner that landed earlier in 1.9 to 2.7% of contested opportunities by value, an upper bound. Latency therefore decides part of the ordering. A micro-auction model projects diminishing returns from shortening the window below 200 ms, as bids approach a nonzero floor. Rollups such as Arbitrum One now make auction cadence a governance tunable parameter, so these estimates inform how it is set.

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Topics: Bidding, Vickrey–Clarke–Groves auction, English auction, Common value auction, Commit, Computer science

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