How Does Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) Relate to the Concept of Front-Running in DeFi?
MEV is the profit a validator or miner can extract by arbitrarily including, excluding, or reordering transactions within a block. Front-running is a specific, malicious type of MEV where an actor sees a pending transaction in the public memory pool (mempool) and places their own transaction ahead of it to profit from the anticipated price movement.
Thus, front-running is a subset of the broader MEV problem. MEV also includes sandwich attacks and generalized arbitrage.
Mitigating MEV is a key focus for improving fairness in decentralized finance.