What Is “Miner Extractable Value” (MEV) and How Does It Affect Arbitrage?
MEV is the profit miners (or validators in Proof-of-Stake) can earn by arbitrarily including, excluding, or reordering transactions within the blocks they produce. Arbitrage bots often pay high gas fees to be front-run or "sandwiched" by MEV bots, which can copy the profitable trade and execute it first.
This process significantly reduces the profitability of public arbitrage transactions.