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Do backrun auctions protect traders?

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  • Andrew W. Macpherson

Abstract

We study a new "laminated" queueing model for orders on batched trading venues such as decentralised exchanges. The model aims to capture and generalise transaction queueing infrastructure that has arisen to organise MEV activity on public blockchains such as Ethereum, providing convenient channels for sophisticated agents to extract value by acting on end-user order flow by performing arbitrage and related HFT activities. In our model, market orders are interspersed with orders created by arbitrageurs that under idealised conditions reset the marginal price to a global equilibrium between each trade, improving predictability of execution for liquidity traders. If an arbitrageur has a chance to land multiple opportunities in a row, he may attempt to manipulate the execution price of the intervening market order by a probabilistic blind sandwiching strategy. To study how bad this manipulation can get, we introduce and bound a price manipulation coefficient that measures the deviation from global equilibrium of local pricing quoted by a rational arbitrageur. We exhibit cases in which this coefficient is well approximated by a "zeta value' with interpretable and empirically measurable parameters.

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  • Andrew W. Macpherson, 2024. "Do backrun auctions protect traders?," Papers 2401.08302, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2401.08302
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Andrew W. Macpherson, 2023. "Adversarial blockchain queues and trading on a CFMM," Papers 2302.01663, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2023.
    2. Jason Milionis & Ciamac C. Moallemi & Tim Roughgarden, 2023. "Complexity-Approximation Trade-offs in Exchange Mechanisms: AMMs vs. LOBs," Papers 2302.11652, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2023.
    3. Andrea Canidio & Robin Fritsch, 2023. "Arbitrageurs' profits, LVR, and sandwich attacks: batch trading as an AMM design response," Papers 2307.02074, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2024.
    4. Varian, Hal R, 1987. "The Arbitrage Principle in Financial Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 55-72, Fall.
    5. Werner, Jan, 1987. "Arbitrage and the Existence of Competitive Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(6), pages 1403-1418, November.
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