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arXiv · 2306.02179

Buying Time: Latency Racing vs. Bidding in Transaction Ordering

Akaki Mamageishvili·Mahimna Kelkar·Jan Christoph Schlegel·Edward W. Felten
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Abstract

We design TimeBoost: a practical transaction ordering policy for rollup sequencers that takes into account both transaction timestamps and bids; it works by creating a score from timestamps and bids, and orders transactions based on this score. TimeBoost is transaction-data-independent (i.e., can work with encrypted transactions) and supports low transaction finalization times similar to a first-come first-serve (FCFS or pure-latency) ordering policy. At the same time, it avoids the inefficient latency competition created by an FCFS policy. It further satisfies useful economic properties of first-price auctions that come with a pure-bidding policy. We show through rigorous economic analyses how TimeBoost allows players to compete on arbitrage opportunities in a way that results in better guarantees compared to both pure-latency and pure-bidding approaches.

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Akaki Mamageishvili, Mahimna Kelkar, Jan Christoph Schlegel, Edward W. Felten. 2023-06-03. Buying Time: Latency Racing vs. Bidding in Transaction Ordering. https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.02179

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