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RANDAO Manipulation in the Presence of MEV

Authors Kaya Alpturer , Nicholas Hope , S. Matthew Weinberg

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Subject Classification

ACM Subject Classification
  • Theory of computation → Algorithmic game theory and mechanism design
  • Information systems → Digital cash
  • Security and privacy → Distributed systems security
Keywords
  • Proof of Stake
  • Consensus
  • Blockchain
  • Ethereum
  • Randomness manipulation

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Abstract

Ethereum’s randomness beacon (RANDAO) is well-known to be manipulable, and prior work [Alpturer and Weinberg, 2024] computes the precise fraction of blocks a strategic proposer can propose. The fraction of blocks proposed, however, is only a proxy for participants' rewards. We propose a generalized reward model capturing many canonical forms of rewards: consensus reward rollover, multi-block MEV, CEX-DEX arbitrage, oracle manipulation, and others. We provide a methodology that computes an ε-optimal strategy for any reward scheme in our model (and in particular, any combination of the above rewards). Finally, we apply our methodology to several canonical examples, and establish the sensitivity of RANDAO manipulation to the underlying rewards. We find that if rewards partially roll over, or scale super-linearly with consecutive blocks, the incentive to manipulate RANDAO is amplified. Lastly, we investigate tail-slot slashing, which can be modeled as a reward function, and show that honest equilibria can be recovered.

Cite As Get BibTex

Kaya Alpturer, Nicholas Hope, and S. Matthew Weinberg. RANDAO Manipulation in the Presence of MEV. In 8th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 395, pp. 23:1-23:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026) https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2026.23

Author Details

Kaya Alpturer
  • Princeton University, NJ, USA
Nicholas Hope
  • Talarion, San Francisco, CA, USA
S. Matthew Weinberg
  • Princeton University, NJ, USA

Funding

This work was supported by an Ethereum Foundation grant.

Acknowledgements

During Prof. Weinberg’s development of this paper, he participated as an expert witness on behalf of the State of Texas in ongoing litigation against Google (the "Google Litigation").

Supplementary Materials

References

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