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Where to Place Your TEE? In Search of a Censorship-Resilient Design for Rollup Sequencers

Authors: Andrei Arusoaie, Claudiu-Nicu Bărbieru, Oana-Otilia Captarencu, Pascal Felber, Corentin Libert, Emanuel Onica, Etienne Rivière, Valerio Schiavoni, and Peterson Yuhala

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 361, 29th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2025)


Abstract
Ethereum is the dominant blockchain ecosystem capable of executing Turing-complete smart contracts. Rollups gained significant traction as the primary layer 2 (L2) solution meant to bring horizontal scalability to the main Ethereum network (L1). A core component of any rollup is the sequencer, which creates new L2 blocks to be submitted in rollup batches to L1. In most of the current rollup architectures, this component is centralised. As a result, these designs are prone to inconspicuous censorship practices by the sequencer. Trusted execution environments (TEEs) can guarantee the integrity of various sequencer components, which is instrumental in addressing censorship. However, the reaction of the system design to censorship attempts depends on where a TEE is integrated and which components it protects. In particular, this reaction is limited in the case of a monolithic TEE-protected sequencer design. Proposer-Builder Separation (PBS) is a non-monolithic paradigm adopted on L1, which separates the production of blocks from proposing them for inclusion in the blockchain. Recently, PBS has been considered for integration with L2 sequencers, with an impact on alleviating censorship. In this paper, we explore the design space of TEE-integrating PBS and non-PBS sequencer variants. First, we introduce a formal framework for the censorship actions that captures the specificity of the L2 sequencer. Then, we analyse to what extent the different designs address these censorship actions. Our main contribution is a novel design variation that allows for a precise observation of censored transactions. In the presence of TEEs, in a PBS setting, we demonstrate this precise observability, which is necessary to enable resilience to censorship.

Cite as

Andrei Arusoaie, Claudiu-Nicu Bărbieru, Oana-Otilia Captarencu, Pascal Felber, Corentin Libert, Emanuel Onica, Etienne Rivière, Valerio Schiavoni, and Peterson Yuhala. Where to Place Your TEE? In Search of a Censorship-Resilient Design for Rollup Sequencers. In 29th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 361, pp. 27:1-27:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)


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@InProceedings{arusoaie_et_al:LIPIcs.OPODIS.2025.27,
  author =	{Arusoaie, Andrei and B\u{a}rbieru, Claudiu-Nicu and Captarencu, Oana-Otilia and Felber, Pascal and Libert, Corentin and Onica, Emanuel and Rivi\`{e}re, Etienne and Schiavoni, Valerio and Yuhala, Peterson},
  title =	{{Where to Place Your TEE? In Search of a Censorship-Resilient Design for Rollup Sequencers}},
  booktitle =	{29th International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2025)},
  pages =	{27:1--27:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-409-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{361},
  editor =	{Arusoaie, Andrei and Onica, Emanuel and Spear, Michael and Tucci-Piergiovanni, Sara},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.OPODIS.2025.27},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-252000},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.OPODIS.2025.27},
  annote =	{Keywords: Rollups, Trusted Execution Environments, Censorship}
}
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