Searchers, validators, and the mempool as a market
On-chain infrastructure for sophisticated players: the full MEV stack (searchers, builders, validators), smart contract deployment pipelines, cross-chain settlement, Solana Firedancer internals, and Jito bundle submission.
MEV is not a bug in DeFi - it is the market microstructure of blockchains. Understanding the full stack from mempool to validator block construction is the prerequisite for any institutional on-chain strategy. These five posts map the complete extraction and infrastructure landscape.
MEV from first principles: searcher bundles, the builder API, relay trust model, and why PBS changed block construction economics, for engineers building on-chain infrastructure.
How I cut smart contract deployment time from 2 hours to 15 minutes at Upside - Foundry scripts, CI/CD patterns, multi-chain verification, and gas regression gates.
A systems-level breakdown of cross-chain capital movement - bridge trust models, finality windows, HTLC mechanics, and the operational controls that prevent catastrophic loss.
Jump Trading rebuilt the Solana validator from scratch because Agave couldn't keep up. Firedancer's tile architecture, networking pipeline, and what it means for MEV searchers in 2026.
Solana MEV in 2026 is where Ethereum MEV was in 2021 - rapidly maturing and profitable for infrastructure-savvy participants. Here is how the full stack fits together.