Briefing
The foundational challenge of selfish mining in decentralized systems is compounded by the profitability of Miner Extractable Value (MEV) and real-world network rushing conditions. This research introduces the Mutually-Assured-Destruction Directed-Acyclic-Graph (MAD-DAG) protocol, which utilizes a novel ledger function to discard the transaction contents of all competing equal-length chains. This systemic destruction of potential profit removes the game-theoretic incentive for miners to engage in selfish behavior, establishing a practical, low-latency consensus mechanism provably resistant to MEV-driven attacks.
Context
Prior to this work, existing solutions for selfish mining resistance, such as the Colordag protocol, were proven secure only under ideal conditions or at the cost of impractically high latency. The prevailing theoretical limitation centered on the inability to simultaneously maintain high network speed, low latency, and provable security against a rational adversary motivated by transaction reordering and MEV extraction. The field required a mechanism that could neutralize the economic advantage of chain-forking without sacrificing performance.
Analysis
MAD-DAG’s core mechanism is the content-discarding ledger function, a fundamental departure from traditional chain selection rules. Unlike protocols that select one longest chain and ignore the others, or DAG protocols that attempt to include all valid blocks, MAD-DAG specifically targets the economic incentive structure. When two or more chains of equal length are presented to the network, the protocol’s function discards the transaction content → the MEV → from all of them.
The block headers and structural metadata remain, but the profit is nullified. This “mutually assured destruction” principle forces rational miners to adhere to the honest protocol, as the alternative is the guaranteed destruction of their own potential MEV alongside the attacker’s.
Parameters
- Adversarial Model → Rational Byzantine Adversary. This model assumes the attacker is economically motivated and will only deviate from the protocol if it increases their revenue.
- Latency Reduction → Practical Low Latency. The protocol achieves security without requiring the impractically high latency delays necessary for prior selfish-mining-resistant DAGs.
- MEV Mitigation Strategy → Content Destruction. The mechanism eliminates the economic value of a successful selfish mining attack by invalidating the transaction contents of competing blocks.
Outlook
The introduction of a practical, MEV-resistant consensus mechanism opens immediate pathways for Layer 1 and Layer 2 architectures to re-evaluate their core security models. Future research will likely focus on integrating this content-destruction primitive into hybrid Proof-of-Stake systems and formally verifying its performance under extreme network partitioning events. The technology enables the creation of truly fair-ordering decentralized exchanges and financial primitives in the next three to five years, eliminating a critical source of systemic risk.
Verdict
The MAD-DAG ledger function represents a foundational architectural shift, transforming MEV from a systemic security threat into a self-destructing economic deterrent.
