Since 2024, validators have earned $1.36B in execution-layer rewards – and builders retained $404M in surplus. Where does that edge come from? Continuing our Block Building series, we trace it to exclusive orderflow relationships: why Titan builds half of all blocks but captures 80-85% of builder surplus, how the beaverbuild-to-BuilderNet transition reshuffled the market's most valuable flow, and why block building is a contest of bilateral, contestable relationships rather than platform lock-in.

Who actually pays for priority on Ethereum? Continuing our Block Building series, with the first half of a two-part deep dive into the state of Ethereum block building since 2024: The demand side.

This is a high-level explainer of the Ethereum transaction supply chain and market structure. It aims to set the stage for readers unfamiliar with these topics before using deep on-chain data to quantify the transaction supply chain and its key players in our forthcoming research series. See also the thematically structured glossary below.

DeFi has historically required liquidity providers (LPs) to deposit assets into smart contracts to participate in liquidity provision and trading. This model enabled composability and atomic execution, but it also concentrated risk and led to structurally inefficient capital usage. A new class of DeFi primitives is now emerging that flips this model: liquidity remains in user wallets and is permissioned for execution only when needed. Rather than owning liquidity, protocols orchestrate access to it. This piece explores wallet-permissioned liquidity as an emerging DeFi design pattern, using 1inch Aqua and Barter Superposition as concrete case studies, and examines its implications for capital efficiency, risk, and adoption – including by more risk-aware and institutional capital.