Arbitrum and Solana co-founders discuss transaction costs again: Steven emphasizes MEV protection, Toly questions fees and price differences

Co-founder of Arbitrum Steven Goldfeder and co-founder of Solana Toly engaged in a debate over on-chain transaction fees, MEV protection, and the single sequencer model.

Steven stated that one cannot simply compare surface-level fees. Arbitrum One and Robinhood Chain actively prevent front-running and most harmful MEV, while some chains that claim lower fees have higher MEV costs, including front-running against retail investors. He expressed a preference for paying clear fees upfront rather than incurring hidden losses from front-running, sandwich attacks, and other issues for the sake of lower fees.

Toly countered that Arbitrum currently has a less favorable bid-ask spread and higher fees. The 10% cut taken from transaction fees alone translates to a cost in basis points that exceeds the loss rate from sandwich attacks, which he estimates to be about 10 times that of the latter, not accounting for the impact of the spread. He emphasized, "A single sequencer that pursues shareholder value maximization can never outperform permissionless competition."