In the real world, every decision involves tradeoffs.
A few tradeoffs:
Latency - centralized sequencers allow users to collocate and don't suffer consensus latency.
The difference is significant: @Lighter_xyz sequences transactions on the order of 100x faster than Alpenglow, and centralized sequencers are only getting faster.
While global consensus suffers from the speed of light and can't get much faster.
MEV - it's trivial to build a centralized sequencer without MEV.
MCL requires leaders to coordinate sequencing, leaking transactions to other leaders. Combined with deterministic ordering from ACL, dishonest validators can frontrun/backrun honest validators while minimizing gas.
Gas - centralized sequencers like @Lighter_xyz are cheap to run, and combined with centralized anti-spam mechanisms, centralized sequencers don't need to charge users gas.
there are pros to MCL:
liveness - if a centralized sequencer isn't live, the system goes down until the sequencer fails over
similarly when a single leader isn't live, there are no blocks produced until that validator is skipped
MCL allows users to submit transactions to multiple leaders and at least one should be live
all things being equal, price-time-priority is the best way to sequence transactions and is basically impossible to do without a centralized sequencer
centralized sequencers sequencing requires trust vs decentralized MCL sequencing where you have to assume some validators are censoring or trading against users (MEV) but at least one validators will be honest
which system is better depends on trust assumptions and whether latency and cost matter
951
9
The content on this page is provided by third parties. Unless otherwise stated, OKX is not the author of the cited article(s) and does not claim any copyright in the materials. The content is provided for informational purposes only and does not represent the views of OKX. It is not intended to be an endorsement of any kind and should not be considered investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell digital assets. To the extent generative AI is utilized to provide summaries or other information, such AI generated content may be inaccurate or inconsistent. Please read the linked article for more details and information. OKX is not responsible for content hosted on third party sites. Digital asset holdings, including stablecoins and NFTs, involve a high degree of risk and can fluctuate greatly. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is suitable for you in light of your financial condition.