Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) has garnered significant attention in the cryptocurrency community. Such attention is a consequence of the revenue that can be generated from MEV, as well as the risks MEV poses to the fundamental value proposition of the underlying blockchain technology. In this work, we provide an information-theoretic formulation of MEV. With this formulation, we make common statements about MEV mathematically rigorous. For example, we show that i) all non-trivial blockchains and decentralised applications must generate MEV; ii) how MEV can be reduced at the expense of user expressibility; and iii) how MEV can be good or bad from an information theoretic standpoint.

翻译：最大可提取价值在加密货币社区中引发了广泛关注。这种关注既源于MEV可产生的收益，也因其对底层区块链技术基本价值主张构成的威胁。本文提出了一种MEV的信息论表述。借助该表述，我们使关于MEV的常见论断在数学上更加严谨。例如，我们证明了：i）所有非平凡区块链与去中心化应用必然产生MEV；ii）如何以牺牲用户表达性为代价降低MEV；iii）从信息论视角看，MEV如何可能兼具利弊。