How FRB approaches chain-specific routing

Every chain behaves differently. Ethereum offers the deepest liquidity and most mature relay ecosystem, whereas BNB Chain rewards aggressive token hygiene, and Base focuses on tight fee control. This hub consolidates the playbooks our desks use so you can evaluate which venues deserve capital and how to bootstrap safely.

Start with the big idea: private bundles should be your default lane. Public PGAs are useful for canaries or parity checks, but they introduce noise and leak strategies. FRB’s refund guard, Ops Pulse telemetry, and Latency Test tool make it easier to adapt without improvising settings under pressure.

Private relays vs public PGAs

Private relays let you send sealed bundles directly to searcher-friendly builders. You get predictable inclusion probabilities, better refund behavior, and less competition. Public PGAs remain a fallback—think of them as an escape hatch when relays degrade or when you only need to test a hypothesis with tiny size.

• Define exactly when FRB is allowed to fall back to public (e.g., relay outage).
• Limit fallback size to ≤10% of the session cap and log each attempt.
• Review Ops Pulse charts weekly to see whether public attempts still add value.

Per-chain snapshots

Use the summaries below to decide where to deploy first, then dive into the individual guides for deeper routing, latency, and compliance notes.

Ethereum

Deepest liquidity, largest number of relays, and strictest scrutiny. Baseline with the Ethereum guide before cloning routes elsewhere. Focus on Flashbots integration, per-pair budgets, and comprehensive logging.

BNB Chain

High throughput with uneven router quality. Stick to audited allowlists, enforce liquidity minimums, and record every refund reason to stay ahead of exploit waves.

Polygon

Sensitive to endpoint jitter. Follow the Polygon guide for best practices on WSS rotation and gas multipliers when baseFee swings.

Base

Friendly fee profile with Coinbase sequencer nuances. The Base playbook covers how to stage routes in simulation, log Ops Pulse metrics, and scale after clean sessions.

Arbitrum

Fast rollup windows with occasional throttling. See Arbitrum MEV for latency windows, recommended routing, and how to measure inclusion deltas during sequencer bursts.

Optimism

Fee-aware chain that rewards patient scaling. Read the Optimism guide for canary promotion steps, refund governance, and documentation habits.

Berachain

Proof-of-Liquidity rewrites validator economics. Three MEV layers no other chain has — gauge-weight arbitrage, bribe-cycle back-running, and classic AMM arb on BEX and Honeyswap. See the Berachain MEV playbook for the BGT-driven opportunities.

Monad & Sui

Two different bets on speed. Monad ships parallel EVM at ~10k TPS with one-second finality; familiar searcher tooling, fresh competitive landscape. Sui uses object-centric Move and Mysticeti consensus — most transactions parallelize and skip ordering MEV entirely, but DeepBook orderbook and shared-object DEX flow still create opportunities.

Hyperliquid

Perp-DEX-native MEV. $5B+ daily volume, retail-heavy flow producing wide funding swings, and an HLP vault that creates structural liquidation patterns. See Hyperliquid MEV for orderbook strategies and Funding Rate Arbitrage for the carry-trade playbook.

Cross-chain comparison matrix (2026)

Use this matrix when deciding where to deploy a new strategy or rebalance capital. Numbers shift each quarter; the relative ordering of chains by MEV maturity has been stable since mid-2025.

Capital floor is the useful minimum to clear gas and fees with meaningful win rates; competition reflects 2026 searcher density. See Best Chain for MEV 2026 for the full ranking framework and Strategy by Capital Size for matching capital to chain.

Decision framework: which chain first?

Pick the chain that fits your operator profile, not the one with the loudest narrative. Three honest cuts:

By capital tier

• Under $2k working capital — Polygon, BNB Chain, or Solana. Gas is the dominant cost on Ethereum L1 at this size and will absorb most of the spread before competition.
• $2k–$25k — Base, Arbitrum, Optimism. L2 economics let you run real strategies with meaningful win rates without L1 competition density.
• $25k–$250k — Add Ethereum L1 to the mix for liquidations and high-value arb. Keep L2 inventory for higher-frequency strategies.
• $250k+ — Multi-chain. Ethereum L1 + 2–4 L2s + Solana, with portfolio-level risk management across venues.

By strategy type

• Atomic arbitrage — Anywhere with mature DEXes. Highest absolute returns on Ethereum + Base + Solana.
• Lending liquidations — Ethereum (Aave, Spark, Morpho), Solana (Kamino, MarginFi), Base (Morpho, Moonwell).
• Memecoin sniping — Solana first, BNB second, Base for selective launches. See Solana Launchpad Wars 2026.
• LST/LRT arbitrage — Ethereum L1 dominantly. See LST Arbitrage and LRT Arbitrage.
• Stablecoin / RWA depeg — Ethereum primarily. See Tokenized Treasuries.
• Funding rate arbitrage — Hyperliquid + CEX hedge. See Hyperliquid Funding Rate Arb.

By operator profile

• Beginner, technical comfort — Solana via FRB Solana app. Start with simulation mode, micro-snipes, escalate after 30 days clean.
• Beginner, low technical comfort — Single chain (Base or Polygon), one strategy (atomic arb), strict caps. Avoid memecoin sniping early.
• Experienced searcher — Ethereum + 1 L2 + Solana. Diversify revenue across strategy types, not just chains.
• Capital-heavy treasury manager — LST/LRT/RWA on Ethereum L1. Income strategy, not hunting strategy.

2026 chain upgrades that changed MEV

Most upgrades affect MEV economics — sometimes subtly, sometimes structurally. The shifts since mid-2025:

• Ethereum Pectra (May 2025) — EIP-7251 raised max effective validator balance to 2,048 ETH, concentrating validator MEV. EIP-7702 added EOA delegations, creating a new transaction class. See Pectra & Fusaka MEV Impact.
• Solana Firedancer (rolling activation) — Higher network throughput, tighter validator slot timing, more aggressive priority fee competition for landing snipes.
• Berachain mainnet (early 2025) — Proof-of-Liquidity introduced gauge-weight arbitrage as a native MEV layer. See Berachain MEV.
• Monad mainnet (2025) — Parallel EVM at scale. Same EVM tooling works; competition density still low.
• Hyperliquid maturity — Volume crossed $5B/day in 2026 H1, making it a primary venue rather than a secondary one.
• Ethereum Fusaka (scheduled late 2026) — EIP-7594 PeerDAS multiplies blob throughput ~8×, expected to further compress L2 fees and shift discretionary flow to L2s.

Per-chain liquidity venue map

MEV opportunities concentrate where liquidity does. Use this map to prioritize which venues to integrate first on each chain.

Integrate the top two DEXes per chain first — they typically capture 70–90% of MEV-relevant flow. Add the specialist venues only after the primary integrations are stable in production.