Epicenter - Learn about Crypto, Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin and Distributed Technologies Is The Future of Ethereum Centralised and Censored?
Feb 1, 2026
Thomas Thiery, an Ethereum Foundation researcher and author of EIP-7805 (FOCIL), works on protocol design for censorship resistance and MEV mitigation. He explains how MEV centralized block production and maps where censorship can happen. He introduces FOCIL’s validator-driven inclusion lists to force transaction inclusion. They compare public vs private mempools and weigh FOCIL against encrypted mempool approaches.
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MEV Caused Builder Centralization
- MEV created a centralizing force that moved block-building power away from decentralized validators.
- Dominant builders now produce ~80–85% of blocks, creating a censorship bottleneck risk.
How Searchers, Builders And Relays Interact
- Searchers create bundles and send them to builders who assemble full blocks and bid to proposers.
- Relays currently mediate auctions to prevent proposer-builder theft, though EPBS will change this.
Tornado Cash Caused Real Censorship Responses
- During the Tornado Cash episode, dominant builders refused to include transactions touching certain addresses.
- Some proposers built their own blocks to include censored transactions and keep them eventual on-chain.