‘Concerning precedent’ — bloXroute Labs’ MEV relays to reject OFAC blocks

A decision by bloXroute Labs to start censoring OFAC-sanctioned blocks has been seen as a loss for Ethereum censorship resistance.

One of the largest producers of censorship-resistant blocks on Ethereum has made a complete u-turn, announcing it will start censoring OFAC-sanctioned blocks across all of its MEV relays in compliance with local laws.

The firm, bloXroute Labs — which has produced at least 400,000 Ethereum blocks from its two leading Maximal Extraction Value (MEV) relays — made the announcement of its policy change on Dec. 18 in a post on X (formerly Twitter), noting: 

An “OFAC transaction,” as described by bloXroute Labs, is any that interacts with a wallet that has been sanctioned by the United States Office of Foreign Asset Control, or OFAC. 

Read more