Problem

What problem is Oval solving?

Chainlink price updates can leak significant value into the Ethereum supply chain. In particular, when a price update catalyzes a liquidation, a significant chunk of risk-free profit is turned into MEV. Oval's goal is to capture that MEV and return it to the protocol that it came from.

MEV Supply Chain with Oval between the Searcher and Builder

The current MEV tooling landscape lacks a common mechanism to capture this kind of MEV, called Oracle Extractable Value (OEV). Instead, the majority of the value eventually flows down the supply chain to block builders and validators. It starts when searchers bid to backrun the oracle update by placing their transaction immediately after the update, enabling them to perform the profitable liquidation. These auctions are competitive, so a searcher bids the majority of their profit to have their bundle included, thus end up passing the majority of the value up the supply chain.