{"id":60854,"date":"2026-06-21T22:39:04","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T14:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nightfame.com\/style\/?p=60854"},"modified":"2026-06-21T23:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T15:05:11","slug":"chapter-2-a-transaction-in-the-dark-the-front-running-fencer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nightfame.com\/style\/chapter-2-a-transaction-in-the-dark-the-front-running-fencer\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 2: A Transaction in the Dark – The Front-Running Fencer"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The library study room smelled like old books and someone\u2019s forgotten microwave popcorn. Jesse arrived ten minutes early, which was unusual for him. He\u2019d spent the morning pacing his bedroom, running through questions he wanted to ask, then deciding he didn\u2019t know enough to ask good questions, then deciding that was exactly why he needed to show up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Study Room C was at the end of a narrow hallway, behind a door with a fogged glass window. Jesse pushed it open and found a long table, six chairs, a whiteboard on wheels, and absolutely no Nia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He sat down. Checked his phone. 2:52 PM. Eight minutes early. Maybe too early.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pulled out his own laptop\u2014an older model with a sticker of a pixelated dragon on the lid\u2014and opened the mempool viewer he\u2019d been obsessing over for the past three days. The transactions scrolled past in a blur of green and gray. Sender addresses. Recipient addresses. Amounts. Gas fees. Timestamps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He still didn\u2019t fully understand what he was looking at. But he understood enough to know that something was wrong with the system. And he understood that Nia might be the only person he knew who could explain it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The door banged open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nia rolled in like a small hurricane\u2014laptop bag sliding off one shoulder, a half-empty energy drink balanced on top of a stack of notebooks, her hair escaping from a messy bun in seventeen different directions. She was wearing an oversized hoodie that said VALIDATOR IN TRAINING: WILL WORK FOR GAS<\/em> in faded letters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re early,\u201d she said, dumping her stuff on the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo are you,\u201d Jesse said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not early. I\u2019m exactly on time. You\u2019re just early.\u201d She pulled out a chair, spun it around backward, and sat straddling it with her arms folded across the back. \u201cOkay. Show me what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse blinked. \u201cDon\u2019t you want to, like, introduce yourself first? Or ask how I\u2019m doing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nia looked at him over her glasses. \u201cYou got front-run on a rare artifact sale. You\u2019ve been staring at a mempool viewer for three days. You messaged a near-stranger for help. How do you think you\u2019re doing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot great,\u201d Jesse admitted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExactly. So skip the small talk. Show me the transaction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse turned his laptop toward her. He\u2019d kept the block explorer open from the Emberheart sale\u2014Block #4,821,033, the one that had ruined his week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nia leaned forward, squinting at the screen. Her fingers flew across the trackpad, scrolling through the transaction list, expanding details, muttering under her breath. \u201cYep. Yep. Uh-huh. Classic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cClassic what?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She didn\u2019t answer immediately. Instead, she pulled out her own laptop\u2014a much nicer one, covered in stickers that Jesse didn\u2019t recognize: cryptographic symbols, validator node addresses, a cartoon fox wearing a hoodie\u2014and set it next to his.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d she said. \u201cLesson one. You know how when you submit a transaction, it doesn\u2019t go straight into a block?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt goes into the mempool,\u201d Jesse said. \u201cI learned that much.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood. You\u2019re ahead of most victims.\u201d She opened a program on her laptop\u2014a mempool viewer that made Jesse\u2019s look like a toy. It showed a live feed of pending transactions, but with extra columns he\u2019d never seen before: Time since first seen, Fee per unit of computation, Estimated inclusion time.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is the mempool,\u201d she said. \u201cThe waiting room. Every transaction that hasn\u2019t been confirmed yet lives here. Validators look at this list and decide which transactions to put in the next block.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse nodded. He knew this part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere\u2019s what you don\u2019t know.\u201d Nia pointed to a column labeled Gas Fee<\/em>. \u201cValidators get paid two things: the base fee, which is the minimum cost to use the network, and the priority fee, which is a tip you pay to encourage a validator to pick your transaction. Higher priority fee = faster inclusion. Usually.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUsually?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause validators are competing against each other. The one who builds the next block gets to choose which transactions go in. They\u2019ll pick the most profitable ones first. That\u2019s just math. But here\u2019s where it gets ugly.\u201d She pulled up a second window\u2014a historical view of the mempool from the exact moment of the Emberheart sale. \u201cWatch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The screen showed a simulation. Transactions appeared in the mempool one by one, color-coded by type. Jesse\u2019s transaction\u2014he recognized his wallet address\u2014appeared at 14:32:01.000<\/strong>, just one second after the sale started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s you,\u201d Nia said. \u201cYou submitted first. Look at your gas fee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse looked. He\u2019d paid a priority fee of 0.5 credits\u2014a reasonable tip, he\u2019d thought. Enough to get included quickly but not so much that he was wasting money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow watch what happens at 14:32:01.500<\/strong>,\u201d Nia said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half a second after Jesse\u2019s transaction appeared, another transaction materialized in the mempool. Same recipient address. Same artifact purchase. Same amount of credits. But the gas fee was higher: 0.6 credits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s The Seeker,\u201d Jesse said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s A Seeker,\u201d Nia corrected. \u201cThere are dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. They watch the mempool constantly, looking for profitable transactions. When they see someone trying to buy a limited artifact, they copy the transaction and resubmit it with a higher gas fee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse watched as more transactions appeared\u2014not just from The Seeker, but from other addresses he didn\u2019t recognize. A bidding war unfolded in milliseconds. Each new transaction had a slightly higher gas fee than the last. By the time the next block was built, Jesse\u2019s original transaction\u2014the one that had arrived first\u2014was buried at the bottom of the mempool, with the lowest fee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cValidators don\u2019t order by arrival time,\u201d Nia said. \u201cThey order by gas fee. The Seeker knew that. So it outbid you. Not by a lot\u2014just enough to jump ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut I was first,\u201d Jesse said again, hearing the whine in his own voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDoesn\u2019t matter. First doesn\u2019t matter. Only the fee matters.\u201d Nia closed her laptop. \u201cThat\u2019s how you lost your sword.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Jesse sat in silence for a moment. The whiteboard on wheels seemed to stare at him. He wanted to be angry at Nia, but she was just the messenger. And she looked tired, he noticed. Dark circles under her eyes. The energy drink was her third of the day, probably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo what you\u2019re telling me,\u201d he said slowly, \u201cis that the entire system is designed to reward whoever pays the most. Not whoever shows up first. Not whoever wants it more. Just whoever has the deepest pockets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow you\u2019re getting it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not fair.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nia laughed. It wasn\u2019t a happy laugh. \u201cFair? You want fair? Fair doesn\u2019t pay validators\u2019 electricity bills. Fair doesn\u2019t keep the network secure. Fair is a concept for kindergarteners and philosophers. The network runs on incentives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse stood up. Started pacing the small room. \u201cBut the sale was advertised as first-come, first-served. The creator said it would be fair. Everyone assumed\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEveryone assumed wrong.\u201d Nia\u2019s voice was flat. \u201cThe creator can say whatever they want. They don\u2019t control the validators. They don\u2019t control the mempool. The only way to guarantee first-come, first-served is to build an entirely different system. And nobody has.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse stopped pacing. He turned to face her. \u201cYou keep saying \u2018nobody.\u2019 But you\u2019re a validator operator. Couldn\u2019t you just\u2026 order by arrival time? Ignore the gas fees?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nia was quiet for a long moment. She picked up her energy drink, took a sip, made a face like it had gone warm, and set it down again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d she said finally. \u201cI could. My brother and I, we run a small validator pool. Three nodes in his bedroom closet. We could decide to order every block by timestamp instead of gas fee. It\u2019s technically possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo why don\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause then we\u2019d go bankrupt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse frowned. \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nia opened her laptop again, clicked through a few screens, and turned it toward him. A dashboard showed something called Validator Revenue<\/em>\u2014a graph that looked like a ski slope heading downward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is our revenue from last month,\u201d she said, pointing to the line. \u201cSee that drop in the middle of the month? That\u2019s when we tried to be fair. We ordered by arrival time for three days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUsers stopped sending us transactions. Why would they? We were slower than other validators. Our blocks took longer to fill because we weren\u2019t prioritizing high-fee transactions. Our inclusion times were garbage. So people started choosing different validators\u2014ones that played the gas game.\u201d She pointed to the bottom of the graph. \u201cWe lost about forty percent of our revenue in three days. My brother almost shut down the whole operation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse sat back down. \u201cSo you went back to playing the game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe went back to surviving.\u201d Nia\u2019s voice was hard, but her eyes looked guilty. \u201cLook, I didn\u2019t make the rules. I just run a node. If I refuse to participate in the gas auction, someone else will. The Seeker doesn\u2019t care which validator includes its transactions. It just cares that someone does. And there\u2019s always someone who will.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The study room felt smaller now. Jesse looked at the whiteboard and had a sudden urge to write something on it\u2014something big and angry, like THIS SYSTEM IS BROKEN<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, he asked, \u201cSo what happened to my transaction exactly? Step by step. I want to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nia nodded, seemingly relieved to have something technical to focus on. \u201cOkay. Step one: you submit your transaction. It enters the mempool with a timestamp and a gas fee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She pulled up the block again\u2014Block #4,821,033\u2014and expanded the details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStep two: The Seeker sees your transaction in the mempool. Its code recognizes that you\u2019re trying to buy a limited-edition artifact. It calculates exactly how much higher it needs to bid to beat you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow does it know my gas fee?\u201d Jesse asked. \u201cThe mempool is public?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCompletely public. Anyone can see every pending transaction. That\u2019s the problem.\u201d Nia pointed to the screen. \u201cThe Seeker submits its own transaction with a higher fee. Then it watches to see if anyone outbids it. This all happens in milliseconds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse watched as Nia scrolled through the block. Near the top of the block\u2014position #4 out of 187 transactions\u2014was The Seeker\u2019s first purchase. Then another. Then another. Fifteen total, scattered through the top twenty positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStep three,\u201d Nia continued. \u201cA validator\u2014not our pool, by the way\u2014starts building the next block. They look at the mempool and sort transactions by gas fee, highest to lowest. The Seeker\u2019s transactions are near the top because they bid higher than you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy didn\u2019t anyone outbid The Seeker?\u201d Jesse asked. \u201cIf it\u2019s just a gas auction, someone richer could have jumped ahead of the bot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey could have. And sometimes they do. But The Seeker is programmed to keep bidding until it\u2019s no longer profitable. It has a maximum price\u2014a point where buying the artifact would cost more than the artifact is worth. Most human users don\u2019t have that kind of patience or capital.\u201d Nia shrugged. \u201cThe Seeker usually wins because it never gets tired and it never gets emotional.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStep four,\u201d she said, pointing to the bottom of the block. \u201cYour transaction finally gets included\u2014in position #173 out of 187. By then, all fifteen swords that The Seeker wanted are gone. The sale contract sees that there are zero copies left. Your transaction fails.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse stared at the screen. His transaction looked so small down there. A tiny failure buried under a mountain of successful bot purchases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s it,\u201d he said. \u201cI lost because I didn\u2019t pay enough. Because a machine saw me coming and cut in line. And the validators who processed that block made more money because they let it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s it,\u201d Nia agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd your validator pool does this too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t a question. But Nia answered anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometimes,\u201d she said quietly. \u201cNot the sandwich attacks\u2014those are worse. But front-running? Yeah. We do it. Not because we want to. Because if we don\u2019t, we can\u2019t compete.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse looked at her. She looked back. For a moment, neither of them spoke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then Jesse said, \u201cShow me how to beat it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nia blinked. \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou heard me. You know how this works. You know why it\u2019s broken. So show me how to fight back. There has to be a way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nia opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. \u201cI don\u2019t know if there\u2019s a way. I\u2019ve been thinking about this for a year. Everything I try, the bots adapt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen we try something else.\u201d Jesse leaned forward. \u201cYou said your pool tried to be fair and it failed. So it\u2019s not that fairness is impossible. It\u2019s that fairness isn\u2019t profitable. Those are two different problems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nia was staring at him now, really looking at him for the first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho are you again?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m the guy who just lost a sword to a bot,\u201d Jesse said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m not going to let that be the end of the story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nia laughed again\u2014a real laugh this time, surprised and slightly unhinged. \u201cYou\u2019re insane.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cProbably. But you\u2019re the one who agreed to meet me in a library study room to explain mempool mechanics to a stranger. So what does that make you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She didn\u2019t have an answer for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, she pulled out a marker from her bag, stood up, and wrote on the whiteboard in big block letters:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HOW TO BEAT THE SEEKER<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then she turned to Jesse, marker still in hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d she said. \u201cYou want to fight? Let\u2019s start with the basics. But fair warning\u2014this is going to hurt your brain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesse pulled his chair closer to the whiteboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood,\u201d he said. \u201cMy brain could use the workout.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Table of contents:<\/em><\/strong>
Introduction<\/a>
Chapter 1: The Mempool<\/a>
Chapter 2: A Transaction in the Dark<\/a>
Chapter 3: The Gas Auction<\/a> <<<<<< NEXT<\/strong>
Chapter 4: The Sandwich Attack<\/a>
Chapter 5: The Priority Fee War<\/a>
Chapter 6: A Fair Ordering Protocol<\/a>
Chapter 7: The Commit-Reveal Scheme<\/a>
Chapter 8: The Encrypted Mempool<\/a>
Chapter 9: The Time-Weighted Consensus<\/a>
Chapter 10: A Just Sequence<\/a><\/p>\n

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The library study room smelled like old books and someone\u2019s forgotten microwave popcorn. Jesse arrived […]<\/p>\n

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