We are fortunate to have people who can write well and are very technically competent working at the protocol level. This post increased both my understanding of MEV (noob) and Lightning (less noob but still noob) simultaneously. Very delightful mash up.
A little summary of lightning MEV covered.
Offchain
To recap, the information of a desired trade in lightning is only communicated to the actors that are directly responsible for effectuating the trade. These actors are only compensated upon successful execution the desired trade.
Onchain
To recap, onchain lightning MEV is extractable only by one of the two parties in the channel, and constitutes a “cheat” attempt. There are a few cases where unilateral closes can result in large payments to the miner (and none to the peer effectuating the close). The public information that is published is only ever actionable by the channel peer (or a delegates on their behalf).
Offchain
Onchain