TL;DR

Shutter Network is building a movement to "Encrypt the Mempool!" and eliminate toxic MEV (frontrunning, sandwich attacks) and real-time censorship. Our work includes fun awareness campaigns, educational programs for all levels, protocol research, and public advocacy. We are rallying the community to implement encrypted mempools in the Ethereum protocol, thus making Ethereum more fair, credibly neutral, and secure for all users.

Problem Statement

Ethereum’s public mempool is broken.

Every transaction is visible in the public mempool before execution, giving sophisticated bots and builders the opportunity to re-arrange and censor transactions. Toxic MEV (front-running and sandwich attacks) have “extracted” billions of dollars from Ethereum users, degrades user experience, and prevents institutional adoption. Furthermore, real-time censorship runs contrary to user expectations and our core values of credible neutrality, permissionlessness and censorship resistance.

In recent years, private mempools have emerged as a temporary band-aid. They do protect users from toxic MEV (to some extent), but they introduce trusted third parties and promote builder centralization. Out-of-protocol solutions will never be enough.

Ethereum users face an impossible choice: become a victim of toxic MEV bots, or rely on unreliable intermediaries and betray their core values.

Solution

Encrypt the Mempool!

We believe the only way to solve this security problem is to “Encrypt the Mempool!” - thus allowing users to encrypt their transactions before sending them to the public mempool and then decrypt them after they have been ordered in the block.

We recognize that there are many ways to encrypt the mempool. We do not focus on one EIP, encryption standard, or technology. Instead, we work with a broad range of ecosystem actors (core developers, client teams, researchers, users, wallets, searchers, builders, and more) to promote deep understanding of the issues and work together to identify a solution which meets our shared needs. We do so with fun awareness campaigns, educational programs for all levels, protocol research, and public advocacy.

1. Security Awareness & Education

We have built a massive repository of educational content to help ecosystem actors understand the Ethereum transaction supply chain, the problems of toxic MEV and real-time censorship, the dangers of centralization, and the robust protection offered by an encrypted public mempool. This includes:

Tech Deep Dives: Analyzing the "Holy Trinity of Censorship Resistance" and how encryption completes the Ethereum roadmap.
Debunking Myths: Clarifying misconceptions around latency and the technical limitations of encrypted mempools.
Cross-Platform Outreach: Extensive articles on CoinTelegraph, Coingecko, and CryptoNews, alongside a dedicated technical blog and podcast series.

Note: Full list of articles at the end of the description.

2. Security Advocacy

We have been (and still are!) on the front lines, advocating for an encrypted public mempool. We facilitate community calls, publish technical threads, host on-site workshops, lead working groups, and speak regularly at both leading and local conferences - from EthCC to EthTblisi.

We published EIP-8105 (Universal Enshrined Encrypted Mempool), which sparked widespread discussions and innovations regarding encrypted public mempools. However, (as mentioned above) we are not partisans in favor of only one EIP or one approach. After LUCID was published, we withdrew EIP-8105 as a headliner candidate for Hegota and supported LUCID instead - working on a unified proposal with the best parts of each design. Now we are working with builders, wallets, Flashbots and others to further improve the design - and ensure it is ready for inclusion in I* Hardfork.

Impact

In the past two years, our movement to “Encrypt the Mempool!” has challenged the status quo band-aid “solution” provided by private mempool, provided a rallying point for those seeking a real solution, and driven the discussion/innovation of encrypted mempool EIPs:

Built early awareness and support for an encrypted mempool EIP
Coverage on Cointelegraph, EthDaily, Ready for Merge, Etherworld, Daily Gwei, Ethereal News, Blockchain Socialist, and others
Event presentation and activation: EthCC, EthTbilisi, EthCC blue man activation and “Encrypt the Mempool!” button distribution
Dedicated EIP webpage, FAQ explainer for community
Regular content creation including educational threads, memes, 2 MEV explainer videos, and the “Voices from the Mempool” video series
Improved community understanding of encrypted mempools and how they complement ePBS and FOCIL for greater censorship resistance through regularly published news articles, podcasts, educational blog posts.
Built stakeholder relationships to support EIP implementation
Enlisted five decryptors for LUCID EIP: Enclave, Space Computer, Lit Protocol, Fairblock, Nillion
Outreach to key stakeholders for EIP feedback and production of FAQs to aid dev decision making: Clients, core devs, wallets, block builders
Launch of business/marcoms bi-weekly working group
Establish on-going relationships with media/community stakeholders for EM publicity: Ethdaily, Book of Ethereum, Cointelegraph, and others
Demonstrated encrypted mempools in production-like and live environments, while advancing encrypted mempool research
Live encrypted mempool on Gnosis Chain processed thousands of encrypted transactions with support from Nethermind and Erigon validators, proving the model works in production.
Launched encrypted mempool out-of-protocol POC on Primev; with live implementation in progress
Shutterized Beacon Chain research demonstrated how encrypted ordering can integrate safely with Ethereum consensus.
Deployment on the Sepholia OP Stack testnet validated encrypted flows in an L2 environment.
A previously published long-term roadmap, created with partners including Gnosis, Nethermind, Chainbound, and MEV Blocker, outlined the path for bringing encrypted mempools to Ethereum.
Contributed research on key open problems, including anti-collusion and the free option problem.

Use of Funds

Funding will be used to scale our education and advocacy efforts:

Encrypt the Mempool! Movement Content Production (<$10k): Producing of awareness and educational content for the Ethereum community and technical explainers and FAQs for core devs (covering range of formats video, images, threads, articles)
Community Advocacy and Events ($10k–$25k): Leading Encrypt the Mempool! working group for encrypted mempool publicity and outreach. Media outreach and coverage. Tx supply chain outreach and advocacy: wallets, clients, core devs, builders. Organizing workshops and technical sessions at major Ethereum conferences to rally developer support for encrypted mempools.
Research & Feedback Loops ($25k–$50k): Building an MEV simulator. Conducting surveys and gathering technical feedback from wallets, searchers, builders, and other ecosystem actors.
Audit & Readiness ($50k+): Working to develop SDKs for easy wallet integration, efficient backrunning & rebase strategies for users, and efficient execution infrastructure for builders. Securing external security reviews for the proposed protocol changes to ensure they meet the rigorous safety standards required for a mainnet upgrade.

Encrypt the Mempool! Stopping Toxic MEV & Censorship

Encrypt the Mempool! Stopping Toxic MEV & Censorship

Encrypt the Mempool! Stopping Toxic MEV & Censorship

Outputs and Outcomes

Encrypt the Mempool! Stopping Toxic MEV & Censorship

Outputs and Outcomes