MEV-Boost Relay Allowed List management via Easy Track

TL;DR

It is proposed to adopt three new Easy Track EVM script factories for the management of the MEV-Boost Relay Allowed List with the Relay Maintenance Committee (RMC) as a trusted caller. This will streamline the existing update process and increase the LDO tokenholders' ability to steer the decision making.

Motivation

The management of the MEV-Boost Relay Allowed List is currently a manual multi-step process and is done by the Relay Maintenance Committee (RMC) on behalf of the Lido DAO. It requires submitting a change proposal on the Research Forum (example can be found here), waiting for the challenge period, and coordinating with RMC participants to draft, verify, and sign the transaction. The proposed introduction of the Easy Track factories will streamline this process and reinforce governance by enabling LDO tokenholders to participate in managing the list, enhancing transparency and accountability.

Context

The MEV Boost Relay Allowed List serves as a definitive source of truth for allowed relay services, enabling node operators to keep their configurations up to date in alignment with the informed suggestions by the RMC. Node operators participating in the Lido protocol are required to use at least one relay from the “must use some” category while having the flexibility to choose any number of relays from the “may use” category in their consensus layer client or out-of-protocol proposer-builder separation validator sidecar configuration. This framework promotes Ethereum’s decentralisation while enabling MEV extraction for the Lido protocol.

The Relay Maintenance Committee (RMC) oversees the vetting and governance of the list, proposing updates as needed. Changes may be driven by factors such as:

• Relay discontinuation or operational concerns
• Community-driven reclassification between "must use some" and "may use" categories, requiring the update of the relay “is mandatory” field
• Inclusion of newly vetted relays seeking to provide services within the Lido ecosystem

These updates ensure the MEV-Boost Relay Allowed List remains accurate, functional, and aligned with the protocol’s evolving needs.

Design Details

According to the specification document, the proposed change will introduce three new Easy Track EVM Script Factories:

• AddMEVBoostRelays
  • Allows creation of an EVM script to add information about one or multiple MEV-Boost relays to the list
• RemoveMEVBoostRelays
  • Allows creation of an EVM script to remove one or multiple MEV-Boost relays from the list by the URI
• EditMEVBoostRelays
  • Allows creation of an EVM script to edit one or multiple MEV-Boost relays in the list by the URI
  • Since direct edits are not supported in the allowed list contract, modifications will be executed as an ordered combination of remove_relay and add_relay function calls

Each factory enables the committee to perform a respective action (add, remove, edit) on the MEV-Boost Relay Allowed List contract. These actions can be applied to multiple relays within a single motion.

For the new EVM script factories to function correctly, Easy Track’s EVM Script Executor (instead of the RMC) must be assigned as the manager of the MEV-Boost Relay Allowed List contract by the Lido Agent as the owner of the list contract, which will initiate an on-chain vote for the role’s assigned address change.

Trade-offs

The proposed change will impose a few limitations on the usage of the system, acknowledged by the RMC:

• Delegation of the manager role
  • Assigning the manager role to the EVM Script Executor means immediate modifications to the list will not be possible. Instead, all changes will be subject to a mandatory objection period during an Easy Track motion (72 hours at the time of this vote).
• Limited multi-action support
  • The current implementation does not support the inclusion of multiple actions of different types in a single motion. Each factory builds scripts to perform actions of a dedicated type (add, remove, edit) and performs necessary checks. In order to make multiple different updates to the list multiple motions can be created in parallel as changes will not be conflicting.

Next Steps

If a quorum for this proposal is reached, the proposed changes will be implemented and deployed after all audits and security checks are successfully completed, followed by an on-chain vote to add the new factories to the Easy Track and grant the Easy Track’s EVM Script Executor the manager role on the MEV-Boost Relay Allowed List contract.

If a quorum for this proposal is not reached the Relay Maintenance Committee will continue managing the Relay Allowed List manually using the existing process.