There Will Be Spam: Characterizing State-Invariant Transactions and Speculative MEV
2026-07-27 • Cryptography and Security
Cryptography and Security
AI summaryⓘ
The authors studied a type of blockchain transaction called state-invariant transactions, which don't change the blockchain's important data but still use up resources like space and processing power. They found a huge number of these transactions, especially on Layer-2 blockchains like Optimism and Base, where they make up a large share of activity. Much of this comes from speculative profit-seeking behaviors called Maximal Extractable Value (MEV), but other harmful uses like address poisoning also contribute. The authors suggest that reducing these wasteful transactions could save resources and help prevent some types of blockchain abuse.
blockchainstate-invariant transactionsLayer-2 blockchainsMaximal Extractable Value (MEV)Ethereumtransaction feesaddress poisoningblockspacedecentralization
Authors
Vabuk Pahari, Johnnatan Messias, Christof Ferreira Torres
Abstract
Blockchains rely on transparency and immutability to ensure trust, but these guarantees come at the cost of an ever-growing ledger that increasingly threatens decentralization by making it more expensive to store and maintain the full transaction history. In this work, we introduce state-invariant transactions, defined as transactions whose inclusion or removal does not affect the resulting blockchain state beyond transaction fees. We argue that these transactions constitute a form of on-chain spam because they consume execution, bandwidth, storage, and blockspace without contributing to the final ledger state. We present the first large-scale measurement of state-invariant transactions across Ethereum, Optimism, and Base, identifying nearly 1.4 billion such transactions. While only 2.6% of Ethereum transactions are state-invariant, they account for 24% of transactions on Optimism and 37% on Base, representing a significant source of unnecessary resource consumption on Layer-2 blockchains. We show that speculative Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) is the dominant source of state-invariant transactions on Optimism and Base, accounting for 57% and 68%, respectively, but is not the only source as previously assumed. Moreover, despite its popularity, speculative MEV is not the most profitable strategy once the costs of state-invariant transactions are considered. Beyond MEV, we identify substantial malicious activity, with address poisoning campaigns accounting for 53% of non-reverted state-invariant transactions on Ethereum. Our findings suggest that mitigating state-invariant transactions could substantially reduce blockchain resource consumption and transaction costs while limiting phishing campaigns and other forms of blockchain abuse.