Davide Mancino

Davide Mancino

This paper analyzes the emerging memecoin phenomenon on the Solana blockchain, focusing on the Pump$.$fun platform during Q4 2024. Using on-chain data, it is explored how retail-focused token creation platforms are reshaping blockchain ecosystems and influencing market participation. This study finds that Pump$.$fun accounted for up to 71.1% of all tokens minted on Solana and contributed 40-67.4% of total DEX transactions. Despite this activity, fewer than 2% of tokens successfully transitioned to major decentralized exchanges, highlighting a highly speculative market structure. The platform experienced rapid growth, with daily active users rising from 60,000 to peaks of 260,000, underscoring strong retail adoption. This reflects a broader shift towards accessible, socially-driven market participation enabled by memecoins. However, while memecoins lower entry barriers and encourage retail engagement, they introduce significant risks. The volatile and speculative nature of these platforms raises concerns about long-term sustainability and the resilience of the blockchain ecosystem. These findings reveal the dual impact of memecoins: they democratize token creation and alter market dynamics but may jeopardize market efficiency and stability. This paper highlights the need to critically assess the implications of retail-driven speculative trading and its potential to disrupt emerging blockchain economies.

Davide Mancino, Hasret Ozan Sevim

This Systematization of Knowledge (SoK) provides a comprehensive historical analysis of Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) in blockchain systems, tracing its conceptual evolution through three distinct eras. We organize the fragmented literature on MEV into a unified chronological framework, beginning with Era~I (August 2014 - August 2020), which introduced Miner Extractable Value from pmcgoohan's seminal Reddit warning through the ``Dark Forest'' recognition, covering Proof-of-Work systems with public mempools and Priority Gas Auctions. Era~II (August 2020 - April 2024) marks the generalization to Maximal Extractable Value, encompassing formal taxonomies, Realized Extractable Value, Proposer-Builder Separation, the Ethereum Merge, MEV-Boost, and the integration of non-atomic and CEX-DEX arbitrage. Era~III (April 2024, present) addresses the frontier of Cross-Chain MEV, beginning with early studies on Layer-2 ecosystems, where value extraction spans multiple blockchains, rollups, bridges, and sequencers. We present a conceptual taxonomy distinguishing potential from realized extractable value, and single-domain from cross-domain phenomena. Our systematization identifies mitigations that emerged in response to each era, highlights measurement challenges, and proposes a research agenda for standardized metrics, detection benchmarks, and cross-chain infrastructure design.