Validator opt-in is membership in the mev-commit validator coalition. Stake or restake is collateral for that roster, not a ticket to extra block revenue today.
Historical bidder and provider pages still describe a commitment market on the mev-commit chain. That is not why L1 validators opt in now, and it is not a live extra yield stream for proposers.
The sections below keep provider slashing notes for that older path, and the validator slashing notes (validators are not slashed for relay choice). Validator “rewards” are coalition membership, later fees, and founding-member tokens. See Why should validators opt in.
Validators/Proposers
A validator that opts into mev-commit adds keys to the coalition roster (Hub-true). Keep your existing relay set. Opt-in does not pay extra producer rewards from mev-commit bids today.
What membership is
- One signal across many keys, used for policy and innovation review
- Later coalition fees, only after members actively approve them, that fund Ethereum AI research (a step toward about 1% of validator yield)
- Founding-member tokens, sized to match or exceed fees contributed, used to create proposals for holders to accept
No fees are enabled at this stage. There is no fee switch without your approval. Token grants are not live. An older points writeup exists; do not treat it as extra bid yield.
Do not use the old “higher-value blocks from mev-commit bids” story when talking to operators. That is not the current reason to opt in.
Slashing
Validators are not expected to be slashed on mev-commit. Providers (block builders) are the primary decision makers liable for slashing — they are accountable for honoring the commitments they issued. Validators are not penalized for missed blocks, self-built blocks, or for the builder their relay happened to select.
Missed Block
A proposer can completely miss its slot and not include any block in L1. This can happen due to network issues, relay delivery problems, or chain reorgs. mev-commit does not slash proposers for missed blocks — the proposer does not profit from omitting a block and the cause is often outside their control.
Block from Non-Registered Builder
A proposer may include a block in L1 that was not produced by a registered mev-commit provider — for example because the highest-value bid that slot came from a non-registered builder. mev-commit does not slash validators for this. Commitment accountability is enforced at the provider layer: if a registered provider issued a commitment for a transaction, breaking that commitment slashes the provider regardless of who ultimately won the slot.
Self-Built Block
A proposer can include a block that was built locally rather than through mev-boost. This typically happens when relay-supplied bids are below the locally-built value or when mev-boost falls back due to a fault. mev-commit does not slash proposers for self-built blocks.
Providers
There are four possible outcomes after a commitment is made by a provider and an Ethereum block is proposed:
- The bid amount is rewarded to the provider for fulfilling the commitment.
- The provider stake is slashed for breaking the commitment.
- Nothing happens as neither the provider nor the bidder opened the commitment.
We discuss each case in more detail below.
Rewards
Upon successfully fulfilling a commitment, a provider will be rewarded the bid amount, minus a 2% fee (this fee accumulates in the mev-commit protocol treasury). This reward is paid by the mev-commit oracle to the provider’s account after the corresponding slot is settled by the oracle according to the block included in L1.
Slashing for Broken Commitment
Upon breaking a commitment, a provider’s stake will be slashed exactly equal to the slash amount specified in the bid they committed to, in addition to a 5% penalty fee. Decay is not applied to the slash amount. The principal slash amount will be transferred to the bidder for the broken commitment, and the penalty fee will be transferred to the mev-commit protocol treasury.
If the provider does not have enough stake left to cover the entirety of the slash amount and penalty fee, the maximal amount of the slash amount that can be slashed will be slashed and given to the bidder. Any remaining funds in the provider’s stake will go towards maximally paying the 5% slashing penalty to the treasury.
The precedence means the slash amount that goes to the bidder will be prioritized first, and only after that will the treasury be compensated for as much of the 5% slashing penalty as possible.
Neutral Outcome
The protocol does not take action on commitments that are not opened by the provider or the bidder. This happens if the commitment provider is not the execution provider for the corresponding winning block, in which case there is no point in opening the commitment.
Builder and Proposer Attribution
We rely on the BLS key used to submit to the relay to do attribution and determine the block builder for a particular block. 
