The Aestus MEV-Boost Relay is a neutral, non-censoring block relay for Ethereum proof-of-stake validators and block builders.
The Aestus MEV-Boost Relay is a neutral, non-censoring relay for Ethereum proof-of-stake validators and block builders. Our relay project emerged from conversations between members of the EthFinance and EthStaker communities who see the need to develop credibly neutral architecture for the Ethereum staking ecosystem.
MEV remains an important component of returns generated by those engaged in Ethereum PoS consensus. Despite their contributions to the community, several of the current relays are managed by companies and projects with direct financial interests in MEV and related revenue streams. Opaque relationships between relays, searchers and builders make it difficult for stakers to decide which relays to use or trust.
The Aestus relay is MEV infrastructure which is offered to the community as a public good, free from any commercial interest and aligned to principles of credible neutrality:
As of October 2025, the Aestus relay has been operating continuously for approximately three years and serves over 650,000 validators. This includes many solo stakers, Rocketpool nodes and teams from large staking entities. On a daily basis, between 2-5% of all ethereum mainnet block auctions are negotiated using our infrastructure.
Aestus was originally viewed by its founders as a temporary necessity, destined only to fill what appeared to be a short term gap between the Merge and the development of enshrined proposer-builder separation ("ePBS") within the Ethereum core protocol. The latest research now indicates that trusted intermediaries will continue to be needed in some form in order to maintain democratized access to high-quality block-building. Aestus intends to remain in operation as long as this service remains important for Ethereum validators.
We are currently operating Ethereum Mainnet and Hoodi relays. Both relays are open to public validators and builders.
By default, new builders are processed through the low-priority queue. We regularly promote builders with a reasonable inclusion rate to high-priority.
We also accept "optimistic" block submissions from builders. Builders will need to supply collateral of up to a maximum of 1ETH in a transaction to builder.aestus.eth and must have a recent track record without failed bids. To use this service, or to speak to us about anything else - please reach out to us via email or twitter.
