Built in TradFi. Got McGee’d. Decoding Web3’s Versions.
Beyond the "Waiting Room" of Web3: Bridging SBA exploitation and Ethereum’s MEV crisis. A critique of ePBS and encrypted mempools as "digital masks," calling for a shift toward end-to-end trust and the dismantling of predatory blockspace auctions.
Reflections from DevConnect 2025: From the Stone Streets of Buenos Aires to the Digital Trenches of Ethereum.
The Stone City
Buenos Aires taught me what Ethereum couldn't: durable architecture survives when it serves users, not extractors. I walked stone streets designed for humans, not cars—open plazas breathing despite 200% inflation.
I arrived at DevConnect 2025 on a whim. A Friday whisper from a friend who knew my hunger for Web3 truth. Sunday landing, wallet prepped with dormant ETH bought years ago. I’d ignored it, waiting for "steak money." But once you’ve been McGee’d, you don’t trust shiny systems.
You dig beneath surfaces.
DevConnect Awakening
Buenos Aires ran crypto-native. Tap phone, instant verifiable trust—no paper, no interpretation. You can’t print ETH. You have to earn it, buy it, or build for it. Every movement is recorded on-chain, in a shared ledger instead of a private spreadsheet. These were the same agreements I’d managed in my previous life: SBA loans, mortgages, car notes, cellphone EULAs.
Paper trails were the original chain before blockchains. More paper meant more “proof,” but also more room for interpretation—and that’s where McGee lived. I’d seen paper chains in courtrooms, sealed files. Could immutable contracts finally escape McGee’s pen?
MEV answered in 6 hours. It is McGee’s digital twin, mempool edition.
"The mempool isn't a waiting room. It's McGee's hunting ground. The mempool looks like a familiar hunting ground for predatory lenders. A field of sitting ducks who show up ready to play by the rules, only to realize the mechanics run behind the scenes to siphon profits along the way."
McGee’s Mempool
The SBA taught me predatory infrastructure’s signature. It has three distinct pillars, and Web3 is rebuilding them pixel-perfect:
- Consolidated Visibility: Your performance data → The Public Mempool.
- Asymmetric Ordering: Lender "qualifies" you → Validator builds the blocks.
- Weaponized Middleware: CDC Liquidation → MEV-Boost Relays.
MEV recreates the "handshake in the shadows" digitally. Users broadcast trades to a public mempool. Hunters (Searchers) spot the swaps. They bundle bribes to Builders, who pass them to Relays, who pass them to Proposers.
The user loses 1-2% per trade. The validator gains a 60% yield boost. Neutral infrastructure has become a digital good old boys club.
ePBS: Plywood Over Stone
Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation (ePBS) promises progress, but to my eyes, it merely enshrines the extraction. It formalizes the handshakes. Searcher bundles persist, and bribes become protocol canon. Inclusion lists might force a transaction through the door, but they don’t stop the predators from standing at the threshold.
ePBS is SBA SOP reform: it gives us better documentation for the same qualification pools, but it doesn't change who owns the pool.
The Encryption Trap
The current chatter is all about "Encrypted Mempools"—cloaking the transactions so hunters can’t see the "meat" in the wheelbarrow. But in TradFi, I learned that you don't need to see the contents of a file to know it’s a target. You just watch the timing, the source, and the weight. Encryption is a digital mask, but it doesn’t dissolve the Waiting Room.
As long as users are forced to sit in a public lobby before they reach the blockchain, the game is rigged. Hunters don't need your face. They just need to know you're in the room.
Moving Beyond the Waiting Room
Blockchain escapes McGee only when we stop trying to "hide" the waiting room and start dismantling it. We need a chain of trust that handles the user with the same internalized settlement of a private vault, not a glass lobby.
- ZK Proofs = Stone Carvings. Undeniable execution that renders ordering games moot.
- Direct-to-Proposer Paths. Removing the "middleman builders" who charge a toll for the air we breathe.
- Protocol-Enforced Fairness. Replacing the "bribe-to-win" auction with a system where position is a right, not a purchase.
MEV proves that humans will always rebuild extraction layers unless we enforce End-to-End Integrity.
Transparency vs. The Bottom Line
We must ask: Who benefits from the "waiting room" remaining dark?In TradFi, the lender benefits from the borrower’s lack of visibility. In Web3, the same is true for the massive validator pools. Larger entities, who now run a significant percentage of Ethereum’s infrastructure, earn millions in revenue from these very "bribes" (tips). For a public company, MEV isn’t just a technical quirk; it’s a line item on a quarterly earnings report.
When extraction is obscured, it fuels a centralization loop. Large providers offer higher yields because they have the best "hunters" and the most "bribes." This makes their staking products more attractive, drawing in more ETH, and further centralizing the network.
From Bribes to Protocol Fees
The pushback against fixing the "waiting room" often hides behind the argument of "market efficiency." But true efficiency doesn't require shadows.
If we move toward a system of Transparent Protocol Fees—where extraction is either burned for the benefit of all ETH holders or returned to the user—the "McGee" advantage disappears. Large players would still be profitable, but they would have to compete on the quality of their service, not the depth of their shadows.
We don't need a system that thrives on "blind signing" and middleware bribes. We need an architecture where earnings are a function of integrity, not an exploitation of the sitting ducks.
The Pattern Every Founder Needs
I went to DevConnect looking for wallet liberation. I found McGee thriving in blockspace auctions.
The lesson: Neutral infrastructure always becomes a hunting ground.
- SBA application pools = Mempool sandwiches.
- Qualification blindspots = Relay trust assumptions.
- Adverse change declarations = Inclusion list bandaids.
Your scars are diagnostic instruments. Once McGee’d, you see his blueprints everywhere. TradFi → Web3 didn’t kill predators; it just gave them better dashboards.
Researchers: Audit Like Argentina
To the researchers in this space: Audit your infrastructure like Buenos Aires audits plazas.
Does it serve humans or extractors?
McGee returned because we let "neutral" middleware control the order of our lives. Stone plazas survived because citizens governed walkability. Ethereum survives centralization only when users govern blockspace.
Permissionless verification breaks McGee permanently. Publish mempool dashboards. I’ll publish my SBA scars. Together we build cathedrals, not casinos.
Flashbots: FRP incoming. Let's audit before ePBS ships.
About the Author
Dilia Wood is a historic preservationist, adaptive reuse developer, and writer who explores the intersection of institutional integrity and individual agency. She transformed the historic O.S. Stapley Hardware Store into a multimillion‑dollar event venue—a project that became a landmark for downtown Chandler, Arizona.
Today, Dilia uses her background in complex government financing, historic preservation, and urban development to reveal the invisible forces behind entrepreneurial success and systemic failure. Through The Quiet Years, she provides a framework for navigating institutional collapse and rebuilding trust in yourself and the systems you choose to build inside. She is now exploring how new, verifiable record‑keeping and decentralized coordination tools might prevent the kinds of silent extractions that traditional paperwork once made possible.
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