About
I'm Mikołaj Barczentewicz (0xMikolaj on X) and I'm a law professor at the University of Surrey. I research legal and ethical aspects of MEV and other crypto topics (see my papers below).
I received grants from the Ethereum Foundation and from others, but I speak only for myself—not for any of those institutions.
I regularly talk to regulators and market participants, to help them navigate the legal and ethical problems in this space, but also to learn—there is always so much to learn! So if you want to talk to me, please get in touch.
Nothing on this site constitutes legal or financial advice.
My papers on crypto
MEV and the law of the dark forest
- Blockchain Transaction Ordering as Market Manipulation - article published in the Ohio State Technology Law Journal, co-authored with Alex Sarch and Natasha Vasan
- Battle of the Crypto Bots: Automated Transaction Copying in Decentralized Finance - article published in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, co-authored with Alex Sarch and Natasha Vasan
- MEV on Ethereum: A Policy Analysis - a white paper published by the International Center for Law & Economics (January 2023).
- "Law and regulation vs MEV extraction" (Flashbots Collective, 7 October 2022)
- Crypto-Asset Market Abuse Under EU MiCA - published in the European Journal of Risk Regulation, co-authored with André de Gândara Gome
Market structure ("legal infrastructure" for crypto)
- Transaction Execution on Ethereum Decentralized Exchanges (DEX) From a Legal Perspective - co-authored with Natasha Vasan
- Understanding Ethereum transaction execution and settlement under EU law
Crypto's base layer and its legal liability
- Legally credible neutrality
- Legally credible neutrality on Ethereum
- Response to the U.S. Treasury Department's consultation on digital assets and illicit finance (International Center for Law & Economics, 3 November 2023)
Blockchain privacy and censorship
- Blockchain Censorship - co-authored with Anton Wahrstätter, Jens Ernstberger, Aviv Yaish, Liyi Zhou, Kaihua Qin, Taro Tsuchiya, Sebastian Steinhorst, Davor Svetinovic, Nicolas Christin, and Arthur Gervais.