Ethereum arbitrage study reveals builders receive $5 for every $1 burned by the network

Ethereum arbitrage generated about $5.24 in builder receipts for every $1 burned in a 30-day sample reported by blockchain data provider Bitquery. Its allocation puts 49.3% of measured surplus toward block assembly, 9.4% toward burned fees and 41.3% with trading operators.For ETH holders, the finding shows why trading activity and the investment case for holding the token require different measures. Payments reward participants executing and ordering trades; fee burning changes ETH supply. Builders also pay validators to propose blocks, so the largest receipt bucket does not identify the largest final profit.The investigation marks its figures verified Aug. 31, 2026. Its allocation table specifies 30 days without exact endpoints; a separate monthly trade-distribution table ends Aug. 29. The five-to-one comparison is calculated from the rounded shares and describes sampled arbitrage surplus, not Ethereum-wide revenue.A payment to builders has another destinationArbitrage software looks for a token available at different prices, buys at the cheaper price and sells at the higher one. Ethereum's MEV documentation describes the specialized participants finding these opportunities as sea...