14. Mempool, MEV & Transaction Lifecycle

14.1 Implemented Mempool Components​

The repository contains sharded/adaptive routing, secure admission, fair ordering, encrypted-mempool, blob-transaction, and PBS-oriented modules under quantos/src/mempool/. Their presence indicates integration points and executable logic; it does not establish that every module is active in the default node configuration.

14.2 Transaction Lifecycle​

The intended lifecycle is: signature verification, timestamp/nonce/chain checks, admission, gossip, DAG vertex inclusion, state simulation/execution, consensus handling, and checkpoint finality. Exact ordering, confirmation latency, and resource admission depend on node configuration and must be measured on a multi-node network.

14.3 Encryption and MEV Scope​

The repository contains an encrypted-mempool module and post-quantum KEM primitives, but the whitepaper does not claim a fully deployed threshold-decryption protocol or universal front-running prevention without tracing the default node path and testing key generation, share distribution, decryption timing, failure recovery, and censorship behavior.

Fair ordering and PBS are similarly design modules. They can reduce proposer discretion or structure builder interaction, but they do not eliminate MEV, guarantee a fair outcome, or provide a complete market without deployment, incentive, and adversarial analysis.

14.4 Mainnet Requirements​

A production mempool specification must fix admission limits, quota accounting, encryption lifecycle, decryption threshold, ordering rule, timeout behavior, blob availability, builder/proposer authorization, censorship resistance, and observability. Performance claims must report transaction mix, conflicts, failed admissions, and finality latency.