Aptos Launches Encrypted Mempool to Block Frontrunning and Sandwich Attacks

MEV protection is becoming a competitive differentiator among Layer 1s, and Aptos is now positioning itself alongside networks that treat predatory extraction as a design flaw rather than an inevitability. Making the feature optional is the notable choice: it leaves the trade-off between privacy and latency to applications rather than imposing it network-wide. The open question is whether optional adoption is enough to matter, or whether encrypted ordering only changes searcher behavior when it becomes the default.