Realtime FAQs

Block Building and Availability

How often are Realtime blocks produced

• The realtime target interval is variable, but currently set to 100ms. A 12-second canonical block contains ~ 80 realtime sub-blocks (indexed from 0 to ~80) with the block building typically starting at T+4.

Will the number of Realtime blocks per block always be the maximum?

• Not always. Heavy execution in one interval may reduce time available for subsequent intervals. The REALTIME_TIME setting is a target, not a strict guarantee

Do large gas transactions get delayed?

• High gas transactions can be included in any realtime block with sufficient gas capacity. Placement is optimized by heuristics, but available gas decreases as transactions fill earlier realtime blocks.

Why isn't the realtime block building always enabled?

• Currently we run about 4% of Ethereum Validators through the marketplace. When the validator assigned to the current slot hasn't delegated to us, the realtime block building will be disabled.

High Availability and Safety

What happens if the realtime builder fails?

• Our ETHGas relay will fallback to a regular MEV-Boost block build (including pre-confirmation bundles).

Do Realtime blocks change the safety model of Ethereum?

• No, each realtime block is validated by the same execution engine as normal blocks

Why do we need ETHGas realtime block building?

• ETHGas realtime blocks change how fast apps can respond on Ethereum. Instead of waiting for full block finality (12 secs), you get an early signal of inclusion, fast enough to make things like trading, gaming, or live dashboards feel instant. It als works with standard RPC methods and doesn't require any new setup.

How does ETHGas realtime block building prevent MEV attacks?

• As realtime blocks build and finalize a new sub-bock roughly ever 50-100ms, this leaves limited time for a searcher to see your transaction in the mempool and then exploit it — 100ms sub-blocks are expected to have about 91% less MEV.