MEV Sandwich Attacks Made $1 Million in Single Day Profit

An MEV bot controlled by “jaredfromsubway.eth” has become the top gas spender on Ethereum and made more than a million-dollars from executing sandwich attacks.

A single Ethereum address is responsible for 7% of the gas spent on the network in the last 24 hours.

According to data from EigenPhi, MEV bots executing sandwich attacks made $1.12 million on April 19, most of which came from one bot controlled by the user “jaredfromsubway.eth.”

A MEV bot is eating your lunch.

jaredfromsubway.eth MEV bot is the top gas ETH spender in the last 24H, spending 455ETH ($950k) and using 7% of total gas of the network

In the last 2 months it spent more than 3.720ETH ($7M) in gas fees and performed more than 180k transactions pic.twitter.com/IGMJY7skkq

— sealaunch.xyz (@SeaLaunch_) April 18, 2023

The user spent 455 ETH worth around $950,000 in the process, and close to $7 million in gas fee over the course of the last two months in executing this strategy.

“After closing the day of yesterday with a profit close to $1M, jaredfromsubway.eth MEV bot is already profiting close to $400K today,” wrote on-chain researcher “sealaunch.xyz” on Twitter.

MEV sandwich attacks are a type of front-running, where the bot profits from an artificial increase in price by placing a so-called “sandwich trade” before and after a large-pending transaction. The attacker essentially buys the asset from the victim lower than the market value, and then sells it, making a profit from the difference between the sale and gas fee.

Unsuspecting users often fall victim to this type of attack, without necessarily being aware that they have been front-run by a transaction.

(Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake and bloXroute Labs CEO Uri Klarman discuss why MEV will always be controversial in this episode of Unchained.)

The plethora of MEV-related front running prompted a consortium of Ethereum developers to launch a solution dubbed MEV Blocker for everyday users to protect themselves.

Most of jaredfromsubway.eth’s trades were executed on PEPE trades. PEPE, a memecoin launched on April 14, has sparked a trading frenzy and amassed a market cap of close to $120 million just a few days after its launch.

the % of all ethereum gas spent in the last 24hrs:

jaredfromsubway.eth vs everyone

SAD! pic.twitter.com/nLeyc1aoI9

— beetle (@1kbeetlejuice) April 18, 2023

“Sandwich bots are eating so good because there’s a ton of new people buying coins that don’t know how to minimize slippage. If you don’t want to get rekt, consider using a private relay (e.g. flashbots) or make sure your slippage is tuned just above fees with high gas,” wrote crypto trader “wave” on Twitter.