Solana Sandwich Bot Gets $30M From MEV Arbitrage In 2 Months
The most famous Maximum Extractable Value (MEV) sandwich bot known as “arsc” has pocketed nearly $30 million in MEV attacks from Solana users in the past two months.
An MEV sandwich attack occurs when an attacker “sandwiches” a victim's transaction between two transactions of their own to distort the value and profit from the user. They profit by buying the victim's token cheaper than the market price and then sell it in the same block.
Ben Coverston, founder of crypto firm MRGN Research, said in a June 15 post on X that this particular sandwich bot, known as “arsc,” has “gone to great lengths” to avoid distraction while profiting from users of the Solana network.
One of the bot's largest wallet addresses is “9973h…zyWp6,” which Coverston believes is primarily used for cold storage.
“It's very inactive and judging by its behavior it's definitely a locked and cold wallet,” Coverston said.
According to Solana Explorer site SolanaFM, the wallet holds a little over $19 million in total funds, including $17 million in Solana (SOL) tokens and $1.1 million in Circle's USD Coin (USDC) stable coin.
Smaller amounts of roll-SOL (wSOL), Cringe Coin (CRINGE) and Kabosu (KAB) are also available.
Another major wallet, address “Ai4zq…VXKKT,” is more active in decentralized finance activities, Coverston said. “He gradually converted SOL to USDC at JUP DCA and held top positions on Camino and various LSTs.”
It holds more than $9.9 million in total funds, mostly comprised of non-SOL tokens, SolanaFM reported.
Coverston identified a third wallet address, “BCbrp…vi58q”, which he believed to be the “main SOL bank” of Arcee, as it uses dozens of different signers and tippers to carry out sandwich attacks.
The three wallets together hold $29.8 million in current prices, and Coveston believes the operator behind Arseq appears to be trying to keep a low profile.
They seem to be unhappy with the attention as they have recently gone to great lengths to hide their activities and profits.
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MEV Sandwich Bots often use intelligent algorithms to identify these opportunities and exploit them for profit. They are a common activity among bots with the highest possible value on Ethereum.
More than $1.38 billion was wiped from “well-meaning” Ethereum users on or before April 2023, according to MEVBlocker.
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