MEV bots

As the Blockchain Industry Loses Billions Annually to MEV, the Solution Is Staring Us in the Face — Neo Founder Da Hongfei

February 13, 2024 Bitcoin.com

Ethereum logs $1M MEV block reward amid Curve Finance exploit

July 31, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Ethereum logs M MEV block reward amid Curve Finance exploit

The highest recently generated block reward was 584 ETH, created by a MEV bot front-running transactions during the DeFi chaos.

The recent Curve Finance exploit has reportedly led to one of the largest ever maximal extractable value (MEV) reward blocks of 584.05 Ether (ETH).

On July 31, Ethereum core developer “eric.eth” reported that “today has produced some of the largest MEV reward blocks in Ethereum’s history,” adding it was caused by the exploit of Curve Finance stable pools on July 30.

Data shows a larger MEV reward block of 692 ETH was recorded in March.

“A bot notices an incoming hack in the mempool, reproduces the tx [transaction] and front runs it”, he explained before adding, “To do so they pay the block producer a lot of ETH to be front of the line.”

Today has produced some of the largest MEV reward blocks in Ethereum’s history.

Slot 6,992,273: 584 ETH
Slot 6,993,342: 345 ETH
Slot 6,992,050: 247 ETH
Slot 6,993,346: 51 ETH
— eric.eth (@econoar) July 30, 2023

A MEV bot is designed to generate extra revenue by reordering and/or inserting transactions in an otherwise normal block to generate arbitrage opportunities.

MEV bots can also see pending liquidation transactions and front-run them to buy the liquidated assets first at a discount.

The validator gets to propose a block using a relay that outsources their block production to entities specialized in extracting this extra revenue. They will get a cut of this revenue in exchange for allowing the MEV bot to front-run the transaction.

This is known as the “block reward” and some huge ones have been logged over the past few hours.

The highest MEV bot block reward was 584.05 ETH, valued at around $1 million, confirmed at 1.34 am UTC on July 31, according to Beaconcha.in. There were also block rewards for 345 ETH and 247 ETH around that time.

Moral questions were raised among the responses to the tweet and the implications of potentially illicit funds being used to pay validators to allow the front-running of transactions.

“And this is where the morality of MEV rewards going to miners gets pretty shady. These are effectively hacked funds.”

In April, a Subway-themed trading bot made millions in extractable value by using “sandwich attacks” during the memecoin trading frenzy.

Collect this article as an NFT to preserve this moment in history and show your support for independent journalism in the crypto space.

Magazine: Should crypto projects ever negotiate with hackers? Probably

April’s crypto scams, exploits and hacks lead to $103M lost — CertiK

May 1, 2023 Coin Telegraph

certik

The month was particularly bad for exploits, with the amount lost accounting for half of the total crypto exploited so far in 2023.

Crypto exploits, exit scams, and flash loan attacks saw little signs of letting up in April, with more than $103 million of funds stolen from crypto projects and investors in the month.

On April 30, crypto security and auditing firm CertiK posted an April roundup of crypto exploits, scams, and hacks, revealing total funds lost in April was $103.7 million, bringing the year-to-date total loss to $429.7 million.

The month was particularly marred with major crypto exploits, such as $25.4 million lost due to an exploit of several MEV trading bots on April 3, $22 million stolen in a hot wallet exploit at the Bitrue exchange and the hack of South Korean GDAC exchange leading to a loss of $13 million.

*April 2023 crypto exploits. Source: CertiK*

The total lost to crypto and DeFi exploits in the month amounted to $74.5 million, making up around half of the total $145 million exploited in the first four months of the year, according to CertiK.

The month also saw around $20 million lost to flash loan attacks, led mainly by Yearn Finance after a hacker exploited an old smart contract on April 13.

The blockchain security firm noted that total funds lost to exit scams reached $9.4 million in the month, with the top exit scam for the month being Merlin DEX which lost $2.7 million. On April 26, CertiK reported that it was investigating a “potential private key management issue” at the exchange.

Furthermore, the exit scam occurred after the protocol was audited by CertiK which warned about centralization issues. CertiK launched a compensation plan following the attack in which it urged the rogue developer to return 80% of the stolen funds with a 20% white hat bounty offered.

April 2023 crypto exit scams. Source: CertiK

According to De.Fi’s Rekt Database, there were over 50 crypto exploits, scams, hacks, and rug pulls in April. Moreover, a large portion of them was memecoin rug pulls.

The most recent was the Polygon-based Ovix protocol which lost $2 million in a flash loan attack on April 28.

Magazine: US enforcement agencies are turning up the heat on crypto-related crime

Rogue Validator Exploits MEV Bots on Ethereum, Resulting in $25.3M in Crypto Losses

April 4, 2023 Bitcoin.com

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