How MEV bots lost a whopping $ 20 million in a sandwich attack

How MEV bots lost a whopping $ 20 million in a sandwich attack

A large MEV bot from Ethereum was attacked on Sunday in a sandwich attack that brought in around $ 25 million in funds to an attacking validator.

• A sandwich attack is available if a attacker places a large trade on both sides of the transaction of a target, manipulated the price and benefits from the price change.

• In this case, the money was taken from MEV bots (maximum extractable value)-bots that focused on reorganizing transactions within a block to maximize the profits that they generate for validists.

• In the Ethereum Block 16964664 On Sunday, 8 separate blockchain addresses led 8 Sandwich attacks with 3 transactions each, i.e. a total of 24 transactions. This series of transactions intentionally seemed to steal funds from a MEV bot, who tried to drive the block forward and gain more value.
• The attacking validator was able to trace the original backrun transaction of the MEV-Bot with a new backrun transaction and thus break off the initial backrun transaction of the MEV-Bot.
• Data from the blockchain security group Peckshield show that the attacker transferred that is a separate blockchain address, which Now hold around $ 20 million in Geldern. This includes $ 13.4 million on Weth, $ 3 million on USDT, $ 1.8 million in WBTC and $ 1.7 million.
• The attacker had planned this attack for half a month. According to the defi analysis platform Eigenphi " The attacker had completed eight purchases from March 17th and StG, AAVE, CRV, BIT, MKR, Uni and other tokens with 0.07 ETH ".
• The validator of the targeted block went offline after era 191813. He will be able to withdraw his stuck ETH if the Ethereum Shapella upgrade goes live next month.