Ethereum MEV Bot Guzzles Over $1M in Gas Pumping Memecoins
Over the past 24 hours, the MEV bot ‘jaredfromsubway.eth’ has spent over $1 million on fuel. According to Dune Analytics, that accounted for more than 8% of the previous day’s total fuel expenditure. As a result of increased grid activity, gas prices for all of us have crept up.
The MEV bot has spent 522.7 ETH on fees worth around $1.09 million at the time of writing. Moreover, in the past week, the MEV bot has spent around 1,183 ETH worth $2.4 million. His monthly Ethereum gas consumption is $5.3 million, making him the biggest gas drinker.
MEV, or Maximal (formerly Miner) Extractable Value, is a precursor process where bots find potentially profitable transactions in the mempool. Usually, transactions are classified based solely on transaction costs. The higher the fee, the higher the transaction is placed on the processing list. MEV bots can access transaction data in mempools (transaction waiting rooms) and arbitrage or front-run to maximize profits.
The MEV bot appears to be “sandwiching” various low-cap cryptocurrencies, according to DeFi researcher “SeaLaunch_.” Researchers published a list of altcoins recently attacked by bots. A sandwich attack is a kind of malicious front-running that is often used to influence crypto token prices. As a result, the price of some of these obscure tokens has increased significantly.
In addition, Ethereum gas prices have increased in the last 24 hours. Etherscan reports that the average network fee has increased 140% since the weekend. As a result of the attack, the price of the obscure PEPE token has increased by more than 200%. PEPE is another memecoin with no clear purpose or use.
“You only see this kind of thing during ALT season,” said crypto trader “Satoshi Flipper”, “so I was expecting a sweet little spillover effect from momentum + demand to other ALTS.”
WOJAK is another seemingly insignificant memecoin that has increased by almost 80% today. Despite the high cost of fuel, it seems that MEV bots are profiting from at least these two memecoins.
