The well-known MEV bot on the Solana network earned about $30 million in two months on arbitrage "sandwich attacks".
Over the past 1-2 months, arsc, the infamous sandwich bot on Solana, has pocketed over $30 million 🤯!
Their profits are largely sitting in the following two wallets:👇 pic.twitter.com/N1JavgScC7
According to an investigation by an online analyst under the nickname Ben, the bot's revenues are distributed between two main wallets.
The first contains 114,352 SOLS worth approximately $16.5 million. This address looks inactive and probably functions as a storage or backup.
Another bot-related wallet is active in the Solana DeFi segment. He periodically converts SOL tokens into USDC stablecoins through DEX Jupiter.
The analyst noted that the address holds significant positions in the Kamino landing protocol and on various liquid staking platforms.
According to the researcher's observations, MEV bot operators are trying to hide their activities and income due to unnecessary attention on the network. Not so long ago, they moved all the main operations to another address.
In addition, the bot uses a variety of signers and "tippers" to mask transactions.
The head of Dune Analytics, Andrew Wong, noted that in late April and early May, the turnover of this bot was about 15% of the total volume on DEX in Solana. However, later its indicator fell to 0.5%.
They also made up like 15% of all solana dex volume origination around end of april/early may lol, before disappearing to like 0.5% suddenly by mid may. https://t.co/R7lyYVno1O
— ilemi (@andrewhong5297) June 15, 2024Earlier, several Solana validators were expelled for participating in "sandwich attacks" against users. CoinDesk reported that most of the blocked network members were citizens of the Russian Federation.
Recall that the co-founder of the network, Vitalik Buterin, attributed MEV to the three main threats to network decentralization, along with liquid staking and the cost of launching a full node.
The EU regulator called the technology a prime example of market abuse.