Unexpectedly, over $1.5 million in wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) and wrapped Ethereum (WETH) were unintentionally sent to jaredfromsubway.eth, a high frequency, Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) bot that has been pestering traders on the Ethereum network. 0xCuteSocks revealed the information regarding the $1.5 million funds mistakenly transferred to the MEV bot on Twitter.
While the bot has been held responsible for trapping traders and raising ETH gas fees, it has also reportedly used up over 7% of those fees over the past 24 hours. Data from Dune analytics shows that between April 18 and 19, the MEV bot used 455 ETH, or about 7% of all the gas consumed on Ethereum.
Furthermore, reports claim that the bot has carried out about 180,000 transactions over the last two months and spent about 3,720 ETH, or $950,000. The bot made a profit of about $250,000 on April 17, which increased to about $400,000 on April 19, two days later.
The Ethereum network’s MEV bot, which has been ruining trading, is also to blame for stealing millions from investors.
This has been a source of worry for traders as they try to figure out which tokens to steer clear of. For meme tokens like NEET, PEPE, and APED, among others, some have even called for an MEV blocker to prevent a sandwich attack.
Although the MEV bot has been making enormous profits, the deployer changed his mind after mistakenly transferring $1.5 million. After the sender requested the owner of the MEV bot, the $1.5 million worth of tokens were successfully refunded, according to a Twitter user. However, the proliferation of MEV bots has become a significant problem in the cryptocurrency industry. Some experts caution that the bots may pose a security threat to the entire blockchain ecosystem.
While some bots carry out legitimate operations, others are built to profit from flaws in the system, even at the expense of human error. Traders must know the risks and take the necessary precautions to safeguard themselves from potential attacks as MEV bots become more widespread.
Due to the immutable nature of cryptocurrency transfers, there is no refund guarantee.
As a result, traders are advised to use an MEV blocker and steer clear of vulnerable tokens to defend themselves from potential attacks.
