The realm of Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) is impartial.
Blockchain data from earlier this week indicates that Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum and advocate for rectifying harmful MEV practices, fell victim to the type of attack he has been denouncing. On April 30, Etherscan data reveals that a transaction by Buterin was positioned within block 24993038 amidst an operation by a bot.
A sandwich attack involves a bot detecting a trader’s pending transaction, placing its own buy order ahead to inflate the price, allowing the target to execute at this elevated rate, and then offloading the tokens immediately afterward to capture the profit. Victims usually remain unaware of these attacks due to receiving slightly unfavorable fills.
CoinDesk analysis shows that Buterin exchanged 26,544 digitalbits (XDB) worth approximately $3.86 for 0.00197 ETH valued at $4.56. The bot manipulated the XDB price across SushiSwap and Uniswap V2 by processing $1.14 million in WETH just before Buterin’s transaction.
Post gas fees of $5.14, Jaredfromsubway.eth seemingly incurred a loss on this specific sandwich attack, with Buterin’s slippage amounting to mere cents.
This bot is highly sophisticated, scanning the mempool for any chance to insert itself, regardless of profitability.
For several months, Buterin has advocated for encrypted mempools in Ethereum’s 2026 roadmap as a solution to toxic MEV. MEV involves profiting from transaction reordering on blockchains. Entities monitoring the public mempool can exploit such opportunities by inserting their trades around others’ transactions.
Sandwich attacks are particularly aggressive, with over $1.2 billion of cumulative MEV extracted from Ethereum, accounting for roughly 51% of total volume. Buterin and other developers contend that MEV imposes an invisible tax on regular users, benefiting large operators disproportionately.
Jaredfromsubway.eth gained notoriety in 2023 by executing sandwich attacks during the meme coin frenzy, involving assets like pepe and wojak. At one point, it represented 7% of all network gas fees in April that year and has reportedly accumulated over $7 million from numerous victims across hundreds of thousands of transactions.
Despite various countermeasures, including contract upgrades, mempool filtering, and design attempts to deplete its funds, the bot adapts quickly, outpacing protocols aimed at neutralizing it.