Solana’s MEV Bot Strikes Gold: $1.8 Million Earned in Seconds from Meme Coin Trade

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Ruholamin Haqshanas

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Ruholamin Haqshanas

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Ruholamin Haqshanas is a contributing crypto writer for CryptoNews. He is a crypto and finance journalist with over four years of experience. Ruholamin has been featured in several high-profile crypto...

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January 12, 2024 05:21 EST

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A MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) arbitrage bot operator, known as 2Fast, has achieved a profit of $1.8 million from a single transaction bundle.

The bot, under the control of 2Fast, transformed an initial investment of 703 SOL, valued at approximately $70,000, into a whopping 19,035 SOL, equivalent to around $1.9 million.

An additional 890 SOL was generously tipped to Figment, a prominent network validator.

The feat took a mere 20 seconds, as reported by crypto user @norbertbodziony, who noticed the transaction and shared it on social media platform X.

$SOL MEV bot just made almost 2M profit arb + 100k tip to @jito_sol validator. pic.twitter.com/H9rUtyCa1k

— NB 😈 (@norbertbodziony) January 10, 2024

The colossal profit was not a result of random luck but a carefully executed MEV strategy that targeted the meme coin, dogwifhat (WIF).

The maneuver paid off handsomely, marking a significant win for 2Fast in the crypto world.

The masterstroke was executed through an MEV execution tool developed by Jito Labs, enabling users to locate MEV opportunities and bid for transaction bundle inclusion on Solana (SOL).

The approach closely mirrors Ethereum (ETH)‘s Flashbots and has opened up new avenues for arbitrage and profit generation on Solana.

A Trader’s Mistake Cost Him $9 Million

The catalyst for this financial windfall was a trader’s costly mistake.

In an unfortunate turn of events, a trader inadvertently spent nearly $9 million to acquire dogwifhat (WIF) by erroneously placing an order in a low-liquidity pool.

The blunder resulted in acquiring the meme coin at a staggering $3 per unit, significantly higher than its market rate of $0.2 at the time.

This error triggered a back-running opportunity for savvy MEV operators who swiftly seized the chance.

Back-running is a specialized MEV strategy that capitalizes on temporary price fluctuations caused by another transaction.

These astute bots vigilantly monitor the mempool, an area where unconfirmed blockchain transactions await processing, identifying target transactions to follow and profit from.

2Fast may have taken the lion’s share with nearly $1.8 million in earnings, but on-chain data reveals that other bots also took advantage of this lucrative opportunity.

Notably, the SOL earned from MEV tips is allocated to validators running the Jito client on Solana, creating a symbiotic relationship that benefits both traders and validators in the Solana ecosystem.

Solana Continues to Achieve New Milestones

Layer 1 blockchain Solana continues to make waves in the crypto community as it achieves several significant milestones.

Over the past week, the network surpassed Ethereum in 7-day stablecoin trading volume for the first time ever.

As reported, the value of stablecoin transfers on Solana reached a staggering $103 billion last week, outperforming all other networks.

Ethereum secured the second position with $90.9 billion, followed by Tron with $82.3 billion and BNB Chain with $14.6 billion.

In addition to stablecoin trading volume, Solana also surpassed Ethereum in NFT trade volume for the month of December.

According to Degen News, Solana hosted trades worth $366.6 million, while Ethereum recorded $353.2 million.

However, data from CryptoSlam reveals that over the past 30 days, Solana’s NFT sales amounted to $329.3 million, which is approximately 5% less than Ethereum’s $345 million during the same period.

The popularity of Solana is evident not only in trading volumes but also in search trends.

In mid-December, worldwide searches for “Solana” surpassed those for “Ethereum,” as reported by Google Trends.