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Vitalik Buterin was targeted by a sandwich attack on April 30 after swapping a small amount of DigitalBits (XDB) for Ether (ETH), according to CoinDesk. The incident highlights how automated MEV (maximal extractable value) systems can monitor pending transactions and attempt to profit from users’ trades.
CoinDesk reported that Buterin exchanged about $3.86 in XDB for about $4.56 in ETH. The swap was front-run and back-run by the jaredfromsubway.eth bot in Ethereum block 24993038.
The bot reportedly used about $1.14 million in wrapped Ether (WETH) across SushiSwap and Uniswap V2 to move the XDB price around Buterin’s transaction.
A sandwich attack occurs when a bot detects a pending trade, places an order before the user to worsen the execution price, allows the user’s trade to go through at the less favorable rate, and then sells after the user’s transaction completes. This mechanism can extract value directly from regular users through poorer trade execution.
In this case, the loss for Buterin was likely limited to only a few cents. CoinDesk reported that the bot may have lost money after paying about $5.14 in gas fees, even though the attack still demonstrated the bot’s ability to target very small transactions.
JaredfromSubway is not new to Ethereum MEV activity. In 2023, crypto.news reported that the bot used 455 ETH in 24 hours and accounted for about 7% of all Ethereum gas during that period. The same report cited tracking data showing the bot performed about 180,000 transactions over two months.
The timing is notable because Buterin has supported tools aimed at reducing toxic MEV. He has backed encrypted mempools as part of Ethereum’s 2026 roadmap to limit front-running and sandwich attacks.
Crypto.news defines MEV as value gained by changing transaction order inside a block. Its glossary notes that sandwich attacks remain controversial because users often receive worse prices without clearly seeing the additional cost.
The MEV discussion is also extending beyond Ethereum. As previously covered, Flare’s proposal would capture MEV at the protocol level and route that value through buybacks and burns rather than relying on external searchers.
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