Solana Sandwich Bot Nets Over $30 Million in MEV Arbitrage

A prominent Solana sandwich bot, known by the wallet initial “arsc4jbD,” has reportedly generated over $30 million through Maximum Extractable Value (MEV) arbitrage over the past two months. The bot’s activities have garnered significant attention due to its substantial earnings and sophisticated operations within the Solana ecosystem.

According to an investigation by on-chain analyst Ben, the bot’s earnings are primarily distributed across two main wallets. The first wallet, “9973…yWp6,” currently holds approximately $16.5 million worth of SOL, equivalent to 114,000 SOL tokens. This wallet appears to be relatively inactive, suggesting it functions as a cold storage or a locked-down reserve.

Meanwhile, the other wallet associated with the bot, “Ai4z…xkkt,” remains highly active within Solana’s DeFi landscape. This wallet gradually converts SOL tokens to USDC stablecoin through the Jupiter exchange dollar-cost averaging service. It reportedly holds notable positions in Kamino and various liquid staking tokens (LSTs).

Furthermore, Ben highlighted the bot’s efforts to obscure its activities and earnings, suggesting an aversion to the growing attention. Accordingly, the bot has shifted its primary operations to the wallet BCbrp, which now serves as the main “SOL bank” for its sandwich trades. Additionally, the bot employs numerous signers and tippers to mask its transactions further.

Reacting to the revelation, X user Anna commented on the broader implications of MEV, noting that even the traditional derivatives market and fiat financial world have not found a fool-proof solution to sandwiching.

Adding to the analysis, Andrew Ilemi, headmaster at Dune Analytics, pointed out the significant impact the bot had on Solana’s DEX volume. He noted that around the end of April and early May, this single bot accounted for roughly 15% of all DEX volume origination on Solana. However, by mid-May, its activity had sharply declined to about 0.5%.