A Spam Attack By An Arbitrage Bot On The Polygon Network Generated Profit $6,800 Per Day

According to Flipside Crypto, the Polygon network was hit by a spam attack after a cleverly designed arbitrage bot managed to turn 14 ETH into 218.5 ETH in less than four months. The average daily profit was approximately $6,800, excluding the cost to spam the network. The attack began in early May, and in June the number of daily transactions on the Polygon network reached 8 mln per day. Over the same period, the maximum number of transactions on the Ethereum network was 1.2 mln.

Data on the Polygon forum shows that the attacker increased transaction volumes by as much as 90%, filling each block with “meaningless transactions,” while paying only 0.02 MATIC for spamming the entire block and roughly $1,000 for the entire day. An analysis by Flipside Crypto specialists showed that about 30% of the number of transactions on the network fell on two contracts, which were identified as arbitrage bots that conduct thousands of daily transactions on various decentralized exchanges (DEX).

The Polygon team ultimately decided to increase the minimum cost of transaction from 1 gwei to 30 gwei as a way to combat spam and improve network health. This decision achieved its intended goal. Data provided by Delphi Digital shows that the surge in average transaction costs has coincided with a marked decrease in the number of daily transactions. Now to spam the network for an entire day costs $30,000.

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