beincrypto.com
An Ethereum MEV bot has been busy churning through gas as it pumps obscure memecoins such as PEPE and WOJAK.
The ‘jaredfromsubway.eth’ MEV bot has spent more than $1 million in gas over the past 24 hours.
According to Dune Analytics, it has accounted for almost 8% of the total gas spending over the past day. As a result of the increased network activity, gas prices have crept up for the rest of us.
At the time of writing, the MEV bot had spent 522.7 ETH in fees worth an estimated $1.09 million.
Furthermore, the MEV bot has spent more than 1,183 ETH worth $2.4 million over the past week. Its monthly Ethereum gas usage is a whopping $5.3 million making the address the top gas guzzler.
MEV Bot Activity Increasing
Maximal (formerly Miner) Extractable Value, or MEV, is a front-running process whereby a bot detects potentially profitable transactions in the mempool.
Usually, transactions are simply organized by transaction fees. The higher the fee, the higher up the processing list a transaction is placed. An MEV bot can access the transaction data in the mempool (the waiting room for transactions) and arbitrage or front-run them to extract the most profit.
This particular MEV bot appears to be “sandwich attacking” several low-cap altcoins, as noted by DeFi researcher “SeaLaunch_.” The researcher posted a list of the altcoins that the bot had been attacking recently.
A sandwich attack is a malicious type of front-running that is often used to manipulate crypto token prices. As a result, the prices for some of these obscure tokens have indeed pumped.
Furthermore, Ethereum gas prices have increased over the past 24 hours. According to Etherscan, average network fees have jumped 140% since the weekend.
Memecoins Pumping
The price of the obscure PEPE token has pumped more than 200% as a result of the attack. PEPE is another memecoin that doesn’t really have a purpose or any notable functionality.
Crypto trader “Satoshi Flipper” commented:
“You only see this kind of stuff during ALT season, so I’m expecting a sweet little spillover effect of momentum + demand into other ALTS.”
Another seemingly useless memecoin that has surged almost 80% today is WOJAK.
Despite the high cost of gas, the MEV bot appears to have profited from at least these two memecoins.