An Ethereum MEV bot has been busy pumping obscure memecoins, such as PEPE and WOJAK, and churning through the gas in the process. The bot, known as ‘jaredfromsubway.eth,’ spent over $1 million in gas in the past 24 hours, accounting for almost 8% of the total gas spending over that period.
This has caused gas prices to increase for regular users. The bot has spent over 1,183 ETH, worth $2.4 million, in the past week, making it the top gas guzzler with a monthly Ethereum gas usage of $5.3 million.
The bot uses Maximal (formerly Miner) Extractable Value (MEV) to front-run transactions in the mempool, detecting potentially profitable transactions and arbitraging them to extract the most profit.
This particular MEV bot appears to be “sandwich attacking” several low-cap altcoins, as reported by DeFi researcher “SeaLaunch_.” The researcher posted a list of the altcoins that the bot had been attacking recently.
Sandwich attacks are malicious front-running tactics often used to manipulate crypto token prices, resulting in pumped prices for some of these obscure tokens.
Ethereum gas prices have increased by 140% since the weekend, as per Etherscan, causing concerns for regular users who may have to pay higher fees for their transactions.
