The notorious MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) sandwich bot known as “arsc” has raked in approximately $30 million from Solana users over the past two months through a series of MEV attacks.
An MEV sandwich attack occurs when an attacker places their own transactions around a victim’s transaction—buying the same token at a lower price before the victim’s trade and then selling it at a profit within the same block. This manipulates the market price to benefit the attacker.
Ben Coverston, founder of cryptocurrency research firm MRGN Research, noted in a June 15 post on X that the arsc bot has made significant efforts to stay under the radar while profiting from Solana network users.
One of the bot’s primary wallet addresses, “9973h…zyWp6,” appears to be mainly used for cold storage. According to Coverston, the wallet is “quite inactive” and is “almost certainly a locked-down cold wallet.” SolanaFM, a Solana explorer, shows the wallet holds just over $19 million, including $17 million in Solana (SOL) tokens and $1.1 million in USD Coin (USDC), as well as small amounts of wrapped-SOL (wSOL), Cringe Coin (CRINGE), and Kabosu (KAB).
Another significant wallet, “Ai4zq…VXKKT,” is far more active in DeFi activities. Coverston described it as gradually converting SOL to USDC via JUP DCA, holding substantial positions in Kamino and various liquid staking tokens (LSTs). This wallet holds over $9.9 million in total, primarily in non-SOL tokens.
A third wallet, “BCbrp…vi58q,” is believed to be arsc’s main SOL bank, as it uses multiple signers and tippers to carry out the sandwich attacks. Together, these three wallets hold a combined total of $29.8 million at current prices. Coverston believes the bot’s operator is intentionally keeping a low profile.
“It seems they don’t enjoy the attention,” Coverston stated. “Recently, they’ve gone to great lengths to hide their activities and profits.”
MEV sandwich bots rely on sophisticated algorithms to identify and exploit arbitrage opportunities. These bots are common not only on Solana but also on Ethereum, where they’ve been responsible for significant losses. According to MEVBlocker, over $1.38 billion was extracted from “well-meaning” Ethereum users by MEV bots as of April 2023.