More than 30 Ethereum projects have come together to launch a tool that blocks Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) bots from front-running transactions.
CoW Swap, Agnostic Relay and Beaver Build have jointly developed MEV Blocker – a solution for everyday Ethereum users to protect themselves from MEV bots.
CoW Swap, in collaboration with @beaverbuild and Agnostic Relayer, is proud to announce MEV Blocker. https://t.co/WIhaaGtP0e ⛱️
MEV Blocker is a free RPC endpoint that *pays users* to protect themselves from MEV across a wide variety of use cases in DeFi, NFTs, and dApps. pic.twitter.com/Fa6cRNjrxf
— CoW DAO | Don't get milked ™️ (@CoWSwap) April 5, 2023
Joining the initiative are several popular protocols building on Ethereum, including GnosisDAO, Balancer, ShapeShift and ParaSwap.
The MEV Blocker routes all transactions through a network of searchers, structured to block front running and sandwich attacks. The free service will send 90% of the profits that searchers bid to back run transactions on MEV Blocker to users, while 10% of profits will go to validators.
According to MEV Blocker’s estimates, MEV bots have extracted more than $1.38 billion from users, whether they are traders, liquidity providers or minting NFTs on the blockchain.
With the customer Remote Call Procedure (RPC) endpoint added to crypto wallets, users will be shielded from MEV bots that extract value from their transactions.
According to Martin Köppelmann, CEO of Gnosis, the only downside of using this RPC would be transactions potentially taking 10% more time than they normally would.
not really. Worst case you don't get the protection but then you simply end up in the same situation as with a regular RPC endpoint.
Only downside is that transaction inclusion will take ~10% more time.— Martin Köppelmann 🦉💳 (@koeppelmann) April 5, 2023
“MEV blocker protects from most kinds of front-running, but especially from trade sandwiching, which is when a searcher trades just before and just after your transaction to make a profit,” said the team.
Earlier this week, a validator made headlines after successfully front-running MEV sandwich bots, earning $25 million worth of crypto in the process.
I feel absolutely zero remorse for MEV sandwich bots, which exist solely to extract value from retail, having $20M drained from them
What goes around, comes around pic.twitter.com/1gQI5y7O5C
— Zach Rynes | CLG (@ChainLinkGod) April 4, 2023
