Overview
- Blockchain records show the jaredfromsubway.eth bot sandwiched Buterin’s trade in block 24993038 on April 30.
- He swapped 26,544 XDB for 0.00197 ETH worth about $4, and the bot bracketed it with roughly $1.14 million of WETH routed through SushiSwap and Uniswap V2.
- CoinDesk’s review indicates the sequence likely earned only a few cents and may have lost money after about $5.14 in gas fees.
- A sandwich attack buys before a pending swap and sells after it to worsen the user’s price, which bots spot by watching Ethereum’s public mempool where transactions wait before inclusion in a block.
- The case revives attention on Buterin’s push for encrypted mempools in Ethereum’s 2026 roadmap, with estimates putting total Ethereum MEV above $1.2 billion and about half tied to sandwich trades.