Ethereum’s most notorious sandwich bot targets Vitalik Buterin’s swap

Vitalik Buterin was targeted by a sandwich attack on April 30 after swapping a small amount of DigitalBits for Ether. 

Summary

• Vitalik Buterin’s small XDB swap was sandwiched by JaredfromSubway, Ethereum’s notorious MEV trading bot.
• The bot used about $1.14 million in WETH but likely lost money after gas.
• The incident renewed attention on encrypted mempools as Ethereum developers seek stronger protection against MEV.

CoinDesk reported that the Ethereum co-founder exchanged about $3.86 in XDB for about $4.56 in ETH.

The trade was front-run and back-run by the jaredfromsubway.eth bot in Ethereum block 24993038. The bot reportedly used about $1.14 million in wrapped Ether across SushiSwap and Uniswap V2 to move the XDB price around Buterin’s swap.

JaredfromSubway returns to focus

A sandwich attack happens when a bot sees a pending trade, places an order before it, lets the user trade at a worse price, then sells after it. This type of MEV directly extracts value from regular users by giving them poorer execution.

In this case, the loss for Buterin was likely only a few cents. CoinDesk reported that the bot may have lost money after paying about $5.14 in gas fees. The case still showed how automated MEV systems scan even very small trades.

JaredfromSubway is not new to Ethereum traders. In 2023, crypto.news reported that the bot used 455 ETH in 24 hours and accounted for about 7% of all Ethereum gas during that period.

That same report cited tracking data showing the bot had performed about 180,000 transactions over two months. The latest Buterin case brings that history back into view, even though the trade itself was small.

MEV debate returns to Ethereum roadmap

The timing is notable because Buterin has pushed for tools that reduce toxic MEV. He has supported encrypted mempools as part of Ethereum’s 2026 roadmap to limit front-running and sandwich attacks.

Crypto.news defines MEV as value gained by changing transaction order inside a block. Its glossary says sandwich attacks remain controversial because users often receive worse prices without seeing the extra cost clearly.

The debate is also spreading beyond Ethereum. As previously covered, Flare’s proposal to capture MEV at the protocol level and route that value through buybacks and burns instead of outside searchers.