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Ethereum Co-Founder’s Swap Was Sandwiched After Months of Criticism of Toxic MEV

Vitalik Buterin’s roughly $4 XDB-to-ETH swap was sandwiched by jaredfromsubway.eth, highlighting continued MEV risks on Ethereum even as Buterin pushes encrypted mempools in the network’s 2026 roadmap.

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Summary

Vitalik Buterin’s roughly $4 XDB-to-ETH swap was sandwiched by jaredfromsubway.eth, according to the source, in an incident that illustrates the persistence of toxic MEV on Ethereum. The bot reportedly used about $1.14 million in WETH and paid roughly $5.14 in gas, ultimately losing money, while Buterin’s slippage amounted to only a few cents. The episode adds concrete details to earlier reporting that an Ethereum co-founder who has criticized harmful MEV and supported encrypted mempools was targeted by a sandwich attack. It also links the event directly to Buterin’s stated push to prioritize encrypted mempools in Ethereum’s 2026 roadmap.

Terms & Concepts
  • MEV: MEV (maximal extractable value) refers to profits that block builders, validators, or bots can capture by reordering, inserting, or censoring transactions before they are finalized.
  • Encrypted mempool: An encrypted mempool is a proposed mechanism for hiding transaction details before execution to reduce front-running and other forms of transaction exploitation.
  • WETH: WETH, or wrapped Ether, is a tokenized version of ETH that follows the ERC-20 standard and is commonly used in decentralized finance and trading.