This article briefly:

· MEV Robotics lost over $400,000 due to a configuration error.

Bots sending funds to the wrong Uniswap pool.

Validators earned over 80 ETH from bot trading.

A few hours ago, the Maximum Extractable Value (MEV) sniping bot malfunctioned, causing users who sent funds to it to lose more than $400,000.

Blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence reported that several users in the Alpha group sent 160 ETH to the bot in an effort to block the launch of Poo Finance tokens.

MEV Robot Accident

These users paid a bribe of 80 ETH to gain priority access to be included in the first block transactions.

This means they invested 240 ETH worth $440,000 to snipe the Poo Finance token.

MEV robot trading (Source: Arkham Intelligence)

MEV bots target the wrong mining pools

However, the bot did not function as intended and sent 160 ETH to the wrong Uniswap V3 pool. Arkham said the bot sent the funds after detecting a developer’s “add liquidity” transaction.

While Poo Finance developers added 40 ETH liquidity to the main pool, the bot’s buy trades were targeted at smaller pools with a smaller token supply.

Typically, trades are organized by transaction fee, giving priority to those who pay higher fees. MEV robots can access this transaction data to maximize profits through arbitrage or front-running.

This means that the 80 ETH bribe resulted in the MEV bot purchasing 4 ETH worth of Poo Finance tokens.

MEV robot trading (Source: Arkham Intelligence)

To make matters worse, all 160 ETH was transferred to the Uniswap router. Due to the functionality used for this token swap, the excess ETH was not refunded.

Another bot sweeps up excess ETH on Uniswap

Another bot, 0x9dd, cleared excess ETH from the Uniswap router. The bot paid 0.43 ETH, worth about 800 ETH, to claim an additional $196,000 in the router.

Meanwhile, the original robot holds more than 6 billion POO tokens, worth about 3 ETH, after spending more than $400,000.

The biggest winners from these transactions are the validators who are incentivized to prioritize the transactions.

Meanwhile, Jared, a MEV bot from thesubway.eth, made millions of dollars earlier this year through sandwich attacks and arbitrage opportunities. On April 19, the bot spent more than $1 million in gas fees to profit from several memecoin transactions.