Malicious MEV & Sandwiching

Introduction

Malicious Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) practices on the Solana blockchain erode user confidence and compromise the network's fairness. Techniques like sandwich attacks prey on users by frontrunning and backrunning their transactions to generate profits, resulting in unfavorable prices and a diminished user experience. These methods siphon value away from regular users for the benefit of exploiters.

The scale of these attacks and the identities of those profiting remain largely hidden from public view. This bounty calls on researchers, developers, and data analysts to create public dashboards that reveal malicious MEV activities on Solana. By shedding light on these exploitative practices, we can better assess the issue's magnitude and steer the ecosystem toward a more equitable future.

Bounty Scope

Participants are expected to deliver public, open-source dashboards that surface malicious MEV activity on Solana, focusing especially on sandwich attacks.

The dashboards should aim to quantify the scale of extraction, identify key actors, and reveal broader systemic trends. Submissions can be self-hosted or built using platforms such as Flipside, Dune, or similar analytics tools.

Dashboards are encouraged to explore some of the following areas:

 Attack Profitability

• Total profit extracted, broken down by SOL, stablecoins, and memecoins

• Per-attack profit estimates

• Estimated losses incurred by victims

• Priority fees and Jito tips paid by attackers

 Temporal Patterns

• Attack frequency over time

• Time-of-day and timezone breakdowns (e.g., Asian, European, US hours)

Targeted Venues

• Most frequently sandwiched tokens

• Most targeted on-chain programs, such as pump.fun, Raydium, and others

• Liquidity pools most exploited by attack volume or value extracted

Sandwich Bot Programs

• Market share of known sandwich bots over time

• Cumulative profits per bot

• Attack frequency per program

Validator Participation

• Frequency and percentage of blocks containing sandwich attacks

• Validator-level analysis highlighting potential facilitation of MEV

Example dashboards tracking sandwich activity

• Sandwiched.me - Ghost, Solana sandwiches

• Sandwich Bot e6y - Marqu, Sandwich bot analysis

• LibMEV - Ethereum sandwiches

Reward Structure

• 1st Prize - $3,000

• 2nd Prize - $1,500

• 3rd Prize - $500

Submission Criteria 

Your submission will be rejected:

• If it is not written in English.

• If the work is found to be plagiarized or stolen

• If your dashboard’s queries are forked from other sources or your dashboard is not open-source.

• Your submission is not publicly viewable on and after the submission deadline. Submissions of private links will not be eligible.

  
  

Participants are encouraged to share their work on X/Twitter, tagging @heliuslabs.

Resources 

• Solana MEV Report: Trends, Insights, and Challenges - Helius blog

• Solana MEV: An Introduction - Helius blog