🎯 What is MEV?
MEV (Maximum Extractable Value) is the money that bots earn by "front-running" in on-chain transactions.
💡 A simple way to visualize it:
You go to the market to buy fruit. As soon as you arrive, someone jumps in front and buys exactly what you were going to buy, then immediately sells it back to you at a higher price. That is MEV in crypto.
😱 On the blockchain, MEV typically occurs as follows:
🔸 Front-run: The bot sees you preparing to swap → it goes in before you, pushing the price up → you have to buy at a higher price.
🔸 Sandwich attack: The bot buys before you → waits for you to swap → then sells right after you → profits from both sides.
🔸 Fake volume pump: The bot spams buying and selling to trick others into thinking that coin is hot → then dumps the tokens.
🤕 Why should newcomers be concerned?
Seeing unusually high slippage when swapping coins
Tokens that are freshly launched are quickly scooped up by bots
Entering a liquidity pool and losing money without trading at all
All of this could be caused by MEV, and it’s not that you’re "dumb", you just don’t understand the game yet.
💡 What to do to avoid losing profits to MEV?
✅ Use swap apps that have anti-bot features (like Jupiter on Solana)
✅ Avoid swapping when a pool has just opened; wait a few minutes for stability
✅ Use trading simulation tools if available
✅ Monitor volume and large wallets to avoid being bait
🧠 Remember:
In crypto, "knowing a beat early" is the difference between profit and loss.
MEV is real. But you can still survive if you understand how it works.