Imagine swapping stablecoins—USDC to USDT—only to lose nearly everything in an instant.
That’s exactly what happened to a user on Uniswap v3. Here’s how it went down… 👇
A user tried swapping $221K USDC → USDT in a Uniswap v3 pool holding over $35M.
Seems safe, right?
Wrong.
An MEV bot sandwiched the trade and drained $216K before anyone could react.
How did the attack work?
MEV bots lurk in DeFi, watching for big trades.
🔹 The bot front-ran the swap—temporarily pulling USDC liquidity out of the pool.
🔹 The user’s swap executed at a terrible rate.
🔹 The bot restored liquidity after pocketing the profit.
Total cost? A $200K tip to a block builder (bobTheBuilder) and an $8K profit for the attacker.
If you’re using DeFi, you must take precautions:
✅ Lower slippage tolerance – prevents extreme price swings.
✅ Use Cowswap or other aggregators – better execution, MEV protection.
✅ Custom RPCs – avoid leaking transactions to public mempools.
At first, people blamed Uniswap.
But later, it turned out…
⚠️ The user wasn’t using Uniswap’s front-end.
⚠️ Slippage was manually set to 100% (a possible user error).
⚠️ Some suspect money laundering—but why pay a $200K block bribe?
A cautionary tale for anyone in DeFi.
The reaction to this event was huge.
Why?
Because this isn’t just about one unlucky trader—it’s about trust.
Retail users see bots, hacks, and exploits and wonder: Is DeFi even worth the risk?
Right now, DeFi is still the Wild West.
If traders keep getting exploited, can we expect mainstream adoption?
Or will the space remain dominated by insiders, whales, and bots?
Something needs to change.
What do you think? 👇
