BNB Chain Hit by Record Sandwich Attacks in November, Impacting Thousands of Traders

A record 35.5% of BNB Chain’s blocks were affected by Sandwich attacks in November.

Over the past week alone, 645 Sandwich Bots were found to be active on the chain. In total, roughly 43,400 DEX traders were impacted during the entire ordeal.

Sandwich Bots Exploit BNB Chain

According to data compiled by Dune Analytics, the trading volume on BNB Chain’s DEX reached $9.232 million that week, with Sandwich Bot transactions contributing $1.322 million.

A sandwich attack, which is also referred to as front-running, is an MEV technique where an attacker identifies a pending transaction and strategically places orders before and after it, effectively surrounding the target transaction. While front-running is one of the most common MEV methods, other strategies like back-running and transaction ordering manipulation also take place.

These types of attacks are especially prevalent on decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms and decentralized exchanges (DEXs), where the mempool’s transparency exposes transactions before they are confirmed.

In contrast, Ethereum has seen a reduction in Sandwich attacks since July, with the percentage dropping from 62.9% to 40.2% over the past five months. During the past month, over 12,000 DEX users on the network fell victim to these attacks.

Sandwich Attacks on Solana

Solana too has seen a significant increase in these attacks this year. As a result, the Solana Foundation took decisive action against validators involved in sandwich attacks in June 2024. The foundation removed a group of validator operators from its delegation program for their involvement in these attacks, adding that any validators engaged in such behavior would be permanently excluded and have their stake removed.

Tim Garcia, Solana Validator Relations Lead, reaffirmed that enforcement would continue as the foundation detects operators participating in such malicious activities. Mert Mumtaz, co-founder of Solana RPC provider Helius, explained that while Solana’s design prevents these attacks, some actors modified their validators to enable them. Mumtaz also suggested that other stake pools might adopt similar policies against sandwich attacks in the future.