In a recent crypto trading incident, a Solana-based Maximum Extractable Value (MEV) bot remarkably profited from a single, poorly executed trade, resulting in a striking $1.7 million takeaway. This occured when a trader engaged in a $9 million purchase of the lesser-known memecoin, Dogwifhat (WIF), with an appraisal by observers as being done most inefficiently.

According to Solscan data, the MEV bot, operated by the entity 2fast, swapped an initial 703 Solana for 490,000 WIF within the same transaction bundle. They then immediately swapped these WIF tokens for 19,035 SOL, thereby making a tidy profit amounting to $1.73 million. These MEV bots are essentially automated programs capable of identifying lucrative trading opportunities across blockchain networks and autonomously executing those trades.

This bot utilized a service developed by Jito Labs, the company behind Solana’s liquid staking protocol Jito. The integration allows bots, in a similar fashion to Ethereum’s flashbots, to find maximum extractable value and request their inclusion in the transaction package.

This significant gain by the bot was made possible due to the actions of a sole trader identified as zeroxtrading.sol, who decided to purchase an astounding $8.9 million of the memecoin in a single order. Executed in a low-liquidity pool, the high-value bid had to be filled at an inflated rate. This means the buyer paid approximately $3 for each WIF token, a massive 1,400% more than the token’s worth, and subsequently resulted in an immediate loss of 92% of the trader’s funds.

Despite this unfortunate financial hit, the misstep appears to have motivated others to invest, driving up the token’s price again with WIF posting a 50% gain soon after the sizeable drop.