A cryptocurrency trading bot programmed to execute arbitrary transactions performed various complex maneuvers within the ethereum blockchain including securing a $200 million flash loan to secure a profit of just $3.24.
On June 14, blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence shared a breakdown of the bot's movements. According to the company, the transaction was completed by an arbitrary bot using flash loans. The analyst firm explained that Dai, One reason for the high borrowing amou nt is that MakerDAO's “DssFlash” contract allows borrowing any amount of DAI with zero fees, up to a limit of $500 million. This means that bots can make unsecured loans as long as the assets lent will be paid within the same block.
According to Arkham, the bot borrowed 200 million DAI from decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol MakerDAO and provided the funds to the Aave DAI marketplace. After this, 1.349 Wrapped Ether (WETH) was borrowed against the funds. WETH is then used to buy Threshold Network (T) tokens on the Curve Finance exchange and sell them on the liquidity protocol Balancer.
Through these transactions, the bot received a total of 0.019 Ether, worth approximately $33 at the time of the transaction. However, the transaction has a transaction fee of approximately $28.76, with an additional $1 sent to the block builder. profit only $3.24. While the risk may seem high compared to the amount gained, one community member praised the bot saying "profit is profit". Doing all this for a small profit shows how bad a bear market can be, said one Twitter user.
At the same time, not all bots are engaged in low-margin trading. On April 20, bot operators made more than $1 million in profits by sandwiching memecoin traders. Most of the profits come from targeted trading activity in memecoins like Pepe Coin (PEPE ) and Wojak (WOJAK).
