If you’re swapping tokens on a blockchain like Solana or Ethereum, there’s a sneaky trick you should know about: the sandwich attack. No, it’s not about food — but it will eat up your money if you’re not careful. 👀
Let’s break it down.
What Is a Sandwich Attack?
A sandwich attack is a type of MEV (Maximum Extractable Value) strategy that bad actors (usually bots) use to profit off your transaction by placing theirs before and after it.
Here’s how it works:
- You want to buy Token A.
- A bot sees your trade in the mempool (public waiting area).
- It buys before you, pushing the price up.
- Then you buy, but now at a higher price.
- The bot sells right after, making a profit.
- You’re left with fewer tokens than you should’ve gotten. Not cool.
It’s like trying to grab a sandwich and someone jumps ahead of you, raises the price, and then sells you the same sandwich for more. Rude.
Why It Matters
Sandwich attacks hurt regular users, making swaps more expensive and unfair. They also mess with the integrity of DeFi protocols by letting bots extract value from honest traders.
And unless you’re using some kind of protection, you probably won’t even notice it’s happening.
How to Avoid Getting Sandwiched
Luckily, there’s a solution — and it’s actually pretty slick.
Jupiter (the #1 swap aggregator on Solana) just launched ULTRA Mode, a new swap feature that’s basically a stealth mode for your transactions. Here’s what it does:
- Private transactions: Your swap gets routed through private validators, so it never appears in the public mempool where bots hang out.
- Smart routing: Jupiter builds swap paths that are harder to exploit.
- MEV protection: ULTRA Mode works with trusted validators to keep your swaps safe from front-running and back-running bots.
So if you’re serious about getting the best value for your swaps — without bots stealing your lunch — switching to ULTRA Mode is a no-brainer.
TL;DR
Sandwich attacks = bots front-running your swap and making you pay more.
ULTRA Mode = private, protected swaps that avoid that nonsense.
Next time you swap, go ULTRA. Your wallet will thank you.
