Ethereum Sandwich Attack: MEV Bot Named After Jared Fogle Profits from Vitalik Buterin's Trade

An MEV-focused extraction bot, JaredFromSubway.eth, executed a sandwich attack on Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, extracting approximately 0.00197 ETH (worth less than $5 at the time) from his trade.

Buterin was selling 26,544 DigitalBits (XDB) tokens through the Uniswap V2 router with his amountOutMin slippage parameter set to zero. This setting allowed any non-zero output, making his trade vulnerable to manipulation.

How the Sandwich Attack Unfolded

JaredFromSubway.eth monitored Ethereum’s public mempool and inserted itself into Buterin’s transaction in two key positions:

• Front-running: The bot dumped a large amount of XDB into the same Uniswap V2 pool before Buterin’s trade, depressing the exchange rate he would receive.
• Back-running: After Buterin’s trade, the bot repurchased XDB at the depressed price and rotated the inventory through a third liquidity pool to close the loop.

After accounting for gas fees, JaredFromSubway.eth gained no financial profit beyond the transaction’s extracted value. The attack served as a costly joke at Buterin’s expense, demonstrating how even highly skilled traders can fall victim to MEV bots.

The Origin of JaredFromSubway.eth

The bot’s name references Jared Fogle, the former Subway spokesperson who lost nearly 250 pounds but later faced criminal convictions for sexual misconduct involving minors. Fogle remains imprisoned with an expected release date of 2029. Despite his legal troubles, the crypto community adopted his name for the MEV bot as a darkly humorous reference.

Fogle does not control the bot, which operates independently in the Ethereum ecosystem.

Why Buterin’s Trade Was Vulnerable

Buterin’s decision to set amountOutMin to zero made his trade maximally permissive, allowing the price to move unfavorably without rejection. This setting is ideal for MEV bots scanning the mempool for exploitable transactions.

Buterin frequently donates proceeds from unsolicited airdrops, as most of his net worth stems from his pre-mined ETH allocation. In this case, his donation inadvertently benefited the MEV bot instead of its intended recipient.

Expert Reactions and Broader Implications

“This is not just about one funny tx. It is about the fact that Ethereum trading happens inside an adversarial…” — zeugh.eth (@theZeugh), May 7, 2026

The incident underscores the risks of unprotected swaps and the pervasive threat of MEV spam in Ethereum’s Layer 2 ecosystems. Traders are advised to set appropriate slippage parameters to mitigate such attacks.