Solana sandwich attacker extracted 45.3473 SOL profit for $3,870 gain on Figment validator via PumpSwap in under one second.

According to Avery Ching, the practice of MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) exploiting information asymmetry poses significant challenges to consumer protection in both crypto and traditional markets. He highlights the importance of encrypted transactions, as being pioneered by Aptos and adopted by DecibelTrade, in ensuring fair trading conditions. These systems prevent the revelation of transaction details until sequencing, thereby safeguarding users from value extraction and ensuring transparency. Ching asserts that centralized systems with privileged access to order flow fundamentally lack credible safeguards against MEV abuses, even under honest operators.

According to @dydxfoundation, one seat on the Designated Proposer Set is now open for applications. This initiative, launched in September 2025, has successfully reduced block times on dYdX from 1 second to approximately 600 milliseconds. The MEV Committee and dYdX Grants will assess applicants based on technical capability, uptime, and responsiveness, emphasizing the platform's commitment to efficiency and reliability. Applications close on March 17.

According to Evgeny Gaevoy, Larry Cermak has released an open-source crypto book in collaboration with FrankResearcher. The book, divided into 15 chapters, covers key topics like Bitcoin (BTC), DeFi, MEV, Hyperliquid, and quantum resistance. This resource is designed for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of the crypto landscape.

According to @AveryChing, L1 performance can surpass Ethereum by 10 to 100 times with Aptos as an example, and he argues L2s have been a bandage for a fundamental scaling issue; source: @AveryChing on X. He adds that building a global trading engine requires MEV protections, a trading virtual machine, and token level privacy beyond raw throughput; source: @AveryChing on X. In a referenced post, Vitalik Buterin says L2 progress toward stage 2 has been slow while Ethereum L1 is scaling with lower fees and projected gas limit increases, so L2s should pivot to differentiated features and strong interoperability rather than acting as branded shards; source: Vitalik Buterin on X. Vitalik also supports a native rollup precompile to verify zkEVM proofs for security council free EVM verification, auto upgrades, safer trustless interoperability, and synchronous composability; source: Vitalik Buterin on X. For traders, the posts highlight themes around high performance L1s like Aptos, Ethereum L1 scaling, MEV mitigation, privacy, and specialized execution environments as core drivers for on chain trading infrastructure; source: @AveryChing and Vitalik Buterin on X.

According to @jessepollak, Base activity accelerated as AI agents shipped onchain and TryFOMO recorded over 70 million in trading volume with more than 18,000 active traders and 1,800 new joiners, indicating deepening liquidity and user participation on Base, source: @jessepollak. According to @jessepollak, o1_exchange released a trading API aimed at recovering MEV and improving onchain execution, while HydrexFi launched a full trading suite with limit orders, DCA, multi-swaps, and smart routing, enhancing order flow tooling on Base, source: @jessepollak. According to @jessepollak, soon_svm debuted 100xSOON as an AI native perpetual trading platform powered by x402 on Base, expanding onchain derivatives access, source: @jessepollak. According to @jessepollak, ecosystem progress included a real world USDC payment demo via Xeno_Money, Upshot returning a 50,000 Base grant to users, NetworkNoya launching a voice powered DeFi interface, and ValeYield introducing a simplified yield router, broadening consumer payments and yield options on Base, source: @jessepollak.

According to @PeckShieldAlert, an MEV builder has returned approximately 920 ETH (about $2.7M) to the Makinafi recovery multi-sig at 0xc22F...8AB9. According to @PeckShieldAlert, about 276 ETH from the roughly 1,299 ETH (~$4.13M) exploit remains held by a Rocket Pool validator at 0x573D..., with the balances traceable on-chain.

According to Bobby Ong, high-agency traders can build a concrete 20-item DeFi skill stack for 2026 that includes learning how DeFi works, doing proper DYOR, conducting on-chain analysis and wallet behavior study, managing liquidity, slippage, and depth, understanding tokenomics and emission design, analyzing incentives and protocol growth, mastering AMMs vs order books and aggregators, reading whitepapers and governance proposals, practicing DeFi-specific risk management, studying stablecoins and their failure modes, learning bridges, L2s, and cross-chain mechanics, understanding MEV and how it affects trades, developing yield strategies beyond hype, tracking whales and smart money, improving DeFi writing and researcher marketing, building dashboards, bots, or tools, shipping a DeFi product or SaaS, contributing to protocols early, and turning curiosity into on-chain skill; this guidance is sourced from his X post referencing @Only1temmy’s thread. Source: Bobby Ong on X, Dec 28, 2025. These topics are framed as directly trade-relevant—improving execution via depth and slippage awareness, protecting fills by accounting for MEV, strengthening due diligence with on-chain and governance work, and enhancing risk control across stablecoin, bridge, and cross-chain exposures—offered as a practical checklist rather than market predictions. Source: Bobby Ong on X, Dec 28, 2025.

According to @ai_9684xtpa, a block-builder–linked address 0xfd2…77Bb4 deposited 4,900 ETH to Coinbase about 6 hours prior to the post, valued around $13.72 million. Source: @ai_9684xtpa on X, Dec 18, 2025; wallet details: intel.arkm.com/explorer/address/0xfd225193f80f40053FD1a1548bcA6cF0e6577Bb4. The same wallet transferred 4,933 ETH (about $15.32 million) to an exchange roughly a week earlier, totaling 9,833 ETH (about $29.04 million at the reported USD values) sent to exchanges over 7 days. Source: @ai_9684xtpa on X, Dec 18, 2025. The address reportedly interacts frequently with MEV block builders Titan Builder and BeaverBuild, highlighting ties relevant to ETH market liquidity and execution. Source: @ai_9684xtpa on X; on-chain activity reference: Arkham address above.

According to @deanmlittle, a SolanaConf tech talk by @chrischang43 will cover Bundled Arb—an arbitrage split across multiple transactions included in the same Jito bundle on Solana, as defined by @atarashi, which is directly relevant to on-chain trading execution. source: @deanmlittle on X, Dec 7, 2025; source: @atarashi on X. According to @deanmlittle referencing @atarashi, Bundled Arb is up 2x+ over the last ~9 days, signaling a notable rise in MEV searcher activity using Jito bundles on Solana. source: @deanmlittle on X, Dec 7, 2025; source: @atarashi on X. According to @deanmlittle, the session will explain why searchers use Bundled Arb and what drove the recent 2x+ increase, offering trading-relevant mechanics for SOL-focused DEX and MEV participants. source: @deanmlittle on X, Dec 7, 2025.

According to @VitalikButerin, a Plinko PIR tutorial is available via his X post on November 25, 2025, linking directly to the resource. Source: @VitalikButerin on X, November 25, 2025. Private Information Retrieval enables data queries without revealing which item is fetched, a core primitive for privacy-preserving dApps and DEX order flow on Ethereum. Source: Wikipedia entry on Private information retrieval. Order-flow privacy is tied to MEV and execution quality on Ethereum, making PIR-related work relevant to trader slippage and front-running risk. Source: Flashbots research on MEV and order flow privacy, MEV-Share documentation, 2023. Vitalik has previously highlighted privacy techniques such as stealth addresses on his blog, illustrating ongoing attention to privacy tooling in the Ethereum ecosystem. Source: Vitalik Buterin blog, An incomplete guide to stealth addresses, 2023.

According to @AveryChing, next-gen decentralized exchanges on Aptos plan to use encrypted transactions to eliminate MEV and transparent orderbooks to ensure equal information access for retail traders, source: @AveryChing. He states that low-latency global validators would provide equal market access and that delta-neutral and other automated strategies could be deployed with a single click, with event-driven transactions reacting instantly to funding rates, price feeds, and market events, source: @AveryChing. He adds that these tools aim to give retail capabilities similar to proprietary shops across market making, stat-arb, and hedging, and that they are building a global trading engine to support this, source: @AveryChing.

According to @alice_und_bob, token value accrues from two main sources: selling blockspace and compute, and usage as collateral, with the latter being the primary driver for sustainable value capture in crypto markets (source: @alice_und_bob on X, Nov 20, 2025). They state that in efficient systems, transaction fees trend toward zero, so premium services like MEV rights require an active DeFi economy and are not a dependable foundation for token value by themselves (source: @alice_und_bob on X, Nov 20, 2025). They emphasize that collateral-based demand across staking, liquidity, money markets, prediction markets, deposits, and RWAs drives most value accrual to tokens as on-chain assets are secured by the token itself (source: @alice_und_bob on X, Nov 20, 2025). They add that Polkadot will have its own stablecoin with usage value intended to accrue to DOT holders, and that Parity’s products are designed to drive that on-chain usage (source: @alice_und_bob on X, Nov 20, 2025). Trading takeaway: for DOT, monitor any Polkadot-native stablecoin launch and usage metrics such as supply, velocity, and collateral TVL, alongside staking yields and adoption of Parity-built products, as leading indicators of potential value accrual under this framework (source: @alice_und_bob on X, Nov 20, 2025).